I haven't read through the entire thread, but I think the biggest problem is suddenly forcing it on every already existing game existing games. Retroactive changes like these have a tendency to upset people.

The idea itself is excellent.. I can develop plugins for Visual Studio and charge for them, why not game mods?
At the extreme it's no different than developing a game that uses the graphics driver.

If they had just made it optional for developers on new titles (only) it would have been a whole different thing, and no one would've had the energy to be upset. It would start with a couple of new games that would become popular with modders with a dream to make money from it, which would make those games get better mods, and the $99 ingame cupcakes would be a funny joke instead of the general opinion of the entire system.

And they did realize that:

Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop

Its 25% for the mod's author, 40% for Bethesda and 35% for Valve. From that 35% Valve gets, 5% can be distributed to "service providers" the mod's author think they helped to create the mod (think NifScope for models, SKSE for scripts, NexusMods for the community, etc).

According to Bethesda, Valve is taking their 30% standard cut. After that, the publisher decides the split of the remaining 70% (in this case, Bethesda chose a 45/25 split).

They've rolled it back anyway. It's a shame really, because I thought there was some merit in the idea. I liked that mod devs could either go fixed price, pay what you want, or free. 25% feels a bit low, but that's not Valves fault and 25% of something is still better than 100% of nothing.

edit: double post... stupid internet!

According to Bethesda, Valve is taking their 30% standard cut. After that, the publisher decides the split of the remaining 70% (in this case, Bethesda chose a 45/25 split).

In any case its done. Didn't lasted long though. They'll probably reintroduce the scheme when FO4/TES6/something comes out methinks...

I haven't read through the entire thread, but I think the biggest problem is suddenly forcing it on every already existing game existing games. Retroactive changes like these have a tendency to upset people.

The idea itself is excellent.. I can develop plugins for Visual Studio and charge for them, why not game mods?
At the extreme it's no different than developing a game that uses the graphics driver.

If they had just made it optional for developers on new titles (only) it would have been a whole different thing, and no one would've had the energy to be upset. It would start with a couple of new games that would become popular with modders with a dream to make money from it, which would make those games get better mods, and the $99 ingame cupcakes would be a funny joke instead of the general opinion of the entire system.

And they did realize that:

Removing Payment Feature From Skyrim Workshop

good to know

And now the experiment is officially over, the end.

And now the experiment is officially over, the end.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

very naive to thinks its the end

And now the experiment is officially over, the end.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/SteamWorkshop/announcements/detail/208632365253244218

very naive to thinks its the end

I think you are right. Like Valve said, starting with a well established free community was probably not the best idea. Will it happen for Skyrim at this point... probably not; but will it work for the future on other games... probably.