The problem isn't Steam, it's everyone else.

[SmugFrog]

Steam has plenty of issues; now hear me out, I've been a long time supporter of Steam and have enjoyed the way it has allowed me to have my games on multiple PCs, but for example:

Go to the Skyrim workshop, sort the mods by category of NPCs or some other time that is clear cut. Yeah, look at those results that have NOTHING TO DO WITH that category.

Try the same thing on the Nexus. The Nexus lets users vote for those tags and remove them if they don't apply. The Steam Workshop in particular could use a lot of work.

Side note: does this go back to the problem being with "everyone else" meaning the people that listed the mod? Absolutely, but it doesn't allow it to be fixed by the community and people list their mod under several categories because they're either 1) ignorant about tags or 2) try to intentionally create more views.

 

[Windcaler]

My main thought is this. If I sell a product in our store that turns out defective, like a cord that wont charge a phone or a games disk that wont read then Im basicly required to at the very least exchange that item for a working one. If an exchange isnt possible it usually means giving them store credit for their purchase price.

How is Steam not held to these standards? Steam, like any retailer, is still a retailer. They need to be held to the same standards as any other retail business

 

[BeerTent]

EDIT: Jeeezus I'm slow with the posts. eeh, it's still a valid response. I'll keep it up even if I am beating a dead horse on this response.

Actually, they can't.

Where the hell am I? Have I been transported to the We-Make-Up-Random-Laws-As-We-Go-Along-LOL universe?

I believe the argument is equivalent to someone making something on company time using company equipment.

It's not. I think, were that the basis of the statement, it would make it even more baffling.

[...]All uses of the Editor and any materials created using the Editor (the ?New Materials?) are for Your own personal, non-commercial use solely in connection with the applicable Product, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

[...]

If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit. You also waive and agree never to assert against Bethesda Softworks or its affiliates, distributors or licensors any moral rights or similar rights, however designated, that You may have in or to any of the New Materials. If You commit any breach of this Agreement, Your right to use the Editor under this Agreement shall automatically terminate, without notice.[...]

I mean, you could still argue that Bethesda doesn't own your code... But if you ask me, and I'm no laywer, Bethesda could do anything they damn well please with any materials adapted for their game. So, yes... Should Bethesda request it, anything in the Steam workshop, Nexus, and what-have you can simply be taken, and used as Bethesda's own code.

Furthermore, I have no idea what Aiddon was trying to say, but I think it was around those lines. And I think you said that wasn't possible, DoPo.

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it. [...]

Eeeup, nope, buddy... Any materials you build with their SDK is theirs. Welcome to the Modding world. By diring up that SDK to compile and intigrate your content into the game, you agree to that EULA. You can argue till you're blue in the face. Those EULA's stand up in a court of law.

C'mon, it's free. Of course there's strings attached. What do you think you're paying for if you buy the Unreal Engine? By your logic, I could just build a game with the free version of Unity and put that shit in a store. Everybody's gotta eat. But I will agree that the tested program for paid mods was a complete and utter atrocity.

On topic:

This is what gets me... We have Chessrook44's view, and we have Mutant1988's view. People are saying that only one of them is right, and that's where I disagree. Both of them are right.

We shouldn't have this cesspool in the first place. Our disgust should be directed at unity asset tards, they should be disgusted at Towns dev team, and everybody else abusing this system. But at the same time, you put out a platform like this, and well... You sort of have to expect this. Valve has a responsibility, and they need to fulfill that responsibility to protect their consumers from the fraudsters.

It's not purely steam's fault. Don't turn around and say they're 100% accountable, but pass me a drink, don't say they're not either. What we actually need is Valve to take legal action on these tards. Because... Well, It IS Fraud! You go up on EA, and call it quits before Development is done, you've just committed fraud! My point is, the hate shouldn't be directed at just one party. Both parties are very, very severely in the wrong.

If you start a day-care center and the children end up getting hurt, wetting themselves, eating food they're allergic to, getting covered in paint, eating bugs, etc...all because you refused to watch them or step in at any point...

Well it ain't the kids fault.

As accurate as it is, it's a touch embarrassing that, over and over and over and over, gamers are demonstrating that they REALLY CAN be directly compared to toddlers.

Urgh.

Wowh...

Normally I'd say, you know, that's a bit far here...

But I've got no words. It's- It's spot on.

Although, I will argue that it's totally the kids fault too. Those little bastards know that a peanut will kill them!! Read the wrapper on the candy bar you little shit!

