Many users of Steam Workshop have been up in arms this week about the addition of paid mods, in addition to the ones currently available for free. Some existing mods were also upgraded, and people who didn’t pay the new fee were unable to access their contents. In the midst of the backlash by some of the community, Valve have announced that all paid mods are now removed from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and anyone who paid for one of the mods will receive a full refund.
A statement from Alden, one of Valve’s employees explained that –
“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.”
While this is a sound idea in concept, it seems that the modding community is not best pleased at the feature’s introduction. The removal of paid support from one of the most popular mod friendly games on Steam may encourage many other developers to follow the same path, or they may allow the service to continue, as long as certain criteria have been met. To read Alden’s full statement in full, you can visit the official Steam Workshop page.
Do you think that Valve have made the right decision regarding Skyrim’s workshop? Let us know what you think in the comments below.