The economy of paid mods

[Katowska]

Hello Nexus

I'm katowska, an avid gamer and fan of Skyrim and it's modding community. Due to the recent debate on paid mods, i made a post on the steam workshop, debating the economy of the issue. I will post the same thread here, just to see what people has to say about it.

Also, i'm new to these forums, so if i break some rules, wack me and ill fix whatever i did.

-------- Steam Workshop Post --------

 

Pretty much every Dragonborn has by now heard about the paid mods that Valve & Bethesda has released, and already now some mods are available for purchase in the workshop. A lot of discussions have already popped up whit various reasons, though I have not seen one going into detail about the finance itself.

 

So, I took a look upon myself to see how much I theoretically would end up paying for my mods.

I will start by looking at how much I would end up paying for mods through various services, and under different circumstances.

As a second objective, I will also look at how much money some mod makers have made, and how much they could end up getting if they would reach the same subscription numbers for their older, free editions.

 

All data was collected from steam workshop and skyrim nexus at the 26’Th of April 2015, 11pm GMT +2

 

-- Mod Consumer --

For calculating the price of what buying mods would cost me, I found the average price of the mods in the steam workshop. For 17 mods, the average cost where 1, 97 €

 

Then I counted how many mod I had subscribed to through steam workshop, and through the skyrim nexus. I created 3 groups, whit the steam workshop alone, whit nexus alone and whit both combined. Then I calculated how much I would need to pay if 100%, 50% and 10% of those mods where pay to play.

 

Mod Portal --- no. of mods -- Price 100% -- Price 50% -- Price 10%

Workshop 17 33, 49 € 16, 75 € 3, 45 €

Nexus 67 131, 99 € 65, 99 € 13, 2 €

Both Portals 84 165, 48 € 82, 74 € 16, 5 €

 

As one can see, depending on how many mods you have, and how many mods could be paid to play, it could quickly end up in a costly affair. I wouldn't mind dropping 5€ for a modpack for skyrim, as I have paid more for DLC's that have given me less. However, should all mods end up being paid for, even whit a price less than 2€ per mod, I could quickly end up paying for an entire game on my own through the steam workshop. If the nexus where to join in on the craze (to prevent people from migrating to the steam workshop) it could theoretically end up snowballing out of control

 

-- Mod Creator --

So why would the modders do this? In this part, I look at how much money there is to be made from this arrangement, and how much they already have made in this rather short time span. For this I will take the amount of subscribers on 2 different mods that has both a paid edition and a free, lesser edition somewhere on the internet.

 

For the first mods, I look at how much money the Midas Magic Gold edition paid mod have sold for whit its current price, in comparison to how much it's free edition, Midas magic Evolved (Nexus) could have sold for for the same price of.

For the second mods, I look at how much money the Wet and Cold paid mod (2'nd edit) have sold for whit its current price, in comparison to how much it's free edition (Steam Workshop - 1,1) could have sold for for the average price of mods. In both cases, I also calculate for how much the creator gets from his 25% share. Be mindful that the free editions are theoretical numbers of what the Modder could get from the mod, if people had to pay for it. They are there for a comparison!

 

Mod Type whit price -- No. of Subscriptions -- Total revenue -- Modder revenue (25% of total)

MME Free (5, 49 €) 58 141 319 194, 09 € 79 798, 52 €

MMGe Paid (5, 49 €) 568 2 550, 32 € 637, 58 €

W&C Free (1, 97 €) 176 793 348 282, 21 € 87 070, 55 €

W&C Paid (4, 59€) 629 2 887, 11 € 721, 78 €

 

A quick glance on the numbers reveals why paid mods from Valve and Bethesda are a fairly sound business practice. There's simply a lot of revenue to gain from the mod market, especially if you could end up reaching the same numbers as the free editions. For the modders, it's also tempting, as a lot of money can be made from this, despite only getting 1/4'th of the total cut, and so far, both modders examined here has made +600 € from selling their mods, in the few days that paid mods have existed.

 

I'm not aware of how the modders will be taxed for this, but there's no doubt that the economic incentive in the monetary gains, will push the pro pay agenda, at least enough to continue existing into the future.

 

Bias warning: I'm somewhat against the idea of paid mods, and I can see good points on both sides.