Protest Mods Surface on Skyrim's Paid Mod Feature

Yesterday, we have learned that Steam has released its Paid Mods feature so modders can make a little extra income on the side.

Well, as expected, the feature has not been received well. Since yesterday, we have learned that modders have only been taking 25% of the cut, whereas Valve/Bethesda received 75%. Secondly, we discovered that a mod was taken down earlier by the author, because he used assets that belonged to a different modder. Thirdly and at the time of this article, 62,260 signatures litter a petition to have the Paid Mods completely removed.

And now, we can take a gander at the faux "protest mods" that have hit the Steam Workshop. This is a little less serious and a little more hilarious.

There has since been an army of "protest mods" that come with high prices and very little content in order to combat Valve's Paid Mods feature. Here are just a few of them:

Rubbish! ($2.49) - Six exciting pieces of rubbish are added to The Bannered Bare floor as you enter. Includes items such as the blood rag, soul gem shard, plate, burned book, fork, and an empty skooma bottle.

Extra Apple ($29.99) - Erm... yes, it's exactly that. You get an extra apple added to the counter in the Bannered Mare. There has been one update since release, where the apple stands upright. The price was originally $0.25, but it increased for this reason:

"Due to the immense amount of time I have taken to produce this update and also the increased immersion provided, I have raised the price of the mod from .25 cents to $29.99. I thank you for your continued support."

At least there are some planned future updates such as:

• Custom modeling, animation, and voice acting for the extra apple
• Adding more than one apple to the counter, possibly two or even three extra apples
• Massive overhaul to every single gameplay system that there is no way I can feasibly develop
• A New Lands section of the game featuring a fully voiced 50 hour questline based on my awesome story idea I had in class last Tuesday
• As per user demand, production has begun on a green apple. This update will take many months, if not years to develop, so I appreciate your patience.
• And last, but certainly not least: Reduced loading times for Grand Theft Auto V Online.

Modding (Weapons and Armor) isn't Free in Skyrim!:

Basically the mod adds a 100 gold fee to the modding of all vanilla items. 75% of the gold is split between the owner of your workbench or sharpening stone and the jarl of the nearest hold. The other 25% goes to the author of "Tempering for Dummies."

Steam Main Menu Replacer: To celebrate paid mods on steam, here's a brand new main menu screen, with a Steam theme!

These mods are currently under review, so they may be rejected. Still funny though. Do you think these protest mods will help alert Valve, since the mods are currently policed by the community?

(Source: PC Gamer)