So apparently today, 4/23/2015, Steam launched their "Pay for mods" thing on Steam. As of right now, Reddit has gotten on Steam's case about it and apparently, very many angry emails have been sent about the issue. However, I feel like this drastic of a change... well, let's just say I think Valve/Steam was prepared for something like this. I am pretty sure they are not going to change on their stance on this unfortunately and I think it's something they've thought long and hard about, for sure.
However, this doesn't excuse them from the rational and moral side of things. These people put these mods up because they wanted to make things for the community and not get anything back. They wanted to better their own game as well as other people's games. There is no point to let people charge for these mods that are supposed to be free, just because Steam lets them. There is no point in this. It infuriates me to no end, because I'm sure modmakers knew about this far before Steam released it, much less maybe had an inkling that this would happen at some point. I'm all for supporting large, epic storyline-telling content developers, but for people who release weapons and stuff... just... no. Some people can make those things in the blink of an eye, or even in a day. This is not the best stuff to be charging for, and is not worth any sort of money, no matter how "pretty" it looks. Especially in a single player game where you can't even show it off to people in-game without recording a video or making a .gif image or something. (The game it's available for is at the bottom of the post.)
I can only hope that Steam actually grows some fucking balls, and puts filters on this, to make mod developers actually develop content that is worth paying for. Not fucking 5 dollars for 1 follower. Yes... that is a thing on the workshop right now. Some mods are even 4 dollars. And speaking of payment though, people only have 24 hours to get a refund for it. What the fuck is that? What if I'm browsing the workshop before an 8 hour or 12 hour shift, and buy some mods I think I will like, and then have to go to work before I can test them? Then I get home and test the mods, and I bet 100% people are going to do shoddy coding jobs to the point where the stuff will break down AFTER the 24 hour period, but after that, they're home free. So what happens when my mod breaks down and I can't get a refund? Or worse yet, what happens if the dev of the mod just abandons the community completely and just rakes in all the cash like a fucking shitty indie dev who releases a half-assed piece of shit and then just leaves the community hanging, i.e. Yet Another Zombie Defense.
I just... I can't believe Steam would betray the community like this. It's just so stupid.
As of the time of this writing, only The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is available to buy mods on. However I am sure over the next few months, it will spread rapidly and only make Steam worse. We will see.
