However, from my point of view, most mods are not seen or developed as products to be marketed. Most are work of love, personal projects, team projects. Fans getting together to fix a buggy but otherwise good game. In that sense, those developer couldn't care less about the fact that the game company is providing the game for free... they are fans, and all that they want is to make something cool. They add content to existing games for the sake of making the experience better.

Those are the ones that would rather work for free than being insulted by a 25% cut.

I believe the modders should get the majority of the pie. Steam should only get a cut for the hosting, support and mod store. The game company should only get a small cut. They already get a community and free content creators from the modding community. They shouldn't expect to make money out of thin air.

Should EA get money from old Battlefield 2 mods? Should Bohemia Interactive get money from Arma 1 mods? In my eyes, no. The only reason people are still playing those games is because of the modding community. Do take advantage of the presence of those players. Create events, contests, hire modders to create official content. But don't simply get the big part of the pie for simply being the creator of a game you don't even support, release bug fixes or content for.

That being said, I understand that there is a legal side to all of this and the game company must still get money for the use of their game. I however believe that 25% is too small a cut for the modder.