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kat:
IMPORTANT: Paid Mods to be removed

There's a lot of discussion in the community questioning why Mod creators don't add Donate buttons to their projects. The simple truth of the matter is that, aside from real-world implications concerning donations, they just don't work. For mod authors this makes finding equitable solutions complicated as they also have to avoid doing things that inadvertently break network or provider Terms of Service rules that risk their accounts, work or even legal action.[updated 28th April 2015]


Value has unveiled a new initiative, Paid Mods. Initially offerings will be for Skyrim but others appear to be planned (although not yet announced).

For Mod CREATORS this is obviously good news; all the time and energy spent creating mods can now be rewarded in a meaningful way.

For GAMERS (consumers/customers) it might not be such good news as they may now have to purchase their favorite (or new) Mods.

Which has inevitably (one might say "obviously") lead to a lot of... comment, 99.99% of which are in agreement that this new move by Valve is a bad idea, the only salient reason why being because "mods have always been free". Freely available to be consumed perhaps. But not free to make, and nearly always at the commercial expense of the creator, who doesn't even get a cut of the advertising revenue accrued by the mod hosting party.

The truth of the matter is that Mod creators have only offer their content for free in the past because there has never been an effective mechanism in place to 'charge' for their efforts - Mod's traditionally have never been recognised as DLC in the modern sense so have never occupied any status beyond being fan-made material, which has always put it in an odd position where monetisation is concerned, especially for games where EULA (End User License Agreements) don't make specific allowance for the modification and exploitation of original content ("exploitation" might not necessarily explicitly mean "revenue generation").

The key point about this new initiative on Paid Content however, is that's it's OPTIONAL; modders wanting to continue offering their wares without cost are freely able to do so, they just provide them as normal; those that don't want to do that can offer their content using different payment options, as either a fixed or pay what you want price - a mod being offered for 'free', at a 'fixed' or 'pay what you want' price, is entirely up to the mod creator.

The amount of revenue Creator can earn from selling their item or Mod via Workshops and Paid Mods varies depending on the Mod - this also applies to whether or not items or Mods can be sold; permission to do so it granted by the Developer through Valve.

For Skyrim Modifications revenue share currently stands at 25% (see resources links below).

An unofficial FAQ on this initiative is available here

Creators should visit the Steam Workshop/Community Paid Content page for more details.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Modder & UGC (User Generated Content) Creators wanting to take advantage of this initiative are urged to thoroughly read through the Getting Paid on Steam page, especially sections relating to TAX and TIN (Tax Identification Number) requirements.
Additional Resources
About Paid Content: FAQ's
Getting paid on Steam: Payment info FAQ's
Getting Paid on Stead: Tax Information
Getting Paid on Steam: Tax US/Non-US TIN's
Supplemental Workshop Terms - Revenue Sharing

ratty redemption [RIP]:
interesting, i wonder how quality assurance is going to be covered? maybe a mod could be free while in beta development then commercial when it's stable and finished?

kat:
There's a section on Copyright and DMCA in the T&C.

Basically, as with all services that accept UGC (User Generated Content), it's up to the individual to police their work and make sure their Copyright is not being infringed. Users are also held to an upload Agreement that declares they own the appropriate 'rights' to the material (just like YouTube), if not they can be issued a DMCA and Valve can suspend their accounts (and cancel payment/issue reversals).

It's important to note that, as part of the procedure to receive payment from Valve, Individuals are REQUIRED to provide BANK and TAX ID information (Bank account Sort Codes/Account Numbers and/or IRS W-9/W-8BEN et al forms) that specifically identifies a person, meaning there ARE consequences for engaging in theft or misrepresenting ownership of anything sold.

ratty redemption [RIP]:
re-reading your post again, i just realized the modders are going to only receive 25% of what their mods sell for, and 75% go to value? wow that sounds unfair to me.

kat:
Updated the first post with info to address that. Suffice to say it's a bit more complicated than that for games that Valve doesn't own.

[EDIT] the FAQ's are getting a bit long so they've been moved to their own topic in the FAQ section of the forum here.

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