Oh Look, Valve are dickheads, part Infinity

Participants in the drama, from most to least fuckhead:

1. Mod thieves. Stealing modder's work and trying to claim it as thir own. Dirty cowardly cheating criminal scum. Fuck them.

2. Valve copyright lawyers. It's clearly not their own work and you won't take it down until after legally forced to do so? Do you think modders can just go to copyright court to get a ruling? Incompetent, lazy bitches!

3. Free-to-play forum "champions." So even after all these years you still don't want to pay anything for a modder's hard work? How self-entitled and cheap can you get?

4. Valve sales staff (not counting lawyers). These are some cheap fucking pricks too, but unlike the F2P forumers they at least want modders to receive some money.

5. Common-sense pay-for-mods players. These guys are spitting the truth amid furious, illogical opposition. Well, some of them, anyway.

6. Modders. Yet again, in exchange for trying to make our gaming experiences more enjoyable, they're stabbed in the back by almost everyone.

So is that video accurate. Of course it is. But the laughing Valve shithead isn't on the top of the villain totem pole. Not even near the top, even. He just had enough sense to know that group #3 is causing so much chaos, and completely ignoring the real villains, that he's probably going to get away clean.

Scrotie you are acting as if modding hasnt been free for over 30 years now. Like "the entitled" are just inventing this fucking idea of free. We arent pushing the idea of free on anyone. The modders obviously didnt have a problem with free - fucking ever - until the scumbags at Valve made an issue out of it.

This insta-entitled strawman argument has become the new "your 12 years old right?" arguyement of the internet. So fucking lazy and annoying.

As to your least to worst offenders list I agree for the most part. Except you are separating the scumbags from their lawyers. The Valve scumbags and their attorneys are the same thing.

"

FireWalkWithMe wrote:

Scrotie you are acting as if modding hasnt been free for over 30 years now. Like "the entitled" are just inventing this fucking idea of free. We arent pushing the idea of free on anyone. The modders obviously didnt have a problem with free - fucking ever - until the scumbags at Valve made an issue out of it.

This insta-entitled strawman argument has become the new "your 12 years old right?" arguyement of the internet. So fucking lazy and annoying.

As to your least to worst offenders list I agree for the most part. Except you are separating the scumbags from their lawyers. The Valve scumbags and their attorneys are the same thing.

So fucking true not even worth arguing with him.

I've never played with the Creation Kit, but, apparently, its TOU includes something about Bethesda's rights regarding mods created with it. I suspect it's limited to the right to control any monetization of anything derived from their intellectual property, which, on the face of it, is understandable.

Until now, mods were akin to fanfic, in that they are creative works based on another parties IP, distributed for free. So long as they were not being sold, there was no issue. Now that Valve and Bethesda have decided to capitalize on the sales of "3rd party DLC," it creates issues with both the community and the newly-minted market for paid mods.

I absolutely support the mod authors' right to sell their works for whatever they can squeeze outta Valve. That dun make it any less troubling that so many are abandoning the Nexus for Steam Workshop to do so. And, of course, we have the thieving scum who are ripping off some authors' works to sell for their own profit, and Valve hasn't apparently concerned itself with the problem.

This is likely to polarize the modding community into Steam and everybody else. In that case, the Nexus will remain the best source of free mods, and Steam, well... You know.

We'll see how things work out down the road. Hopefully, Bethesda won't try to get grabby with the works not on Steam (not sure they'd reasonably have a leg to stand on in a courtroom, as they have allowed the distribution of free mods for a very long time; however, the deepest pockets typically win).

A lot of the best modders have made an ethical stand against Valve's program; for some, it may be as simple as not wanting to cede control of their own mods. Others may not want to suffer the rabid backlash some who have made the move have already endured. But as long as they decline to take the bait, there's hope. =^[.]^=

"

FireWalkWithMe wrote:

Scrotie you are acting as if modding hasnt been free for over 30 years now. Like "the entitled" are just inventing this fucking idea of free. We arent pushing the idea of free on anyone. The modders obviously didnt have a problem with free - fucking ever - until the scumbags at Valve made an issue out of it.

