Premium Workshop mod pulled from Steam

Day one for Steam’s new paid mods from the Steam Workshop is not going well.

As reported this morning, Steam has for the first time allowed mod makers to charge a fee for their efforts. Skyrim is the first title to offer premium mods.

However, just hours after going live one of the mods in question has been pulled from the service.

Destructoid reports that a fishing mod made by what it describes as veteran modders” Chesko and aqqh was found to have repurposed animations from a different mod, Fore’s New Idles. Modder Fore confirmed that permission had not been sought, leading to both the removal of the mod and indeed of all traces of it, including the incriminating conversations.

I would like to make it clear that I have been under a non-disclosure agreement for over a month and was unable (not unwilling) to contact others,” Chesko wrote in a now removed comment.

I asked Valve specifically about content that requires other content, and was told that if the download is separate and free, it was fair game. In the case of this mod, the animations are not required and the mod continues to work. However I will defer to Fore’s decision, which will issue a refund to all subscribers.”

In other news, Gamasutra reports that the creators of premium mods will only receive a share of the revenues – in the case of Betheda’s Skyrim, that share is just 25 per cent. It is up to publishers to determine exactly how the revenues are divided up between themselves, content creators and Valve.

Fans, too, are raging, with a Change.org petition calling for the end of paid mods altogether rapidly approaching 25k signatures.