Steam Workshop: The death of Desura

[Jordash]

I see distribution as one of the most important parts of modding, I would highly value a tool which allows mods to be installed simply and to a larger audience.

I didn't really have any interest in Skyrim mods, since most would just be tiny fixes, but the ease of installing them won me over. I can imagine if they worked in regular source mods it would benefit the community much more than any other tool possibly could.

[Phott]

I see distribution as one of the most important parts of modding, I would highly value a tool which allows mods to be installed simply and to a larger audience.

I didn't really have any interest in Skyrim mods, since most would just be tiny fixes, but the ease of installing them won me over. I can imagine if they worked in regular source mods it would benefit the community much more than any other tool possibly could.

You have to make the mods first before they can be distributed. I'd say updated tools would help the modding community far more.

[nub]

I see distribution as one of the most important parts of modding, I would highly value a tool which allows mods to be installed simply and to a larger audience.

I didn't really have any interest in Skyrim mods, since most would just be tiny fixes, but the ease of installing them won me over. I can imagine if they worked in regular source mods it would benefit the community much more than any other tool possibly could.

You have to make the mods first before they can be distributed. I'd say updated tools would help the modding community far more.

Most definitely. Installing a Source mod is easy as shit, quite frankly. You just drop the mod in to the Sourcemods folder and restart Steam and there it is. Any team that makes a significant mod makes an installer for it too, which makes it even easier. All it takes is to go on Moddb to find Source mods.

If Valve made updated tools for Source it would go an extremely long way.

[Naticus]

Yes, I know this thread is nearly a year old but I want to weigh in on Steam Workshop and not start another new thread about it. I was curious about what rights the content creator might give up by submitting to Steam workshop and it looks like the answer is “all of them”.
http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoplegalagreement

License
You grant to Valve the following rights, which Valve may exercise or not in its sole discretion:
You grant to Valve a worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, assignable right and license to (a) use, copy, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, modify, and create derivative works from Your Contribution in any media, (b) identify You as the source of the Contribution, and (c) sublicense these rights, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.
With respect to Valve Games, You retain the right to use Your original work in the Contributions as You wish, even in the context of another game. However, this Agreement does not grant You any rights to Valve materials, and You may not make any use of the Contribution that is inconsistent with the rights You have granted to Valve herein. For example, You may not license the Contribution to a third party on an exclusive basis. With respect to Third Party Games, the end user license or subscription terms for the Third Party Game may provide to You or third parties different ownership rights and responsibilities for Contributions.

Free and Paid Distribution
Valve may choose to distribute Your Contribution for free and/or for a fee. Where Valve distributes Your Contribution for free, Valve has no obligation to compensate You. With respect to Third Party Games, the end user license or subscription terms for the Third Party Game may preclude You from giving Valve the right to distribute Your Contribution for a fee.
Payments for Paid Distribution of Valve Games.
If Valve chooses to distribute Your Contribution for a Valve Game for a fee, then Valve may set the price for such distribution in its sole discretion, and Valve will pay You as follows, conditioned on Your compliance with the obligations contained in this Agreement. Beginning with the calendar month in which Valve first distributes a copy of the Valve Game Contribution for a fee, Valve shall pay to You twenty-five percent (25%) of the Adjusted Gross Revenue (defined below) actually received by Valve from Valve’s distribution of the copy of the Valve Game Contribution during the calendar month. To the extent that the payment calculation results in a negative amount, that negative amount will be carried forward and deducted from any future amounts otherwise payable by Valve hereunder. Valve will remit payment in accordance with Valve procedures, currently net 30 paid in full. Please note that Valve may change procedures in the future, for example requiring a minimum amount to accumulate before making a payment. You also acknowledge and agree that other users, and Valve itself, may create other works that are similar to Your Valve Game Contribution(s), and that Valve’s payment obligations under this Section 3 only apply with respect to the distribution of actual copies of Your Valve Game Contribution(s).

What is especially troubling to me is that Valve can choose to charge for your content and you really don’t have any say so about it once you agree to this massive rights waiver. There is a stipulated 25% coming back to you but what if you just want your content to be free to the community?? This agreement is a little overbearing IMHO.

[Plague]

What is especially troubling to me is that Valve can choose to charge for your content and you really don’t have any say so about it once you agree to this massive rights waiver. There is a stipulated 25% coming back to you but what if you just want your content to be free to the community?? This agreement is a little overbearing IMHO.

You'd be free to provide it elsewhere.
A lot of this is in place particularly due to things like TF2 hats and such, in which after submitting can be placed onto the store for a fee.

[Naticus]

You'd be free to provide it elsewhere.
A lot of this is in place particularly due to things like TF2 hats and such, in which after submitting can be placed onto the store for a fee.

Yeah, but where else are you going to get the kind of exposure you get from Steam? That is the big upside you get from having your content in Steam Workshop. I just wished they could have refined the agreement a bit more to allow the submitter to decide whether or not they might want a fee charged for their content. And why did they have to assert that they can use your content for whatever the hell they want? Why can't it just remain as a download within the workshop? The fact is that most will never take the time to read the agreement before hitting submit.

[Plague]

Well the agreement covers all forms of media, so it would mean if they ever advertised using example workshop items, made a video showcasing the store among other things including featured workshop items.

In the case of publicity that's the trade off, do you sacrifice some freedoms for that extra publicity? or do you take chances in a less exposed format.
In this case the most practical option would be to highlight an optional location to get you're submission in the description of the workshop submission, so a mod would probably best work on moddb, a model fpsbannana or personal site, ect ect.

A lot of it is there for Valve's protection against being liable for things submitted, which is why they leave clauses like not having any obligation to pay you or making you agree to give them access to doing mostly anything with your work.
It's kinda up to the user to read the conditions of any service in the end though.

