Iron Gate mentioned recently they've been getting many questions on their stance of modding Valheim, so they wrote a post to give their thoughts including the subject of paid mods.
Valheim doesn't actually have official modding support but that's never really stopped anyone has it? Mods help keep games alive for years after developer move on, so it's pretty much always a good idea to support it.
In their post on their official site (and also Steam), Iron Gate mentioned how they're "happy" to see people make mods and they find it "flattering" people wish to do it, however by not having official support they're not giving any kind of guarantees that mods will work between releases - so you do so at your own risk.
On the subject of paid mods though? They're not particularly happy about that as they do "not condone locking modded content behind a paywall" and they feel that charging money for a mod "is against the creative and open spirit of modding itself, and therefore we urge all mod authors to make their mods freely available to all who want to play them". They have no problem with donations but they don't want to see any part of a mod behind a paywall.
Additionally, they're asking mod creators to ensure they make it clear that their work is unofficial.
Every developer will likely feel different about this, as will a fair amount of gamers. How do you feel about paid mods?
Valheim is available to buy on Humble Store or Steam. It has Native Linux support and it is Steam Deck Verified.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
SirBubbles May 31, 2023
Modding is by nature a community effort built around open-ness and shared collaboration. Can't and shouldn't close off any of that behind a paywall, and there might be legal messes behind making an unofficial mod a commercial product, as others have noted.
If some mod was creating some original content for the game of course the mod creator would have to be paid somehow, if the mod was Free/Libre Software I wouldnt mind paying for the mod.
The stance that says "we can make tons of money but you can't" feels so unfair to mod developers who honestly on the subject of Valheim do often a better job at adressing players issues than themselves.
I call for disobeying their stance and to not care, and that if there was a Free/Libre Software mod that I value I would definitely pay for it. Gifting additional copies of Valheim to friends seems like it does nothing to this game, better give money to the mods developers that actually keep this game alive like e.g. ValheimPlus.
It's a bit weird they talk about how selling mods isnt right while they're selling their game €20 a copy while it's in early access and honestly barely invest anything back to it considering how many times it was sold and how buggy/slow it is.That seems a bit much. 20 is not that expensive for a game. If people didn't think it was worth it, they could . . . not buy it. But lots and lots of people have, even though the Valheim folks have no marketing muscle to persuade them with. And they are perhaps not amazing optimizers but they do seem to have continued working on the game, adding quite a bit of free content, options and whatnot.
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