Steam Announces Paid Modding System

In a surprising move from Valve, Steam has just announced a paid modding system, with the system already in effect for one of Steam’s most popular moddable games, Skyrim.

The full press release can be found here: http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/aboutpaidcontent

Valve and the publisher will claim 75% of any profits, leaving the creator with 25%. Funds cannot be taken until they have reached $400 in sales.

Given the unstable platform of modding and wildly varying degrees of quality (with some mods like Falskaar or Schlongs of Skyrim being well deserving of donations), this system can be seen as a very flawed and dangerous way of monetizing content that by all means should never be monetized. Steam has promised full refunds in the case of mods not being compatible, but given how utterly broken Steam’s customer support is, this can hardly be seen as a positive.

When comes the day when people have to resort to pirating mods?