Valve Wants to Sell PC-Made L4D2 Mods on XBL..and Give Proceeds to Creators

[DoctorFinger]

Lets see. A post about Left 4 Dead 2, the merits of downloadable content, IP rights as they relate to user-created content, the console vs PC war and Microsoft's stranglehold over what does and does not end up on Xbox Live. Is there anything I could possibly add to the mix in this story to inflame passions more?

Valve is talking - once again - about the prospect of getting user-created mods for Left 4 Dead 2 onto the hard drives of Xbox 360 gamers. But since Microsoft generally doesn't allow much in the way of free content onto Xbox Live, Valve would have to charge something for the content. So they say they would toss the proceeds from those mythical sales back to the creators of the content. "One of the things I'm thinking about is how we work within that [Xbox Live] system," said Valve's Yasser Mailaka, "and one of the things I'd like to do is to allow these modules that are being released on PC to somehow integrate with Microsoft's system."

"We'll have to filter them, we can't allow any copyrighted materials, so it's going to have to go through a process. But we're hoping perhaps we can shepherd the really popular campaigns onto 360. And you know, if they are a paid system, perhaps that could go back to the authors. I think that would be a great story."Here's the problem. I write a story about every six weeks or so about some developer or another - Valve, Bethesda, Epic, Media Molecule, etc, etc - who float the idea of letting creative gamers sell their created content across either Xbox Live or the Playstation Network. And to date the only ones who have stepped up to the plate in this regard are EA and Harmonix with the Rock Band Network. It's a wonderful thought, but until someone actually does it (for something other than a rhythm game), don't get your hopes up too high.

Sources - OXM UK (http://www.oxm.co.uk/article.php?id=13640); Joystiq (http://www.joystiq.com/2009/09/09/valve-seeks-to-bring-pc-players-left-4-dead-2-mods-to-360/).

[Mike Kelehan]

Honestly, I like the idea of paying a few bucks for good content over a Little Big Planet model where everything's free and 99.8% of it is useless. It's a question of time versus money.

[Hemalin]

I'm sure Valve will get around to it right after they get the TF2 updates out on the 360.

[Telefrog]

I'm sure Valve will get around to it right after they get the TF2 updates out on the 360.

Yeah... This is a pipe dream. User made content being sold on Live is just not going to happen in any kind of volume. Think about how many versions of L4D files there are for some of the more popular campaigns. Imagine MS geting those patches through cert. Not gonna happen.

[Suave Peanut]

Well why not? Rock Band is doing it.

[Widgetcraft]

Yeah... This is a pipe dream. User made content being sold on Live is just not going to happen in any kind of volume. Think about how many versions of L4D files there are for some of the more popular campaigns. Imagine MS geting those patches through cert. Not gonna happen.

Agreed, amateur modders need to be able to update their stuff constantly. They don't have the resources to test and polish the mods nearly as fast as they'd need to for this to work. Unless Valve wants to dedicate play testing and troubleshooting time to the campaigns they release.

[Ondo]

Agreed, amateur modders need to be able to update their stuff constantly. They don't have the resources to test and polish the mods nearly as fast as they'd need to for this to work. Unless Valve wants to dedicate play testing and troubleshooting time to the campaigns they release.
If its on the Xbox, it'd have the same peer review process as XNA Indie games and the Rock Band Network, which should at least help.

And if they're just moving over the really popular ones, they can wait until they've already done a lot of iterations on the PC and have a solid version before worrying about the Xbox.

[RandoM51]

Creating a track for Rockband is trivial compared to creating a mod for something like L4D, at least in terms of mechanics. Even limited to just mapmaking there is an almost endless number of mistakes you can make that will break the mod and/or the game itself.

The more complex it is, the harder it is to test. When was the last time they had to patch a Rockband track because it was crashing machines? In an FPS mod you could have a number of entities tied together that only cause a crash situation when they're triggered in a specific order and/or under a specfiic condition. You simply can't test for all of those. You release it knowing that a few situations like that are probably still possible and you keep yourself ready to fix/patch them quickly as the playerbase discovers them, usually inadvertently.

Live can't really work that way and still remain as solid as it is. All the rules Microsoft has that often seem silly are just part of keeping the service as stable as possible, as homogeneous as possible. Keeps support costs down and makes for a better customer experience.

[Kelegacy]

So it's free to PC gamers and costs console gamers. I wish the console world was more like the PC more and more lately.

[Yeti2005]

This could work if they took the Xbox Indie games route and let the content be monitored by the community. That's what the Rock Band Network is doing.

[total]

So it's free to PC gamers and costs console gamers. I wish the console world was more like the PC more and more lately.

Valve games have always been superior on the PC. This isn't something new.

[digitalErich]

But, but MS told us we would be able to sell our content over Live, remember?

In in the face of lots of fanboy protest I called bullshit back then and so far MS hasn't proved me wrong. I can't see even Valve getting MS to budge on this. If part of the money isn't going to them, MS doesn't want it on Live.

[Yeti2005]

But, but MS told us we would be able to sell our content over Live, remember?

In in the face of lots of fanboy protest I called bullshit back then and so far MS hasn't proved me wrong. I can't see even Valve getting MS to budge on this. If part of the money isn't going to them, MS doesn't want it on Live.

Creating Indie Games allow you to sell content for money on Live. It might not have a big audience yet but it's possible.

[Kielaran]

But, but MS told us we would be able to sell our content over Live, remember?

In in the face of lots of fanboy protest I called bullshit back then and so far MS hasn't proved me wrong. I can't see even Valve getting MS to budge on this. If part of the money isn't going to them, MS doesn't want it on Live.

How wouldn't part of the money go to MS? Between the general tax of MS points plus whatever percent cut they take on all DLC, MS would get its cut.

[ElektroDragon]

Yeah... This is a pipe dream. User made content being sold on Live is just not going to happen in any kind of volume. Think about how many versions of L4D files there are for some of the more popular campaigns. Imagine MS geting those patches through cert. Not gonna happen.

But this was the original concept behind VelocityGirl! Am I the ONLY one who remembers VelocityGirl?? This should happen. MS can hire more people to cert test, thus helping my local economy. MS can take a cut of the profits to pay for the new jobs and, to make a general profit, then give the rest to content creators. Even if its only a 10% cut, that could generate mega money for some talented folks. EVERYBODY wins.

[Wolvie]

Creating Indie Games allow you to sell content for money on Live. It might not have a big audience yet but it's possible.

This. MS gives you the tools, you create the game MS and publishes the games for you, and gives you some of the proceeds. I think the same model could be used for user created DLC on 360.

[mightbe]

Those money grubbing bastards! We should boycott them.