So I logged into steam saw their big announcement “New Ways to Support Workshop Creators”¹⁾The main announcement made by Steam.. Basically they are allowing makers of mods to sell t heir mods for games. My first reaction was ” that sounds promising” but then took a moment and thought of the implications and it sickens me.

The first game that is supporting this new initiative is Skyrim²⁾Announcement made by Bethesda on Steam.  So now rather than making a mod for fun and sharing it, people can choose to make the mod and sell it. This is Valve and Bethesda capitalizing on their communities’ love of their game. I have little faith that this will end well for the average user.

Now if they had gone a slightly different route such as allowing a limited number of pre-qualified mod authors to sell their mods, maybe it would work out well. That way it wouldn’t decimate the mod community but it will incentives mod authors to create highly polished products to get the chance to sell them. This would help give a game a much longer life.

So am I over reacting? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Modders getting paid for their work is a reasonable idea that’s being implemented in a very idiotic fashion. If this continues as is it will steer the modding community towards a very dark future.