ExecutusPrime

The idea, in theory, was not without merit. I do believe that for mods that are well supported, take a significant investment of time to develop and debug, and/or include a significant amount of original content, are worth compensating the mod author for (within reason). We compensate Bethesda for original content in a similar way (granted to a greater extreme), and to deny mod authors who invest significantly in their work the same consideration (whether it be because of our ideals, familiarity with the authors, or our perception of their level of professionalism) is hypocritical. We should also keep in mind many of these same authors may be compromised financially, for whatever reason (inability to work, inability to find work, etc). For a lot of people it doesn't occur to them that one of the reasons why a mod author is able to so readily and consistently attend to questions and debug support may be because they aren't able to find regular work to begin with. After carefully considering the possibilities, to me, inane statements like "If you want to get paid, why don't you get a real job??" come across as painfully tone deaf. I would be equally justified by turning around and replying with something like "Well, if you can't afford a mod that costs $1.50, maybe you should....get a job yourself?" So in a nutshell, I can see the logic behind the original decision, the issue was timing and implementation. Skyrim is well past it's prime and far and away from it's last meaningful development phase. Third party mod tools are easy to come by now, as well as documentation on how to use them. As a consequence we are pretty saturated with Skyrim mods in general (and not just ones on the Nexus). Spurring demand by exclusivity to generate revenue is just not going to be an effective venture when it comes to Skyrim. If someone can't or doesn't want to pay for a mod on Steam, there are likely a handful on the Nexus that can do something similiar. In other cases the individual may simply elect to make a similar free mod themselves. There are of course exceptions, but they are in the heavy minority. In addition, many dependencies between the more complicated mods have developed (which in many cases are made by different mod teams) and become integrated into one another, to the point where the removal of one would significantly reduce the functionality of the other (if not make it unusable altogether). The transient nature of some mod authors also contributes to the issue (some are here seasonally because of other obligations), and makes it harder to tell who is still active on the sites, and keeping track of who added what features to what mod, etc. This makes a pretty mess when someone comes to an author seeking support for an issue likely caused by an incompatibility with another mod, or someone who is previously a mod author of a feature on Mod A decides to pursue intellectual property rights infringement against someone else who implemented it on Mod B, etc. The point is that I think if the decision to do this came about a month after the Creation Kit's release and not YEARS afterward, these issues which are now at the forefront of the discussion about paid mods wouldn't be nearly as significant. And no, I don't think the phenomenon of people paying for Skyrim mods, wholly unto itself, will destroy the modding community here at the Nexus or anywhere else. What can and *will* eventually destroy the modding community (and for that matter ANY community), is ironically what was exposed shortly after the paid mods hit Steam. If you've read the forums and mod threads of authors who opted in on Steam Workshop microtransactions, you already have a good idea of what I'm talking about. It's been a long time since I've seen that much vitriol directed towards individuals who don't happen to be career felons. And no, I'm not new to the internet...and the fact that 'everyone does it' and 'everyone has to put up with it' is in no way validation for verbal abuse. Doesn't matter who does it, it needs to go. Dividing ourselves up as 'users' and 'authors' and the namebranding needs to end as well. Fancy yourself as a 'user'? Well, at any given moment you could open the CK and decide to become an author. Authors could at any moment decide to try out someone else's mod and become a user. They are both sides of the same coin and you can't have one without the other. Differentiating between the two is pointless. Whether authors are entitled to compensation for their efforts or users are inherently entitled to free mods isn't the point that needs to be made. The point(s) that need(s) to be made is(are) that 1. Money doesn't divide/destroy people/communities or burn bridges, people do. 2. Even though we may never agree to whether authors are entitled compensation or not, we should all agree that we are *all* entitled to respect. Show how important this community is to you by showing respect to it's members, no matter who they may be.