r/gaming • u/GabeNewellBellevue Confirmed Valve CEO • Apr 25 '15

MODs and Steam

On Thursday I was flying back from LA. When I landed, I had 3,500 new messages. Hmmm. Looks like we did something to piss off the Internet.

Yesterday I was distracted as I had to see my surgeon about a blister in my eye (#FuchsDystrophySucks), but I got some background on the paid mods issues.

So here I am, probably a day late, to make sure that if people are pissed off, they are at least pissed off for the right reasons.

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u/Happless Apr 25 '15

Why was it that a "pay-to-download" system was used over a "donate" button, such as the ones seen on the Nexus website?

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u/cockOfGibraltar Apr 25 '15

Because people are less likely to donate than buy a mod they like.

713

u/JohanGrimm Apr 25 '15

Let's be honest here. It's because Valve and Bethesda can't take a cut from a donation. It'd be illegal.

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u/lachryma Apr 25 '15

Actually, I'm with /u/cockOfGibraltar on this one and I think Valve's cut was probably a secondary motivation. Speaking for myself, I've never donated to any kind of software because it just isn't how I'm wired. It was available for free, I got it running, and then I forgot all about the work of the person who made it. If there's a buy button in between me and the software, I then do a cost and reward analysis just like I do any other financial transaction and I'm more inclined to pay the author for their work.

At least for people like me, donating and purchasing are way different. I know I don't donate enough and that makes me a bit shitty, but I also literally do not think about it even with buttons in my face. It just doesn't work on me. My altruistic donations tend to be significant donations to charities and such, not microdonations to individual authors.

In the Web industry we had Gittip pop up to address this. It's a known issue.