It was bound to happen. Something that gamers once took for granted within the Glorious PC Master Race community is now getting a price tag attached to it… on Steam. Valve recently announced a way to help modders make a little extra cash on their mods through a paid mod initiative through the Steam Workshop. However, not everyone is on board with the program and it’s even caused just enough talk to get gamers to start examining other alternatives for acquiring Workshop mods for their favorite games.

The news recently went out about Valve’s new measure to implement payment options for modders to explore for the mods they upload to the Steam Workshop. It created a massive backlash in certain communities, especially the sub-Reddit known as the PC Master Race, a place known for their almost undying love and attention toward Gabe Newell and Valve. Heck the main image of the sub is a DeviantArt image of Gabe Newell and PC gamers re-imagined as the Glorious PC Master Race. However, very few people came to Valve’s defense in this maneuver.

Valve’s move to implement a payment system for mods via Workshop spawned an instant retaliation in the form of a Change.org petition with more than 12,500 supporters who have signed it, asking for Valve to remove the paid content from the Workshop.

The main petition from Cyand Wondel kindly asks Valve to remove the paid content wall, stating…

“Mods should be a free creation. Creations made by people who wish to add to the game so others can also enjoy said creation with the game.

 

“We need to unite and reject this act by Valve. Unite have Valve remove the paid content of the Workshop.”

But some gamers didn’t stop there. Others took it a step further, forming a Mod Piracy sub-Reddit. It’s small and barely gaining traction, with one thread that reads “We have truly hit the rock bottom of video games.”

The talks of mod piracy has started circulating at a regular rate. On the Steam forums user verycatchy wrote…

“Now modding piracy will be a thing!

 

“thanks valve! “

However, the aforementioned sub-Reddit might seem like a bit of a joke, but there are already people taking advantage of today’s digital technology, with one user taking the liberty to download a paid mod from Skyrim‘s Workshop, re-upload it online and then asked for a refund so he would always have the mod while also getting his money back. The user deleted his profile but the thread is still alive right here.

The lone pirates aren’t so alone, though. There’s an uptick on the torrent trackers for Skyrim mod packs, such as the one featured in the image below.

There’s also an alternative downloader to filter Steam Workshop files for games outside of Steam itself. It’s called the Enhanced Steam Workshop Downloader from Greasyfork. It doesn’t capture Workshop mods from every game, but the folks over at GOG.com use it as a way to help add mods to games that aren’t on Steam.

Over on Pirate Perfection, user The HiVE had a fairly balanced take on the situation, but still noted that many of the downloads for premium mods on Steam’s Workshop are likely to get pirated. He was a bit more even-handed in summarizing the situation since he’s also a modder, stating…

“[…] anyone else have the feeling of “Modders ARE FUCKIN’ DOOOOMED!” after finding out about this? Because I sure as hell do >.> Last thing I wanted to see when I woke up, was finding out that an even giganticer mod community is going to start being ripped a new one… Although, being a fellow modder, I can say some of us will always come back, regardless of how much of a new one was ripped into the community.”

Unsurprisingly enough, TotalBiscuit recently did a 22 minute video on the subject matter, which you can check out below.

Valve announces paid modding for Skyrim – Apr. 23rd, 2015

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent 18:51 TOTD: AeroZ – IV. Sky https://bit.ly/1KBGHaa Skyrim gameplay courtesy of: https://www.youtube.com/user/GophersVids https://www.youtube.com/user/ElectronicDreamers https://www.youtube.com/user/ScorbasGaming Content Patch Episode 195 – April 23rd, 2015 Follow TotalBiscuit on Twitter: https://twitter.com/totalbiscuit Follow CynicalBrit on Twitter for video updates: https://twitter.com/cynicalbrit Follow our Facebook page for announcements: https://facebook.com/cynicalbrit

Despite many gamers being royally peeved at the initiative, one of the key quotes mentioned is how this kind of initiative from Valve could help bring in more high quality developers to the modding scene. TotalBiscuit mentions…

“A former employee of Maxis is doing Patreon-funded mods for City: Skylines. He’s actually created himself a job. A job that never existed previously; creating high quality content for an existing game. He’s supported in doing this and he’s allowed to do it.”

The developer he’s talking about is Bryan Shannon, who was spotlighted in various articles about his attempt to make some extra cash in between jobs after being laid off by Maxis when the studio shutdown. He’s been working on professional grade mods for Cities: Skylines while being supported by Patreon, as reported by the Escapist Magazine.

On the positive side, TotalBiscuit argues that attracting more developers and high quality artists and designers to the fold could increase the overall modding scene and create a more prolific scene of high-end mods for gamers.

Barring the discussion about Valve’s cut of the modding revenue, the real issue is between consumers paying money for modifications that they used to be able to get for free, as well as the copyright issues that come along with it. As noted by Totalbiscuit…

“As soon as [modders] start charging for [mods] they’re going to be in a world of legal troubles… potentially. And we could see the modding scene get a huge amount of undue attention from the people – these larger companies – the publishers that have actually created the original content in the first place. So we may see a crackdown as a result of that. We’ll certainly see a flurry of DMCA claims.”

So what we have now is an issue involving not only angry PC gamers who see one of the most beloved and used features in Steam become monetized in the same way that console gamers are poked and prodded to spend money on DLC in order to get the “complete” game. The only difference is that we’re seeing a very vocal and distinct backlash about the possibilities that could come along with this particular issue, especially on the piracy and copyright front.

Speaking of piracy and copyrights… while Valve advocates the use of DMCA takedown notices for modders who “steal” works from other modders and put a price tag on it, what happens when consumers start torrenting more and more premium mods from the Workshop? Will modders send DMCA takedown notices to torrent facilitators like what happened with Dying Light? Will there be a new black market for mods, undercutting the normal prices with packaged deals the way gold sellers attempted to undercut Blizzard when Diablo III had the RMAH? And more importantly, will modders go to war with gamers over premium mods for beloved games? It’ll be a sad day in the world of electronic entertainment if that ever happens.