Patronage program?

[Keundt]

During the Steam/paid mods crisis, all I could think about was how paid mods could work.

 

Here is something that the Nexus could do:
Add $2.50/month to the premium membership, or have a separate patronage program. The $2.50 would be used for the first 250 mods in the load order (most people wouldn't have that many, anyway), giving $0.01 each. Any leftover would go to a priority fund, rearranging the order by file size, so any big mods would get an extra cent or two.

 

Below is a quote of a thread I tried to post on Steam discussion forums, but got an error. Numbers 3 and 7 apply to the Nexus, and number 6 can be solved by the patronage program. There is also $0.50 on the Steam suggested amount ($5.00) which accommodated for unoriginal content (inspired from other mods and copyright), as well as $1.00 for Steam and $1.00 for Bethesda.

 

 

I am not going to get into details on all of the mistakes that Steam/Bethesda made during the first attempt. I'm going to be constructive with this thread, so everything below are suggestions.

1) Improve the royalties.

This is the first and (I assume to be) the most simple improvement. No more than 15% for Steam and Bethesda. That much is enough to make decent passive profits. Like most online programs like Kobo, Amazon, etc., royalties should be around 70%. Any less is absurd.

2) Implement a peer-review system!

IMVU uses a peer-review system. Peer reviewers help to identify the modder, and to prevent plagiarism and copyright. This could have prevented many of the issues experienced in the first attempt, such as using existing mods to make profits before original uploaders, and mods coming from the Nexus that were not on Steam before. Speaking of...

3) Incorporate the Nexus!

This was a no-brainer. The majority of Skyrim's modding community uses the Nexus, I assume because of its installer. Steam/Bethesda was not the least smart to not consider communicating with the people at the Nexus.

4) If prices were market-based: benchmark prices.

The first phase of a market is usually setting price ranges. The problem with this market, though, is that selling mods has never been done on a broad scale. At this point, only virtual worlds like Second Life and IMVU, (and I think DOTA 2 and TF2?) have marketable user-generated content. Steam could have hired some people to research and recommend some prices based on their content types/ranges (single sword vs weapon pack, modified questline vs single quest vs expansive questline, etc).

5) Accommodate for unoriginal content other than Bethesda's and Steam's.

Something that I think is a wonderful fix to the whole copyright issue in society (I'm Canadian, but US decisions still affect us - something which we should have a say in anyway, but oh well), organizations such as Steam, Youtube, etc. should stop censoring everything and start monetizing. A simple 10% is all it takes. Uploaders would be responsible for referring content, but a simple flag system would work, too. This system would also work for mods which come out of or are inspired by previous mods.

6) Accommodate for mechanical/technical mods.

Some mods are not meant to be paid for. Any mods that are not art-based are in this category, most especially patches and compatibility mods. The work that modders put into these mods/patches should also be rewarded, but not through a market. All I can think about is a tax on all of the mods that are art-based, which would reduce the royalties, but we could keep it at 10% (60% royalties? 50% with content affiliate program). This suggestion sparked the idea for the next one...

7) Subscription?

One of the main issues with the previous suggestion is that all of the modders responsible for technical mods would have to rely on the art content economy. If those mods were not selling, they too would experience losses on the income stream. A subscription program seems to be an easy fix, and I would support it. The average mod load for mod-using Skyrim players is approximately 80-180 (my estimation). If Steam used a subscription model (access pass or patronage?), the price could be $5.00 per month. $1.00 for Steam, $1.00 for Bethesda, $0.50 for unoriginal content, and $2.50 for mods. The subscription would account for the first 250 mods on the load order, because $0.01 is the lowest you can go.

My suggestion for the distribution of the $2.50 would be to first give $0.01 to each mod in the load order up to 250. Then I would sort the mods by size, and give $0.01 for the rest of what is left. For example, if you have 140 mods installed, all of the mods would receive $0.01, followed by the top 110 ranked by file size. It is not the most fair system, but it's close enough. Generally, if a mod is big, it probably had a lot of work put into it. Mods like Falskaar would always get their 2 cents. If your goal is to make $3000 a month (the income I wish I had), your aim would be to have at least 300,000 people using your mod for the 1 cent. If you were Alexander J. Velicky, the person who uploaded Falskaar, you would be generating at least $9390.06 each month (Nexus numbers), plus the 400mb file would usually get the priority bonus, generating approximately $4000 each month (my estimate). $13000+ is enough to satisfy the modder and to fund for any of the contributors who voice acted, etc.

Comments away. Suggest anything if you feel like I missed something. Also suggest any changes to my suggestions if you'd like.

Edited June 14, 2015 by Keundt

[micalov]

Its been discussed to death on the mod authors forum and some one contacted Beth specifically about it and the answer was no from what I recall.