Fair enough. Thanks for taking the time to explain, it's something I'm truly ignorant about. I've never used any workshop mods at all. When I first got skyrim, I installed a few mods from nexus, and in the end got frustrated with the instability of it all, and any back to vanilla.

The only other mods I've ever used were infinity engine mods.

It's not the case of "how to support modding". It never was. Supporting modders was fine for years, by a simple gratitude and occasional DONATING to PERSON, not PAYING for MOD. For years really good and talented modders didn't whine "I deserve payment". Because it wouldn't be supporting their passion. It would be their job.

Valve along with Bethesda shat on modding scene and its principles, trying to monetize another piece of PC gaming community for an extra dime. They don't care about supporting nobody but themselves.


Also
You're welcome.
I think I've one mod from Workshop. I always install mods manually, I feel better at this, since I use that way since 2002. From the beginning Steam Workshop was all fishy to me. Now it's clear they were planning this move from the beginning. Such unbelieveably controversial steps are not decided over one meeting. I can now only hope for a massive backlash on them that will cause them to loose everything. Or at least to loose steadly their control over market.
There is a border line, after which even the dumbest sheeple sees its being milked.

I think you don't get the point, seeing it only from the "Lawful Neutral" side. Being legal does not equal being fair or good, and I'm saying this a as law enforcer (well, sort of, at least). There are a lot of possible consequences coming from something apparently innocuous.

Does Valve impose someone to charge money for a mod? No -fact.
Does Valve directly *check* the source the paid mods came from (i.e. a pre-existing mod on Nexus)? No, they ask the community to do their work for them -again.
Does this make incredibily easy for any exploiter to turn someone else's free work (as a part or as a whole) into paid content? Yes.
Does the vast amount of people in the field create an intricate mess where recognizing who owns what is difficult? Yes.
Is a lawsuit feasible in some of those intricated cases? Dunno, but it surely is expensive.
Will this bring "free" modders to abandon their work? Obviously, as they can hardly defend themselves from the exploiters. Hence why "free" modding sites will die slowly.
Will this help Valve in monopolizing the mod scene? Yes, since they created a giant legal problem only they can solve.

Edit: There is also the risk that companies will push half-finished products, using modders to complete and debug them... only, this time they will get nearly 50% (assuming Valve takes their usual 30%) from paid mods while doing nothing.
I will repat myself again... Valve MUST be reported to the EU. Their monopoly has gone way too far, and now they can change the industry standards, single handedly and in just one day.
Nice article form Forbes here.

This in not simply evil, it is borderline criminal! They don't force you to do something, but the cricumstances force you anyway!

I rarely play modded games, preferring a vanilla experience. I'll sometimes use community patches when necessary, or rarely, more traditional mods when revisiting a game, Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 for example. So this shouldn't effect me much if at all, and yet it could.

I have no qualms at all with modders getting paid for their work if they are legally entitled to do so. It's the people taking a cut that rubs me the wrong way. "New ways to support workshop creators" is how they debuted it and then removed Donation links on Steam Workshop pages. Yeah, they're really concerned about the modders. But let's say Open X-Com submitted to Steam Workshop with a Pay-What-You-Want system. If I wanted to give the team $40 for my enjoyment of the mod, they would either get $1o from my $40 or for them to see the intended $40 I would have to fork out an additional $120 to be divvied by Steam and 2k for sitting on their collective asses. Yeah, fuck that noise.

Further, I believe that the developer getting a cut introduces a conflict of interest. Bethesda has already benefited greatly from modders long before this in keeping their games alive for years. Also, Bethesda has demonstrated that they have no problems pushing a game out prematurely. What's to prevent them from half-assing and relying on modders to complete their game for them. We;ve already seen terrible journal systems in Morrowind and horrid interfaces in Skyrim and that was all before they were collecting revenue from modders improving their mess.

Then there's the rift going on in the community right now. It looks pretty nasty especially when you consider this was, only a few days ago, a rather tightly knit community. The subreddit skyrimmods is chaos right now. It's unlikely people will be sharing assets quite as freely in the days to come.

My favorite part is a few passages from Masters of Doom. Kinda funny that the company that acquired iD was the one to kick this party off.

It wasn’t a popular way to rule. With the exception of Romero, the only other hacker-minded programmer at id, Carmack’s generosity caused much consternation at the company–especially among the more conservative-minded businessmen, like Jay and Kevin. “This is a crazy idea,” Kevin said. “No one’s ever given away their tools to make new content. And we have to worry about legal questions. What if someone takes our content and combines it with their product and releases it? What if someone takes all the content that’s developed on the Internet and sells it on the shelf and suddenly we’re competing with our own product?”

Carmack rolled his eyes. They didn’t get this at all, he thought, because they weren’t programmers so they didn’t get the hacker joy of it. They weren’t really gamers either. They weren’t part of the gaming community that was growing up there. To Carmack’s appreciation, Romero came loudly to his defense. “Dudes,” Romero told the others, “we’re not going to lose that much money. We’re making a ton of money right now. Big deal. Who cares?”

