They can't ask money for mods, the authors have an artistic claim on it. Though authors can't ask money for their mods either.

A lot of the bigger mods won't be hosted on the Workshop. I can already confirm that the Middle Earth Roleplaying Project total conversion mod will never be uploaded to this workshop, also because we are in a grey area concerning copyrights of the LotR IP, and if our mod would be hosted and/or advertised on a medium that is the property of a commercial party, there will be trouble for sure, since it could be argued the IP is illegally being used for financial profit, since our mod might cause people to buy Skyrim.

The same happened to TLD mod on the Taleworlds forum, when the mod got an official subforum there. After the subforum was removed under threat by Tolkien Enterprises, everything was fine and the mod was continued and released. So, MERP won't use the Workshop ever, and expect the same of many other (big) mods that are based on famous copyrighted books/movies.

No further clarification from Matt, his initial response (which he suggested he was OK with being shared) was "Our focus with the Steam Workshop is creating an environment where users can create, upload, download, and rate free user content.".

I don't know, it still doesn't provide me with that 100% certainty that there isn't going to be money involved somewhere. Maybe I'm just being overly sceptical. Guess it's just a wait-and-see game now.

No. They don't give a [censored] about it!

They already got your cash for the game, so you're buggered. That's definitely their point of view...

Free user content just sounds like dev speak for 'mods'.

Well one of my comments was deleted on the Beth Blog thread. I merely said...

'This is a worrying move for modders'.

Now I am even more worried. I still want clarification that we opt to NOT upload to Steam, the article was not entirely clear. We can assume, but I want to be sure that is is not a case of using other sites in addition to steam.

It will most likely not work exactly as TF2, they will defiantly not have mods cost money like TF2 items. You are not forced to use it, you can still dl/upload mods to the usual sites we use right now, this is just supposed to be a quicker and easier way to browse/install mods quickly through steam.

I hope they don't monetize Workshop. It could polarize the community in a nasty way.

The scary thing is that it would be a really smart move, similiar to what Blizzard are doing by allowing cash transactions in Diablo 3. They basically let the users generate and pay for content and just take a cut off the top. It is literally free money.

Legally impossible. They would get in big trouble if they ask money from mods. The majority of mods contain custom resources created by the modders, Bethesda doesn't have the legal right to sell those. This is different from generated content like in Diablo 3.


"Prefer to use existing modding sites? Not a problem. You’ll still be able to upload/share/access Skyrim mods on fan-created mod sites."

It doesn't say it specifically, but I'm 100% sure that they won't force us to upload it to the Workshop. That simply wouldn't work.

I like the whole idea of the workshop, to be honest, and here's why:

I spend my a few minutes every day looking at mods on my iPhone. If I were able to make it so that they'd get ready for download from my phone, well, that'd be extremely convenient. I'd be satisfied knowing that the amazing race mod I saw on my phone just now would be waiting for me when I got home. Beyond that, however, I'll be using the Nexus.

One thing that DOES bother me is that they install themselves. I actually really dislike that. I always manually install things because I don't always trust the system to work, and I like to be able to pick the mod apart and see what I'm injecting into my game. I also don't work with automated load order sorters. I like to do that myself. In Oblivion and FO3 I had no CTDs once I got the hang of how the mods work together, so I'm sticking to that method.

People seem to forget that TF2 != Skyrim. There is a huge difference between distributing client-side mods for an MP game and for an SP game, TF2's Workshop works on contributions and through Valve because too large of a mod to base code won't fit the game Valve intends to be played, and because Valve can't just toss out random poorly optimized model #6553 to thousands of clients at once. Skyrim's Workshop, as we already know from the flagging system, is all user based, it doesn't go through Bethesda, and everything won't go to everyone.

Also how does "Our focus with the Steam Workshop is creating an environment where users can create, upload, download, and rate free user content." mean "not free user content"? It literally says free right in the statement.

Excuse me...but you play Skyrim on your iPhone?
It's funny...I am not even able to run it in a decent way on a desktop pc!!!

Exactly! And why? Why not just release the CS freely like in Morrowind and Oblivion? The only logical answer is that they have a deal with Steam and will be making money from mods. Otherwise why go to the trouble? This is about money, there is no other logical answer.

Basically saying there will be some free content. Nothing about how much will actually be free. Will it all be free like now and in the past, or just some of it.
Call me paranoid if you want to, but I'm getting a really bad feeling about this. If it had all been 100% kosher they would of come out and said so. If nothing
else, but to look good. This not answering, or vague answering like what Dark got from Matt, just indicates to me there's a loot more to this whole thing than
they let on.

