Valve's botched introduction of paid mods to Steam will go down in their history as one of the big missteps, but perhaps the blunder was down to execution, and not the concept of paying mod creators for their work. Daybreak (formerly Sony Online Entertainment) chief John Smedley certainly seems to think that there was merit in the idea.
"We always manage to do stuff and then it pisses them off, but you've got to try things," he told PC Gamer. "Look at the Valve mod payment thing, for example; it's a great example of-of course they're smart for doing that. Modders getting paid is an awesome idea and I wish they'd stick to their guns, but sometimes you think you have a solid plan and it gets in front of the players and they're like, 'Yeah, we don't like this,' so it changes."
"From our perspective," he continued, "being able to listen and actually change the course of what we're doing in reaction to the people that pay the bills-our players-that's a positive as far as we're concerned."
"The reality is, I like dealing with companies that listen to their players. I'm proud to say we're one of those companies," he said, summing up. "I think we do a good job of that, but sometimes you put ideas out and they don't work. We're not going to change that, we'll still try it."
Paid mods lasted just a few days on Steam before Valve removed the feature following a variety of different fan protests. Will we see the concept return in some capacity in the future? Time will most certainly tell on that front.