‘Skyrim’ Paid Mods Pulled From Steam, Valve ‘Didn’t Understand What They Were Doing’

Valve’s experiment with paying for mods on Steam for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim blew up in controversy late last week. Attempts by both Valve head Gabe Newell and Bethesda Software to calm the PC community down over the weekend did not help things. Both companies finally threw in the towel Monday evening and elected to pull the paid mods from the Steam Workshop.

“We’re going to remove the payment feature from the Skyrim workshop,” Valve announced via the Steam Community. “For anyone who spent money on a mod, we’ll be refunding you the complete amount. We talked to the team at Bethesda and they agree.”

In an amazing act of contrition, Valve admitted it mishandled the introduction of paid mods to Steam.

“We’ve done this because it’s clear we didn’t understand exactly what we were doing. We’ve been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they’ve been received well. It’s obvious now that this case is different,” the company explained.

Bethesda backed the decision in a post to its blog.

“After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop,” the developer wrote. “Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.”

The Steam paid mods were controversial from the word go. A fishing mod called Art of the Catch was one of the first released but used animations from a free mod called Fores new Idles in Skyrim. The creator stated that Valve cleared the use of the dependency on the free mod, but he was already overwhelmed with claims that he was a content thief and pulled the mod himself.

Another source of contention was the revenue sharing between Valve, Bethesda, and the mod creator. Bethesda explained that Valve gets 30 percent of the cut no matter what. The split between the publisher and the mod creator is dependent on the publisher, and Bethesda elected to go with 45 percent to itself and 25 percent to the modder.

“There are valid arguments for it being more, less, or the same,” the company explained in its defense of paid mods. “It is the current industry standard, having been successful in both paid and free games. After much consultation and research with Valve, we decided it’s the best place to start.”

There was a myriad of arguments for and against paid mods on the Steam Workshop. The creators behind Skywind, a total conversion mod to recreate Morrowind, stated that they would not monetize their efforts. Meanwhile, the popular creator behind Garry’s Mod, Garry Newman, came out in support and explained how it had led him to create start his own studio. He was joined by Counter-Strike: Global Offensive modder Shawn “FMPONE” Snelling in a guest editorial at PC Gamer.

However, the overall reaction from the Steam community was negative. This included a Change.org petition that quickly reached over 100,000 users.

Valve clearly wants to bring paid mods back to the Steam Workshop at some point. It may start off with a smaller game with a less established modding community. However, it will likely come with some significant changes based on feedback from the community.

[Images via Steam]