Actually, you've been able to mod Valve's games (both single and multiplayer) since forever. It's just that in order for other players to see your mods, they need to have them too. There's the method you said, which is relatively recent. Or the old way: Have the mods on the server itself, and they download automatically when people join. That's how things like http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/596951791367759638/9921C3D8A72DE02088595FDE46A04245B36048B6/ exist. These tend to be server specific though. But there have always been unofficial mod sites for Valve's games. Some game-specific, some general. I certainly didn't get http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/1888/hl2pepsi.jpg from Steam. The only problem with unofficial custom content, is that some servers disable it entirely due to cheating (making walls transparent via texture edit). But that's a non-issue in a single player game. Both systems can co-exist peacefully.

But we don't know the details of how it will be implemented in Skyrim. That's the only thing that may be a concern. But unless Bethesda uses some dirty legal tactics (which the fans will of course obey...), then they can't control what you physically do with your mod files, since they'd be on your hard drive. I doubt they'd auto-upload everything to Steam, since then it would flood it with unfinished mods. So I'm sure it will be optional.

steam-only? did you even read the article? "Prefer to use existing modding sites? Not a problem. You’ll still be able to upload/share/access Skyrim mods on fan-created mod sites."

Using the Steam Workshop is OPTIONAL and not mandatory for downloading mods.

Don't talk about things you don't know [censored] about.

Bethesda selling any mod that contains a custom created resource is illegal, because that custom resource is the intellectual property of the author, i.e. the modder. It's not going to happen.

This didn't however, happen with TF2, where people make thousands of dollars for their content. Gabe even personally buys thousands of copies of items that don't sell well.

As Dark0ne said, right now we'll just have to wait and see. We have little information. It's pointless to go raging around the forums with baseless accusations about Bethesda abusing the modding community for profit. I'm sure Bethesda has underlying motivation we don't know about yet, but all the 'MODDING IS RUINED' drama is pointless.

I am fine with the Steam Workshop thing, but I have no plans to download mods from there. It seems more like a place to put all those little mods and such that add little actual value to the game. Hopefully the better mods will be continued to be distributed to the Nexus and other modding sites. Many will for sure and I can't see a reason why most of the better mods will be Steam exclusives either, and with that I feel no one has anything to worry about. If it ends up being a broken system then most people will just stop using it until it gets fixed. But if it works it will act as a great tool for new mod users, modders, and lazy people alike to easily distribute and receive mods without the need to know any other sites since it comes with a program they already have. The more experienced and knowledgeable will be able to use the tried and true systems and have no problem, but I don't mind people having more options.

Oh...well...yeah. I probably missed that line. As long as they don't change that (like they did with the CK release), I am fine with it.

Suggest you take your own advice. Read the Eula that was released with Oblivion and consider the fact that this has been a debate for years with no actual legal verification either way.

That isn't how it would work if they want to make it profitable.


The creator would sell it for whatever price they wanted, and steam would take a percentage of the sale as a transaction fee.
Edit: Actually the other option would be to sign away all creative rights upon uploading the mod. That would work too.

There is another logical answer, because Steam wants to be able to provide everything for your game at your finger tip. This is why Crysis 2 and Dragon Age 2 were pulled from Steam, because EA wanted to not provide DLC on Steam at all. They only wanted it to be bought from them instead of also being on Steam. Steam wants to be able to provide all content for Steam games in Steam; in one place. You look under Library -> Tools and you have the Fallout New Vegas GECK. You don't have to look at other websites. It's about quality of service. You pay money for the products and Steam wants to provide you the best service it can. Yes it is about money, that's why they make everything accessible from Steam, so it looks more attractive once you find out how everything is in one place and they keep adding more features so you can find more things in one place.

They could provide it on Steam and as standalone, but I guess they chose that all at your fingertips in one place mentality.

A lot of sites have that in the Terms of Use that you agree to when you register.


Steam is doing that to make money from it. That is what I was saying, consequently the only logical reason for mods on Steam is too make them money.

I'm reading it the same way. There might be pay-to-download content, but "free user content" means pretty much what it says. The burning question for me is how DLC will be handed. Previous distributions through Steam were handled through the Steam Store. If it's going to go through the Workshop, then I'm seeing management software conflicts on the horizon. They don't address that issue, so I'm still in the wait-and-see camp. I'll panic when it becomes necessary. In the meantime, there are dragons to slay, loot to collect and lollies to gag.