The internet has, predictably, exploded over the introduction of paid-for mods in the Steam Workshop. One of the major concerns is that uploaders could easily steal other people’s work and sell them off as their own. Valve have already realised this could be a problem, and have a plan to combat it. That plan is you.
“Newly posted items to be sold must first appear as visible to the community without a purchase option before they can be sold,” Vice President of Marketing Doug Lombardi told PC Gamer. “This will provide some time for the community to help identify abuse or stolen content and report appropriately. It’s also a time that developers can use to review pending items and decide if any intervention is necessary.”
If the community fail to spot a rip-off mod in this period, DMCA notices can be used to force sellers to remove mods from the Workshop store later on down the line.
Other rules to protect buyers includes a price change limiter, which means that whilst the price of mods can be altered, it can only be changed a limited amount of times and with strict time restrictions. This should stop prices bouncing up and down every hour. Mods can be removed from the store, but are simply de-listed rather than deleted, so purchasers don’t lose out.
Valve are, obviously, making a cut from every sale made on the Workshop, but according to Lombardi the company only takes “the same share of sales as we do with any other microtransaction sale.”