Unhappy Gamers Start Petition Against Paid Content in Steam Workshop

Valve is doing a lot of restructuring in Steam at the moment. First there was the added limitation for people who haven’t spent any money on the service and yesterday they announced that it now was possible for modders to set their own price for their work and sell it in the Steam Workshop instead of just sharing their work as it was up until now.

But it looks like a lot of users aren’t happy with this new addition to Steam and a user named Cyand Wondel started a petition on change.org to stop it again. The petition was started about 12 hours ago and over 15 thousand have already signed the petition out of the 25 thousand petition goal.

The comments people give on why they are signing the petition all look very similar, a fear that this could ruin a great modding community on Steam:

“This has the potential of ruining the mod community, it has to be stopped.”

“This should have never happened in the first place Valve. I mean no 1 would pay for this, they are not DLC’s they are mods and they are supposed to be free.”

“Many of the mods currently being sold require the Skyrim Script Extender and that team of people won’t be seeing a single penny from this the way you have it set up. Also modding is a hobby, not a career. You will ruin the modding community by going about this in the fashion that you are”

In short, the fear is that this could ruin the modding community as it is, by turning it into a marketplace rather than just a forum for sharing your own creations with fellow gamers and get some feedback on items that you’ve put so much work into.

But it isn’t an entirely new scheme from Valve, just an extension. People have already been able to sell items for Valve’s own games and it is estimated that 1500 users have made a total of about $57 million in these games over the previous three years.

What’s your take on Valve’s newest initiative, do you think it’s a good or bad thing?