The great paid mods debacle

In case you haven't seen the news lately, Valve and Bethesda have teamed up to allow modders to charge consumers for their Skyrim mods, and the Internet isn't very happy about this. Collections of reskinned and overpowered weapons are going for more than the game itself, mods are breaking and consumers are being banned from the Steam Marketplace after claiming refunds, and other atrocious business practices including banning disgruntled forum users voicing their displeasure on Steam's forums.

Personally, I think Valve are making a huge mistake. Mods should remain free, with a donation button being implemented allowing users to reward modders who put out a high quality product, like the massive Falskaar mod adding dozens of hours of additional, well-designed content or the handy Sky UI mod which replaces the default UI with a more PC friendly interface. By charging for mods, modders are opening themselves up to a higher standard which I feel the majority of mods can't hold up to. If a mod ends up crashing your game, you'd normally feel a bit bemused but ultimately okay with experimenting with your game. Now, with a pricetag attached, you're going to be understandably pissed off. This image gallery here details the shortcomings of attaching a pricetag to a subpar product - some of which are being heavily marketed on Steam's storefront.

So, thoughts, GNamer folks?

I have no issue with it, though I had no idea about issues such as it crashing the game. I like the idea that someone who has put a lot of time and effort into making something great can charge for what they've done and like all DLC if it's shit nobody should buy it. Maybe some sort of approval process could be put in place to avoid the crashing issue.

Another huge issue I should add here - currently, the modders are only receiving a 25% cut of any proceeds. The rest goes to Valve and Bethesda.

There's no approval process, and it's highly unlikely that there will be one. The market is flooded with absolute shit as of now - that image gallery paints a horrific tale of what's to come. Personally, I feel that Valve might be saying that it's to allow the modders some reward for their work when in actuality it's Valve lining their pockets with another revenue source. I'm more than a little sceptical about the whole process.

An update - Paid mods are being scrapped for the time being, with Valve even admitting they "didn't know what they were doing".

I respect the humility shown here. Case closed, for now, I guess!

I watched Jim Sterling's take on it and I agree with him & you Jay, if the modders are doing good work they should be reward for it but like the stuff you get on early access that Jim puts on YouTube he plays there is some shit and possibly even worse in this case if it crashes your game etc.

So I think a pateron / donate type idea would be the best.

I'm with andy on this one as every once in a while someone comes up with a cracking mod that you wouldn't mind paying for, the best example I seen of this is how counter strike used to be a half life mod.