Valve har nu bekræftet at de fjerner deres nyeste tiltag igen, nemlig betalings-mods, og alle som har købt mods vil få pengene retur.
"We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing," skriver Valve's Alden Kroll. "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."
"To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free and paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it."
Det var et udmærket forsøg på belønne skaberne af mods, og der var helt sikkert nogle som så frem til at blive betalt for deres arbejde. Men nu har Steam altså indset at deres forsøg skabte flere problemer og gjorde folk meget utilfredse.
"We underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here."
"Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."
Det første spil som fik betalings-mods var The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim og udvikleren Bethesda forklarede i går hvorfor de sagde ja til at blive en del af Steams nye tiltag. De ville gerne støtte op om de folk som skabte mods og de som støtter deres spil. De har også accepteret at selvom de havde de bedste intentioner var denne feature ikke budt velkommen af communitiet, og de skriver i deres statement:
"After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. 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."
Det korte af det lange er at stort set alle havde en mening om betalings-mods. Nogle folk var utilfredse over den måde indtjeningen blev fordelt, nogle mente bare at mods skulle være gratis, mens andre bare spammede marketplace med joke-mods og bad om tåbelige summer for deres "arbejde" for at tydeliggøre hvor dumt det kunne blive.
Man kan vidst kun konkludere at de som var imod betalings mods vandt og Valve har nu fjernet featuren fra Steam. Det er klart at de kun gjorde hvad de gjorde fordi de mente det ville være en god idé og at det ville gavne communitiet. Da Valve nu har fået spandevis af feedback kan det være vi ser en ny og forbedret version som kan gøre alle glade en gang ude i fremtiden, hvad ved?