Valve and Bethesda have agreed to remove the controversial feature allowing players to charge for mods in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

In a post on their site, Bethesda said: “After discussion with Valve, and listening to our community, paid mods are being removed from Steam Workshop. Even though we had the best intentions, the feedback has been clear – this is not a feature you want. Your support means everything to us, and we hear you.”

In a community post, Valve noted that anyone who paid for a mod will be refunded in full. They went on to explain why they were removing the feature: “We’ve done this because it’s clear we didn’t understand exactly what we were doing. We’ve been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they’ve been received well. It’s obvious now that this case is different.

“To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities.” Valve added. “We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free & paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it.

“We underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim’s workshop.”

Valve noted that there were some good features involved in the scheme, but admits they made mistakes in their approach to introducing the idea into an already established modding community such as Skyrim.

What are your thoughts on this U-turn?