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By now most if not all of us have heard about the Steam Workshop’s new initiative to let modders charge for their mods. Like a lot of things, it has both good sides and some not so good sides but the Internet has largely reacted negatively. Yesterday Gabe Newell himself, head of Valve, took to Reddit to answer questions that users might have about the paid mods.
What we can gather from the AMA is that Newell believes in the modding community of Steam and wants to see them get paid fairly for work that in some cases is extremely well-made and might as well be called game development in its own right. And I’m pretty sure that this is a sentiment that we can agree is a good one. He said that “With the Steam workshop, we’ve already reached the point where the community is paying their favorite contributors more than they would make if they worked at a traditional game developer. We see this as a really good step… The option of MOD developers getting paid seemed like a good extension of that.”
Tackling some issues people could see arising Newell stated that Steam will not demand exclusivity of mods calling such practices “basically a financial leveraging strategy that creates short term market distortion and long term crying.” He also said that he was confident that the community’s policing along with Valve’s own would crack down on people trying to make money off mods that they had stolen off another modder.
Some people also noticed that people speaking about the paid mods on Steam were getting banned or having discussions removed. When presented with this information Newell said that if Valve was doing that it was “stupid” and he would get it to stop, noting that such tactics don’t really work anyway in getting people to stop talking about topics.
I personally can see what Valve is going for, I really can. This has the potential to be a great thing, but knowing that Valve is not going to be too hands-on (no matter what was said about policing for stolen mods) still gives me a little cause for concern.
I, like everyone else, can only wait and see what will result.
The Xenoblade series is known for expansive vistas, giant monsters and insanely deep mechanics. Xenoblade Chronicles X, coming out on April 29th in Japan and slated for release sometime later in the year for the rest of the world, looks to be no different. And now, thanks to Nintendo Treehouse, we have an update look at the game, showing off the various continents, gamepad functionality and…giant flying/driving/fighting mechs.
Sometimes it seems like there are just too many games to keep track of out there, especially in the Indie market. This often leads to good games get looked over because there are so many to look though. So I thought why not bring attention to some of these interesting games that may have gone under your radar.
This Edition will feature a couple awesome Platformer Runner games I have come across in the last year or so.
Boson X
The first game I want to bring to your attention this time is Boson X. This game is both a simple and challenging rotational Runner. You are a physicist trying to discover various particles inside a massive particle accelerator, ultimately working toward discovering the elusive Boson X. To do this you must have your character run on specific blue platforms to fill up a bar at the top of the screen. But it’s not as easy as it seems. The only control you have of your character is either jump left, jump right, or jump forward. You are at a constant stage of movement not able to slow down or stop, unless you run into a platform or fall into the abyss which means starting over again. You do end up moving faster though as you travel though the level, adding more and more challenge to the levels, especially as they grow more complicated further into the game.
This is definitely a game for people who like a bit of a challenge. If you are someone who gets easily frustrated with games like Bit Trip Runner or Super Hexagon, this may not be the best game for you. You will die…a lot. But as you play you begin to master it you feel great achievement when you complete a level, at least until you start the next one and a new mechanic is thrown at you ;).
This game has a great, simple art style that really fits the subject of the game. The music is much the same, adding to its scientific aesthetic. It is an addicting and fun game I willingly recommend.
Last Knight is an awesome action platformer/runner game. The reason I place this in the runner category is because once you start a level you don’t stop moving until you die or finish the level. In this game you play as a Knight on his Horse with nothing but a wooden lance between you and danger. You must dodge, jump, and joust your way through the world of many obstacles; including other knights, various creatures, and barriers in your way. It also has environmental challenges such as light rays, rain, and lightning that make levels more and more challenging by obscuring your view of what’s ahead. And remember, you can’t control how fast you are going.
This game has multiple game modes including Story, Endless, and Rogue modes. In the story you play as a Squire wanting to become a Knight. You find yourself on a journey to recover the King’s gold and the Princess from evil. The story mode mainly acts as an introduction to the game. Each level introduces new mechanics and challenges. Endless mode seems to be more of the meat of the game. This mode has its own various forms, but the interesting thing about this mode is you can unlock customization, quests, and items for your knight as you play; including unlocking new characters, hats, and mounts. Rogue mode turns the game into more of a rogue-like game including perma-death and random world generation.
The style of this game is very amusing and fun. It has a nice humor to it; from the ridiculous story to the ragdoll death mechanic to the random customization you can do on your Knight. If you want to be a bunny mask wearing knight riding a flower pooping unicorn across the land, you can! This is awesomely fun game with a lot of replay ability. This game according to the developers is highly inspired by other 3rd person platformers like Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, and Ratchet & Clank. So it may be right up your alley if you are into those type of games, and goodness know there aren’t many games like those on PC ;).
A few days ago Valve announced that they were planning to make an update to the Steam Workshop to allow modders to make money from their mods, with the first game to feature this being Skyrim. Needless to say the Internet is divided on the issue, for different reasons. I personally have concerns about the fact that it’s regulated by the users of Steam rather than Valve themselves.
However, some are a little bit more creative and… blatant about how they feel about the new system. Most people against it have complained, debated the pros and cons with friends or even signed the petition that’s going around (which has already reached over 101k signatures at time of writing). Two users have teamed up though to make a protest mod. Really.
Created by users Fuck Valve and Cuscino, the mod is called ‘No more imperials‘ and does just as it says. It eliminates all the Imperials from the game, which kind of makes it difficult to do very much of… well, ANYTHING in the game. Which is the point actually.
The description on the mod’s Workshop page reads: “This mod removes every imperial from the game, effectively breaking the game, just like how valve broke the modding community.” Funnily enough there’s also a banner on the page noting that the mod is ‘incompatible’ with the game of Skyrim right now.
The mod has gotten a lot of five-star ratings from people even though it hasn’t been downloaded an awful lot (well, would you download a mod that is meant to break your game?). This has pushed it to the top of the popular mods list and gotten it a good amount of attention. Which again, I suppose was the point.
Never let it be said that the Internet can’t be creative in their unquestionable dislike of an unpopular change to something they love.