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Valve knows we live in the world we live in, they still fucked up for not considering those bad people.

 

[Mutant1988]

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it. [...]

Eeeup, nope, buddy... Any materials you build with their SDK is theirs. Welcome to the Modding world. By diring up that SDK to compile and intigrate your content into the game, you agree to that EULA. You can argue till you're blue in the face. Those EULA's stand up in a court of law.

I didn't say they didn't claim the rights to it. I'm saying that it's unlikely that they would be able to, as it's outlined in their Eula.

All content created ("New Content") is what they claim. My argument is that this content is not created in that software - Only the implementation in the game is. Thus it's unreasonable for them to demand a complete waiver of creative rights that allow them to take any content and do with it as they please.

Even had they any real claim to that content, their use should not extend beyond the game the tools are for. Why in the name of hell should that be permitted and what commercial harm to their company is that supposed to prevent? It's exploitation, through and through.

Also, EULAs? Much disputed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_license_agreement#Enforceability_of_EULAs_in_the_United_States

And from a PR perspective? It might be very inadvisable to try to enforce the harshest terms of it. Such as the clause that demand you to waive your rights to pursue legal action.

C'mon, it's free. Of course there's strings attached. What do you think you're paying for if you buy the Unreal Engine? By your logic, I could just build a game with the free version of Unity and put that shit in a store. Everybody's gotta eat. But I will agree that the tested program for paid mods was a complete and utter atrocity.

You own the creative rights to the content you create with the Unreal Engine. All that Epic ask for is 5% of the gross revenue per quarter of any commercial product you make, once your profits exceed $3000.

I don't think Unity asks for 75% of your revenue either. As for the market place, if you have an unrestricted choice in where to distribute your project (Steam, GoG, Origin, Unity Store etc.), then that's fine. Valve establishing an effective monopoly for distribution of this content? Not great for end users.

Taking a cut is not unreasonable. But they need to do something for that - Even if it's only to not break those products with their own updates. And they should not, at all, claim the copyright of creative content.

On topic:

This is what gets me... We have Chessrook44's view, and we have Mutant1988's view. People are saying that only one of them is right, and that's where I disagree. Both of them are right.

Well, it's partly my own views but these matters are actually being heavily discussed and disputed in the legal community. Which is why we as customers need to say our piece as well. I don't find it reasonable that Bethesda ask users to waive their creative rights when they were not commissioned to create those works.

Waive the right to sell it? Sure. Waive the rights to own it? Hell no. That's an incredibly unfair contract that adds zero benefit for us as customers or for any creator. And where they to enforce those policies, it would be a PR disaster. As is, it's meant to intimidate users into not objecting (That is the only point of clauses that forbid you to take legal action - Those are not enforceable) - And that's messed up.

Valve has a responsibility, and they need to fulfill that responsibility to protect their consumers from the fraudsters.

This, we can agree on. If they are to profit from these works, they need to ensure a minimum standard of quality. Or at the very least functionality. Bethesda should offer better support to creators as to not make their own updates for the game break user content. If you want to sell products, curate your market place so that customers get the best possible products and ensure that content creators and users alike are given support so that the products they pay real money for actually work when sold and keep working.

It's not purely steam's fault. Don't turn around and say they're 100% accountable, but pass me a drink, don't say they're not either. What we actually need is Valve to take legal action on these tards. Because... Well, It IS Fraud! You go up on EA, and call it quits before Development is done, you've just committed fraud! My point is, the hate shouldn't be directed at just one party. Both parties are very, very severely in the wrong.

In my opinion, they should be held exactly 30% accountable. That is, equivalent to the cut they take out of the profits.

 

[BarryMcCociner]

You say the problem is con-artists and not Steam, yet Steam is giving snake oil peddlers a platform and doing nothing about it. If Steam were to, I don't know, force people to drop money on getting their game greenlit or be forced to sign a legal waiver agreeing to actually finish the game then perhaps we could not have to deal with this.

In terms of the authority and power required to clean up Steam in this situation Valve hold all the cards yet chooses inaction over action, yes the problem is with Steam. Besides that, Steam is a content distribution service and it's in their best interest to have quality content on their service rather than shovelware. Nintendo figured this shit out in the 80's-90's, then the moment they dropped that standard of quality on the Wii they're no longer the titanic competitor they once were. They seem to be stepping in the right direction again with the WiiU however.