[...]
Hacker tools for Doom became another means of immersion in what was already the most immersive game around. Doom immersed players in a fast-action 3-D world. It immersed competitors in an arena of deathmatching where they could hunt each other down. The Doom mod tools immersed programmers as creators, as ones who could take this incredible world and sculpt it to their own divine desires. The game made them into little gods. Doom hackers began swapping their levels for free in forums on AOL, CompuServe, and across the Internet. Gamers who had been failing out of school because of deathmatching now had an even more addictive compulsion: hacking. They hacked all night. They hacked all day. They even hacked naked; at the Taylor University computer lab, gamers stripped down for regular “skinny-hacking” parties. Doom wasn’t just a game, it was a culture.

And it was a culture that made the skeptics within id even more queasy. After much arguing in the company, Jay was granted permission to post legal terms for prospective Doom hackers. “Id Software requires no fees or royalties,” he posted online. “You may require user payment for your work; Your utility must not work with the shareware version of Doom; YOU MUST represent that your utility is not an id Software product and id Software cannot and will not provide support for your product, nor for Doom after the data has been changed by your product; You may be required to include some legal text in your utility to make our lawyers happy; There may be more or some of the above may not be in the final document. It depends on my frame of mind at the time. :)… I am sorry to have to resort to the post,” he concluded, “but… there is no other way to keep this process under control.”

Choice quotes from the above:

Carmack rolled his eyes. They didn’t get this at all, he thought, because they weren’t programmers so they didn’t get the hacker joy of it. They weren’t really gamers either.

“Dudes,” Romero told the others, “we’re not going to lose that much money. We’re making a ton of money right now. Big deal. Who cares?”

“Id Software requires no fees or royalties,” he posted online. “You may require user payment for your work;

Well there will always be people defending valve, as there will always be people defending Microsoft.

DeathDiciple explain it better then me so there.

I really don't care. I know where Valve fucked up, but the amount of people here spreading rumor as fact and this site's LONG history of having an Anti-Steam Circlejerk that I just don't care.

This was a terrible misstep, but greediest one here is Bethesda wanting 75% of the pie. The next greediest is everyone that wants mod content for free. Only reason most people make that stuff is they need it for their portfolio to get hired.

Because whiners want free shit for others' hard work. That's what the whining is about.

Yes that is also one of the big dangers. Free mods becoming unfree by this. It's disturbing, not to know if your favorite free mod is still available next month.
Then Valve is clearly a whiner because they want a free cut from other's hard work (if you equal shit=cut that is). :)

So go after the scum that does that, not after the Visa / Mastercard equivalent that enables that scum to do financial transactions.

Nope. They provide the service and the platform. They can take as much as 100% if they want. If you don't agree, don't put your mods on said service / platform.

NOBODY IS FORCING ANYBODY TO DO ANYTHING.

I don't know exactly although I doubt it. Surely like for example on flickr you can set a license to your work freely including non-commercial or totally restricted licenses. So I really doubt it. It might be interesting to verify it.

Don't include me in your "everyone". I have more backlog than I can play in my lifetime then to cry over mods no longer free. Besides I hardly use mods at all and always play vanilla.

And steam did not earn its negative reputation before this paid mod happen? I donno about other people, but I will never join GOG if not for the fact Steam client prevent me downloading my games. Their customer support is terrible making me go in circles for a week. Even after the problem is resolved by now I am here to stay as it open my eyes that I am actually renting my games.

Sooooo, Mr. "Rumors"... may I ask the source of your statements (the bolded ones)? Sepculation, speculation, speculation, I suppose.
Also, even if this was 100% Bethesda's plan, Valve jumped on the wagon in a moment, with all the implications described in my post above and in many other that explained the points much better than I could. Implications, by the way, that they couldn't have possibly not predicted, making them just as -if not more- guilty.
Judging by your canons, you sound a bit like a pro-Steam Circlejerk to me. Sorry for the potentially offensive term, I'm just borrowing the expression.

NO NEED TO USE UPPER CASE ... It's not making your arguments stronger any bit. :)

I just wanted to make a joke because you were talking about getting free shit of others hard work and Valve is in my opinion just a bunch of greedy bastards that get free shit of others hard work and so they have fully earned all what's coming their way.

Yes, you are right, and of course accordingly I don't use Steam (much) and I do not use at all the Workshop nor do I upload anything there.

Valve takes it's standard 10% from digital item sales. Companies are allowed to set how much they get from mod sales. Bethesda chose 75%.

That is of course perfectly fine, but is not very typical. I can assure you that there are some really nice mods out there that are fun to play. By just playing vanilla chances are high you miss quite a bit out. There are many people who like a good mod or two. Some games even became playable only because of fan mods. On the other hand the average mod is typically of significantly lower quality - you can often see that they are amateurs.

Yesterday it was 30%, then 5%, now you say 10%. I'm confused and don't know what is the right number now. Is it possible to get some reliable sources for the 10%. Also, what is included in the term digital item? Is a game or a mod a digital item? The TOS so far as I have read them only speak of Workshop Contributions or Apps - are they also digital items?