This insta-entitled strawman argument has become the new "your 12 years old right?" arguyement of the internet. So fucking lazy and annoying.

I completely understand that modders working for free is a long-established status quo. What you need to understand is that being status quo is absolutely no justification whatsoever.

I also understand that Valve didn't bring about this concept of paying for mods with noble intentions. Their motivation is obviously naked greed. But this is not inherently bad. If Valve was doing a quality job using Steam as a distribution method for paid mods, they'd deserve a share. Probably not as big of a share, and they're not doing a quality job... but the core concept is solid and just, it is the execution which is shitty.

I am actually dead serious about some form of modder unionizing, even if it's very grass-roots. Negotiating Steam's take is a detail which should be resolved by bargaining power. It is ultimately up to modders to represent their own financial interests.

"

FireWalkWithMe wrote:

As to your least to worst offenders list I agree for the most part. Except you are separating the scumbags from their lawyers. The Valve scumbags and their attorneys are the same thing.

This is likely. But let's say they were still being greedy with the 75% commission (still dickish) but not being complicit in IP theft by lawyering up... In that case, they'd fall in at the rank I indicated.

"

Moonyu wrote:

This is a money grab by suits and nothing more.

First half, agree completely. But, almost as if by accident, it is something more. Like the invention of fudge, but more greed.

I'd love for them to unionize but since there has never been any clear way for them to make money and therefore truly organize it will never happen.

The awful thing is because of the scumbags now modders, who were previously just awesome people doing completely awesome shit, now are roiled in the muck of Valve's greed and they are the focus. I eamn one day you are simply creating new water textures for Civ V and the next days some shit for brains is giving you death threats while someone else is yelling at you to unionize.

I just want to make a goddamned rainbow in Skyrim ffs!

awful stuff - and 100% of the blame should be focused on Valve. Apparently its really gotten heated. Gaben made a reddit post. I'll find it...

he is actually posting now. If he is personally posting on a saturday it must make him nervous. Hopefully it will destroy his company.

http://www.reddit.com/user/GabeNewellBellevue

nice bit:

[–]NexusDark0ne 4794 points 6 hours ago*x3
Hi Gabe, Robin, owner of Nexus Mods here. Sorry to hear about the issue with your eye.
Can you make a pledge that Valve are going to do everything to prevent, and never allow, the "DRMification" of modding, either by Valve or developers using Steam's tools, and prevent the concept of mods ONLY being allowed to be uploaded to Steam Workshop and no where else, like ModDB, Nexus, etc.?
Edit, for clarity in the question:
For example, if Bethesda wanted to make modding for Fallout 4/TES 6 limited to just Steam Workshop, or even worse, just the paid Workshop, would Valve veto this and prevent it from happening?
permalinksavereportgive goldreply
[–]GabeNewellBellevueCONFIRMED VALVE CEO[S] 3151 points 5 hours ago
Hi, Robin.
In general we are pretty reluctant to tell any developer that they have to do something or they can't do something. It just goes against our philosophy to be dictatorial.
With that caveat, we'd be happy to tell developers that we think they are being dumb, and that will sometimes help them reflect on it a bit.
In the case of Nexus, we'd be happy to work with you to figure out how we can do a better job of supporting you. Clearly you are providing a valuable service to the community. Have you been talking to anyone at Valve previously?
permalinksaveparentreportgive goldreply
[–]NexusDark0ne 3578 points 5 hours agox2
Hi Gabe,
Interesting answer, it's a shame you wouldn't put your foot down in support of the modding community in this case, but I appreciate your candour on the topic.
Alden got in contact about a month ago RE: the Nexus being listed as a Steam Service Provider. For any users following this closely, you can read my opinions on the topic in a 5,000 word news post I made today at http://www.nexusmods.com/games/news/12459/? (I appreciate you probably don't have the time to read my banal twitterings on the topic, Gabe!).
He has my email address if anyone needs to contact me. I built the Nexus from the ground up, 14 years ago, to be completely free of outside investment or influence from third-parties and to be completely self-sustaining, but there's no reason why we can't talk.