Look at Origin, EA recognizes that nobody wants Bloodbath Kavkaz so they don't stock your Bloodbath Kavkaz's! Look at GOG they recognize that nobody wants any one of the 2000 survival and crafting games that started beating the dead horse four years ago and haven't quite finished up yet, so they don't fucking stock them! And yes, I do enjoy using GOG and Origin much more than I do Steam.

 

[DoPo]

[...]All uses of the Editor and any materials created using the Editor (the ?New Materials?) are for Your own personal, non-commercial use solely in connection with the applicable Product, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

[...]

If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit. You also waive and agree never to assert against Bethesda Softworks or its affiliates, distributors or licensors any moral rights or similar rights, however designated, that You may have in or to any of the New Materials. If You commit any breach of this Agreement, Your right to use the Editor under this Agreement shall automatically terminate, without notice.[...]

I mean, you could still argue that Bethesda doesn't own your code...

Again, I've got to actually read the whole thing yet, from what it says here, they do. Well, close enough, at least. And only if you "distribute or otherwise make available" your work. So, in essence, what they mean is, they can't break down your door and forcefully extract the mod from your hard disk, however, were you to put it up, they can make use of it in any way they see fit.

But if you ask me, and I'm no laywer, Bethesda could do anything they damn well please with any materials adapted for their game. So, yes... Should Bethesda request it, anything in the Steam workshop, Nexus, and what-have you can simply be taken, and used as Bethesda's own code.

It's what it says in the license agreement. It's anything that you make available. Now, how that's defined exactly, I don't know - Nexus/Steam Workshop would certainly count, as would GitHub or others, but I don't know if, say, you email me the mod would that count.

Furthermore, I have no idea what Aiddon was trying to say, but I think it was around those lines.

Well, the "in company time with company resources" argument, unsurprisingly, applies only for companies. The idea is pretty simple, let's say I'm writing a book but I'm also employed for something completely unrelated. I can still write it and release it, but if the company can prove I've used company time and/or resources, they can claim part of it. Not, like, "pages 31 through 57" but part of the rights on it. An example manifestation of that would be them claiming a percentage of the revenue. A sample example would be if I do some of my writing instead of working (lunch breaks wouldn't normally count), or if I use the company printers to print off a draft or anything that would have helped me write and release the book.

And I think you said that wasn't possible, DoPo.

Not as a sole argument. As I said, that would only apply to companies or otherwise things that would work in a similar manner. "Any software" doesn't really do that.

Waive the rights to own it? Hell no.

You do not waive your right to own it. You give Bethesda "irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws" (and then the other stuff). It's wordy but it's not transferring the ownership, you are making Bethesda co-owners, for a lack of a different applicable single word in my vocabulary. In more abstract terms, the entity that constitutes "the work" is now owned by you and then there is Bethesda who would have pretty similar privileges to you, in relation to it.

I'm not sure I can explain it better that that, myself, but what I'm trying to get it is that, again, you don't waive your ownership.

 

[esserin]

[...]All uses of the Editor and any materials created using the Editor (the ?New Materials?) are for Your own personal, non-commercial use solely in connection with the applicable Product, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

[...]

If You distribute or otherwise make available New Materials, You automatically grant to Bethesda Softworks the irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, perform, display, distribute and otherwise exploit and/or dispose of the New Materials (or any part of the New Materials) in any way Bethesda Softworks, or its respective designee(s), sees fit. You also waive and agree never to assert against Bethesda Softworks or its affiliates, distributors or licensors any moral rights or similar rights, however designated, that You may have in or to any of the New Materials. If You commit any breach of this Agreement, Your right to use the Editor under this Agreement shall automatically terminate, without notice.[...]

I mean, you could still argue that Bethesda doesn't own your code... But if you ask me, and I'm no laywer, Bethesda could do anything they damn well please with any materials adapted for their game. So, yes... Should Bethesda request it, anything in the Steam workshop, Nexus, and what-have you can simply be taken, and used as Bethesda's own code.

Furthermore, I have no idea what Aiddon was trying to say, but I think it was around those lines. And I think you said that wasn't possible, DoPo.

The SDK for skyrim was released for FREE, so Bethesda has no right to anything made on it. [...]

Eeeup, nope, buddy... Any materials you build with their SDK is theirs. Welcome to the Modding world. By diring up that SDK to compile and intigrate your content into the game, you agree to that EULA. You can argue till you're blue in the face. Those EULA's stand up in a court of law.

EULA' are of questionable validity.

