Beat me when I was in the middle of posting this, but that's alright. I'm mad as hell and disappointed at Beth & Valve for doing this, they went full retard and it's wrong on so many levels,
but there's A LOT of details missing about this situation here.
For clarification, it's Bethesda
Softworks (publishing wing) involved in this, not Bethesda Game Studios (Todd Howard's team, but communities are crucifying them by company association anyway) as is usually the case.
Mods can now be paywalled and monetized on the Steam Workshop and Bethesda Softworks & Valve now get a cut of those mod profits... a very
large cut. The profit split entitles Bethesda & Valve to 75% and the modder to only 25%. With that deal in place, if the mod revenue FAILS to reach $100 a month, all profits gained goes straight to Beth & Valve entirely, and the modder will then get nothing. Not a dollar, not a penny, nothing.
Several top modders have agreed and admitted publicly to doing this deal in private with Bethesda & Valve after Valve contacted them. They sold themselves out for pennies and in return only damaged/destroyed their reputation among the modding communities. Isoku is the standout for going head-on into this above the other guys (Arthmoor, Chesko, etc) and has now become an outcast with his reputation crucified on Youtube, Steam, Nexus, and Reddit. He went from being one of the most well-respected modders, to the posterboy of a corporate sellout and how not to be a modder. He's selling his immersion mod that makes NPCs wet and cold for $5, he also had a large team of users and modders help him with the mods, and they won't be seeing a dime.
He's getting eaten alive... :/
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/comments/429374670
But that's just for Skyrim... Valve has already confirmed that they plan to do this with many more games on Steam that support modding with their respective publishers/developers.
A chunk of modders from the Skyrim Nexus community have already left and locked their mod updates and even some of their mods entirely behind a paywall on Steam (yeah... didn't take long for people to start turning into EA/Activision, surprise). You thought Oblivion's Horse Armor was bad? Modders are already charging $2-3 a piece for armor & sword RE-TEXTURES. You can get Skyrim for
$5 right now. Oh and by the way, if you purchased a mod and didn't like it, but failed to request your refund within 24hrs, you are then no longer entitled to a refund. This also blocks out taking mods for a test drive to see if you like it for free, something that has been absolutely crucial to the Bethesda modding community due to how their games work.
But hey, that's okay, because this has now encouraged modding piracy... People have already purchased these paywalled mods and uploaded them elsewhere for free, and got their 24hr refunds. Day-1 and they already broke and exploited the system, way to go Valve.
The users of the Workshop have exploded on the mod pages and in the forums attacking the modders etc., with Steam staff deleting posts and banning folks (naturally for those resorting to the most disgusting of attacks/insults). Valve is doing all they can to damage control the situation, but the damage has already been done and they ****ed up big time...
Screw Valve and screw Bethesda Softworks. I now fear for Fallout 4, future PC games, and the modding community as a whole if this succeeds. I've been a member of the Nexus for years (different username) and did a lot of testing for mods and even partnered with a fellow modder to help create one, but I would never support something like this. Go for optional donations, not forced paywalling.