Editorial: Steam’s paid mods are a raw deal

Valve caught everybody by surprise when paid mods for Skyrim started going up on Steam last week.

Of course gamers are up in arms about it. They liken the paid mods to micro-transactions. Saying it’s unfair to make people pay for something that used to be free.

This might be one of the most poorly executed initiatives I’ve seen in gaming. Lord knows there’s been a lot of competition recently.

I get the feeling though that nobody quite think this through.

Somewhere along the line, Valve said “controls? Don’t need stinkin’ controls,” and opened the floodgates to a free-for-all.

Enterprising thieves quickly started downloading mods off Nexus and posting them up for sale on the Steam Workshop. Valve has not exactly made it easy for victims to get their content pulled either.

On top of that, Bethesda is taking a whopping 75% cut on each mod sold. They must be trying to out-Nintendo Nintendo.

I’m not against the concept of paid mods provided the price matches the content. It has worked in the past. The payware addons for Flight Simulator are a good example of how to do things right.

The problem here is that Valve hasn’t put in any safeguards to protect modders from having their hard work stolen. Theft has been running rampant in the few days since the store opened.

They also failed to ensure that modders are getting a fair deal from publishers.

From the consumer side, there are no protections in place to prevent gamers from being ripped off by shovelware.

It’s like a giant experiment in anarchy where nobody wins and everybody’s getting screwed.

Gabe Newell has been defending the decision, but I think the damage has been done. Paid mods will be here to say, but gamers have already lost a lot of trust in Valve selling them. Good job lads.

UPDATE:

Only a couple hours after I posted this editorial, Valve announced that they will be removing paid mods for Skyrim.