One criticism is that you can't force somebody to sign a contract after they've purchased the product. If I buy a car from you, you cannot stop me from using afterwards until I sign a contract. I already bought it, it belongs to me now. Though, patches can circumvent this flaw since now they are offering something in exchange of you accepting the contract.

They'll work in the U.S. cause they won't dismiss anything no matter how stupid it is and companies can keep the case going till you're bankrupt.

Steam would make a lot of progress on greenlight and early access, if they allowed 24h refunds. That would make it much harder to steal money from somebody. They were implementing that for the paid mods, so they already have a refund system set up.

Because, come on, still no refund?!?! GOG and Origin are doing it. So, you don't have any excuse steam

 

[Mutant1988]

You do not waive your right to own it. You give Bethesda "irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws" (and then the other stuff). It's wordy but it's not transferring the ownership, you are making Bethesda co-owners, for a lack of a different applicable single word in my vocabulary. In more abstract terms, the entity that constitutes "the work" is now owned by you and then there is Bethesda who would have pretty similar privileges to you, in relation to it.

No, they take ownership of it. Because they force you to forfeit any "moral or similar" rights. They get to use it any way they see fit and you are not allowed to do anything about it in any legal capacity whatsoever.

Do tell me how you can still claim to own something without being able to have a say in how that thing is used.

 

[esserin]

You do not waive your right to own it. You give Bethesda "irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws" (and then the other stuff). It's wordy but it's not transferring the ownership, you are making Bethesda co-owners, for a lack of a different applicable single word in my vocabulary. In more abstract terms, the entity that constitutes "the work" is now owned by you and then there is Bethesda who would have pretty similar privileges to you, in relation to it.

No, they take ownership of it. Because they force you to forfeit any "moral or similar" rights. They get to use it any way they see fit and you are not allowed to do anything about it in any legal capacity whatsoever.

Do tell me how you can still claim to own something without being able to have a say in how that thing is used.

They can't actually waive your rights.

Those things are just there to scare people away, contracts cannot change the law, just cause you signed it. That's not how it works and it would never stand up in any court of law. I mean, they're essentially trying to go against international law here.

 

[DoPo]

You do not waive your right to own it. You give Bethesda "irrevocable, perpetual, royalty free, sublicensable right and license under all applicable copyrights and intellectual property rights laws" (and then the other stuff). It's wordy but it's not transferring the ownership, you are making Bethesda co-owners, for a lack of a different applicable single word in my vocabulary. In more abstract terms, the entity that constitutes "the work" is now owned by you and then there is Bethesda who would have pretty similar privileges to you, in relation to it.

No, they take ownership of it. Because they force you to forfeit any "moral or similar" rights. They get to use it any way they see fit and you are not allowed to do anything about it in any legal capacity whatsoever.

Yes, but it's not as simple as you make it out to be. If Bethesda make any changes, it's not your work any more. As in, your work is still there - they get a separate one. Erm, in effect, at least. You can still make changes and modifications, say, a patch or stuff, and if you don't distribute them, Bethesda has no claim on them in a similar way.

 

[Don Incognito]

If you walked into a publisher, and demanded 75% of the proceeds for your book or program or whatever, leaving 25% to the publisher, they'd still be laughing their asses off by the time the cab dropped you back off at home.

 

[BeerTent]

Edit: Dear god this is why I don't wanna proof morning posts.

[The SDK's EULA's legality.]

I think we're going two different directions here.

It's not about how enforceable it is, how bad for PR it is. The gamer bite on big publishers, ain't that big. Look at Electronic Arts. Also, this link you've provided... Doesn't actually help your side of things. The section within the Wiki is for the validity of "Shrink Wrap agreements" and only helps my point along when it starts talking about software based licenses. The GECK, or Skyrim's equivalent needs to be "unpacked" before you're able to use it. This uncompression and decryption process is only done after you've made the agreement. Edit: You can't make a mod, and then have the software go "Oh, by the way... I hope you've been following this agreement we're going to force you to agree to."

If that were the case, you'd be spot on.

Furthermore, and I know, Skyrim's system may be different than Oblivion's, but all I've got here is peering over the shoulder.

You know what compiling is? "(of a computer) convert (a program) into a machine-code or lower-level form in which the program can be executed." You need the modding tools, to compile whatever resources you've built so that the game can understand it. You're using the modding tools, which is subject to the EULA. So that naked Khajiit you slaved over in Maya? Bethesda could take it.[footnote]"Khajiit innocent! Has fur, not naked! Khajiit innocent!" Wait, am I doing this joke right? I haven't actually played the game.[/footnote]

[Engine devs don't take an obscene amount of money from the developers.]