I think by pulling your submission from the workshop, if that's possible, would terminate this agreement though.
So if you ever were in a situation that you felt uneasy about that would probably be the route to take.
Not sure about that though.


For now Valve is probably one of the companies you can rely on to usually respect your rights and such.

[Stormy]

it would take a huge amount of effort for VALVe to do this to Source, and knowing VALVe they really don't care.

YOU WERE SAYING?

[Armageddon]

it would take a huge amount of effort for VALVe to do this to Source, and knowing VALVe they really don't care.

YOU WERE SAYING?

I fail to see what they did?

[Stormy]

They applied workshop to source...

[Deh0lise]

Map workshop is out for CSGO. Are you going to release maps over there?

Legal conditions are abusive imo (even illegal in my country as there is no remuneration), and mappers won't get any income at all (tf2 item modelers did). Maybe submitting a map would only make it easier for players but it will also

[LesterMDK]

The workshop has been out for L4D2 for some time, it would be pretty dumb of Valve not to take advantage of the workshop for their own games and hopefully in the future their own Engines.

Map workshop is out for CSGO. Are you going to release maps over there?

Legal conditions are abusive imo (even illegal in my country as there is no remuneration), and mappers won't get any income at all (tf2 item modelers did). Maybe submitting a map would only make it easier for players but it will also

Valve aren't selling the maps so why would there be any income for them or the mappers? The CSGO workshop is just an easier more convenient way to download and host custom maps. A mapper doesn't have anything to lose if he submits his map on the workshop, but if he does more people will play his maps and more servers will have it on their server. The workshop is gonna be the number one way to download and share maps for CSGO.

[Deh0lise]

The workshop has been out for L4D2 for some time, it would be pretty dumb of Valve not to take advantage of the workshop for their own games and hopefully in the future their own Engines.

Map workshop is out for CSGO. Are you going to release maps over there?

Legal conditions are abusive imo (even illegal in my country as there is no remuneration), and mappers won't get any income at all (tf2 item modelers did). Maybe submitting a map would only make it easier for players but it will also

Valve aren't selling the maps so why would there be any income for them or the mappers? The CSGO workshop is just an easier more convenient way to download and host custom maps. A mapper doesn't have anything to lose if he submits his map on the workshop, but if he does more people will play his maps and more servers will have it on their server. The workshop is gonna be the number one way to download and share maps for CSGO.

That is the point I wanted to make. Mappers don't have any income from mapping and expect workshop to be just a host, but it is not. Right now MapWorkshop is a host that appropriates of everything that is submitted. The contract doesn't terminate if you take away your map from workshop either.

Submitting a map to the workshop implies a license contract with valve in which you give to them all rights non exclusively (you can commercialize your work as Valve -who'll give you nothing) royalty-free (You won't see a cent. You are only paid if it is sold separately, that is hats) for the eternity (your life + 70 years) of everything submitted (v.g logos, design, textures, models etc) and they'll be able to use it as they please (v.g new games, t-shirts, promos etc). You exchange rights for hosting.

Reading the contract I remembered the mods valve bought, just like CS. Many say Valve is not like EA, Activision or whoever and I agree, I doubt they'll use our work commercially (models, textures, logos, maps...) but they can with the license contract. If that ever happens (v.g change of those in charge) you'll only be able to say "I was expecting they'll behave differently than what the contract states". Workshop can be a trap, it may be voluntary or not (v.g lawyers just took it all just in case).

Don't get me wrong, I like to map and have no problem in releasing maps freely and share the knowledge involved in the creation of them, but I don't like being taken advantage of with such an unexpected contract. I'm not planning to make a living out of this, I just like to map and see people enjoy the maps I do without anyone appropriating of my work, being able to charge players or use it with other purposes than I intended.

I still haven't submitted maps to workshop, not even the one I'm doing for CSGO. I might not even do it ever. Maybe hats, that do have economic incentives (it's like a lottery, you give rights to participate), but not maps as it is now.

Gabe talked in a recent video about incentives in content creation and how they wanted to engage people in it with economic rewards (hats). I don't do hats but maps, and I have no damn incentives but a copyright slap. Fame in exchange of rights is not for me I guess.

P.S I've just noticed my last post was cut. Probably a mistake while editing, my bad.

[Naticus]

The workshop agreement certainly does make Valve look greedy as hell even if they don’t have intentions yet of commercializing user submissions. A key to success for Valve has been making development tools readily available to the community. This has produced a never ending stream of fresh content and which has held interest in their games far beyond the typical life span. This has occurred on the backs of those modders who were willing to pour tons of time into making said fresh content.

I think Valve understands how valuable the modding community has been to their success. It is too bad they are now taking tremendous advantage of the community that helped build their game franchises. The workshop agreement tells us all that, “We don’t care how much time and effort you put into what you are submitting. Everything you did is now ours forever and we can do anything we want with it.”

[Plague]

The contract doesn't terminate if you take away your map from workshop either.

Submitting a map to the workshop implies a license contract with valve in which you give to them all rights non exclusively (you can commercialize your work as Valve -who'll give you nothing) royalty-free (You won't see a cent. You are only paid if it is sold separately, that is hats) for the eternity (your life + 70 years) of everything submitted (v.g logos, design, textures, models etc) and they'll be able to use it as they please (v.g new games, t-shirts, promos etc). You exchange rights for hosting.

By removing it from the workshop the contract is voided because it's no longer a workshop contribution.
And you don't "exchange" your rights, as you still retain all your rights pertaining to the work you created, including distributing, advertising and monetizing to whatever legal extent.

This is absurd.