Next up, the engine bit, I think you got it, but I wasn't trying to make a point about what they take, just that I can't download the UDK for free, and assume that just because I got it for free, I could use it to do whatever I pleased with, which is what you seemed to imply. You've side-stepped considerably. C'mon, baby. Stay close to me. I ain't gonna bite. Let's pop a cold one together, aye? It's 5 o'clock somewhere, and just because it's 11 where I am, means nothing.

[Rights, and responsibilities. The main On Topic deal.]

Oh god, this is a cluster fuck.

So, let's make our video game, you and me, alright? It's a shooter game where desperate humans and religious aliens duke it out. Let's call it Holo. A modder steps in with a variant of the religious alien that's made some color alterations and spikes. Our game is successful. We probably haven't paid attention to the modding community because "Look! a shiney thing!" is a common affliction with me and we're up to build a sequel. As a beefier enemy type we're introducing, we decide to make a alien with spikes on his back. We release our game.

Now we're in court. Our model is too similar to the modder's, and we're accused of stealing the modder's spiky alien design.

This is why AAA companies request to waive their creative rights. They're not afraid to lose, they're afraid to even step in there. Furthermore, Holo's still in development, right? Someone made a modified optimization engine which boosts our performance. Removing a significant portion of the creator's rights allows us to take the code, peek at it, and build our own with parts of the modder's code. Devs do this all the fucking time! Look at WoW! Yeah, it'd be nice to bring the modder in as a consultant, or hire another modder on to build a game based on their total conversion mod. Is it right to waive the rights of creative modders? Not really, but the purpose is to prevent court abuse and to allow us to integrate ideas we may not have thought the community wanted.

And my post, isn't JUST about the modders. It's about the entirety of the system. Publishing games that don't meet[footnote] That's the 3rd "meat" I had to correct. I must have been hungry.[/footnote] expectations? Bad. Early Access? Debatable idea, super fucking bad if abused. Greenlight? Great idea, really, really bad if abused. Paid mods? Awfully executed, but there may be an idea forming here.

Listen, going back to my naked Kajiit example... Can you really say the six tittied wonder is creatively yours? If we look at Long War [http://www.nexusmods.com/xcom/mods/88/?], it's still X-com. It's a totally different game, but that's X-com baby, with it's 95% misses.[footnote]DIIAAZZZZ! He's got one hit point and out of fucking cover! That's the fourth shot in a row! I... Fuck it, you're so fucking disbanded after this. Where's my team rocket shot gunner. He'll land a hit with his 20%.[/footnote] We could probably argue that something like Counter-Strike or Day of Defeat being so far out there that it's creatively the mod owners, but have we seen a Total Conversion mod in Skyrim that maybe uses less than 5% of the game's built in assets? I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, "No."

 

[Tayh]

If you walked into a publisher, and demanded 75% of the proceeds for your book or program or whatever, leaving 25% to the publisher, they'd still be laughing their asses off by the time the cab dropped you back off at home.

There's probably more work involved being a physical publisher than simply clicking a button to enable monetary transactions for X game on a platform that's already set up to do so.

 

[chocolate pickles]

Valve needs to learn to learn the definition of 'quality control'. Yes, other people are making these shitty games, but Valve is the one allowing them to.

 

[Laughing Man]

The problem isn't Steam. Steam has good ideas that would help others. The problem is con-men and jerks who decide to exploit the system for their own use.

Oh I am sorry but no, just no, the last thing, the very last thing after the utter debacle and non sense that Valve have foisted on the PC community over the last year or two is yet another person trying to defend it's services.

No the problem is squarely and wholly Valves and Steams. If you release a service that has ZERO, read that ZERO QC or CS (quality control and customer service) then you will get people who will try and abuse that. If you have no accountability then their is literally nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want and Greenlight, Early Access and the Paid Workshop proved that.

Valve could very easily put limitations on what quality a game or mod or product has to achieve prior to being placed on their store front, Valve could ensure that developers have goals and achieve those goals and Valve could give a legitimate and timely response to its customers when they raise concerns with them, but Valve don't do ANY of those things and that means the problems their services are facing now are not the result of other people they are 100% problems created by Valve's themselves.

The answer they give that they don't want to act as a censor and expect the community to police the services is bullshit, ensuring a level of quality on your service is not censorship, of any sort. They are a store, they sell a product and if a store sells you something that it utter shite then they should be held accountable, or better yet perhaps the store should QC what they are selling prior to selling it and not sell the utter shite at all.

I don't know you OP I dunno who you are or what you do day to day and in any other situation I would be willing to have a lively debate with you but in this topic sir you are wrong, plain and simple wrong.

 

[MonsterCrit]

The problem is Steam and it's non-committal attitude towards quality control and customer support alongside their inane decision to take 75% (With Bethesda) of all profits made on content they had no hand in making, while enforcing policies that prohibit creators from asking for donations outside of Steam.

Unfair distribution of profits - Check.

Better than what J. K. Rowling Got for the Harry Potter Books and that 100% hers.

Monopolizing measures - Check.

That's actually consumer protection measure. Asking for donations for a mod or payment for a mod that is then delivered via steam is risky since there is no paper trail on Steam's side.

Complete disregard for support or quality control - Check.

That would be The modders job.. Support. And Quality COntrol. The consumer. If people show that they will buy crap then more people will make and try to sell crap. If the consumer is discering and carefulluy scrutinizes purchases before buy and only buys mod ts that show creativing, and work.. then those are the types of mods you'll find.

OP is RIght. Pretty much Valve's greatest sin, is they have too much faith in th intelligence and maturity of their user base. I mean have you see the scams that Steam users fall for? I mean dear gods if I saw a character in a cartoon falling for that I'd say it was unbelievably stupid. 80% of the complaints about Early Access are from people who obviously didn't read or didn't understand the warnings or the Faqs given about Early Access.

Then there's the whole slippery slope of them having to enforce measures to prevent illicit use of "mods" - I.e, DRM. How else are they to ensure that you don't pirate the mods? The paid mods would need to have copy protection to prevent that.

Same way they make sure you don't pirate games. By running a ledger check on their system.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Pretty much everything with how Valve has handled their new community-driven platforms (paid-mods, Greenlight, Early Access) has amounted to little more than: "Valve: Here, we're giving you just enough rope to hang yourselves with."

On one hand, free market forces dictate that Demand must self prune and self regulate to normalize its own markets.
On the other hand, the free market also works when there aren't middlemen or interlopers that capitalize on all the bedlam.

Valve doesn't actually provide any curation because of the need of the former, despite benefiting from the latter.
Meaning that while Demand (consumers; that's us for the most part) is culpable every time it's deceived by con-men and producers that fail to uphold their promises to the market, Valve is just as guilty, because they enabled those to happen in the first place while assuming none of the responsibility (and taking a cut of the action; good or bad).

And the real foolishness is in defending Valve for this, because normally, retailers that get a reputation for selling overpriced junk tend to lose just as much business as the makers of the products they're peddling.

Of course, my mistake is presuming that there's anything "sane" or "normal" left in gaming: Case in point, it's through Valve's virtual monopoly of PC gaming that enables them to pull this crap in the first place.

As terrible as those schemes have panned out, oh man, just consider what might happen if Steam really threw their weight around by demanding a monthly subscription and always-online DRM.

Big as they are, the PC market could actually crash.

Actually, this language exists for two reasons.

1. To allow Bethesda to use your mod to advertise the game in any way they see fit, including handing your materials to a third party to make ads with. This is the minor one.

2. To allow Bethesda to incorporate any new feature you create into the game without having to compensate you in any way. Have you ever noticed how the most popular mods for games like World of Warcraft end up becoming default functionality within the game? If a large number of users find a mod to be vital to their gameplay experience, it would behoove Bethesda (or any other company) to make it part of the default game, thereby removing the need to depend on a third party to keep it updated. Without this clause, you would likely have grounds to pursue compensation from the company if they did that.

In essence, it's a new spin on the oldest tale in human history: The rich stealing from the poor.
(or the strong bullying the weak)

In practice, money is what dictates how the law is interpreted and how it operates (which is why so many disputes are going to external arbitration now; law be damned, the consumer is FUCKED in those circles). Otherwise, none of these companies could throw C&D orders with one hand while claiming ownership of content they didn't actually do anything to fund, promote, or produce with the other.

 

[Tilly]

I think a lot of people have said for quite a while that Steam would benefit hugely from stronger competition. Their behaviour is so typical of a lazy monopoliser. I always try and use GOG instead but more people need to join in. And more competitors need to try harder!