Alexotero1219

And the games DID have free mods, they still do. With CC, you will only see NEW content. No 'parts' of mods, or anything else of that nature. Apparently, it IS possible for beth to learn something. (astounding as that revelation is......) Yup. Mod authors have put out some truly amazing stuff, all on their own, now, just think what they will be able to do working WITH Beth. Your predictions of gloom and doom have zero basis in fact, and are just your opinion, meaningless. You can no more predict the future than I can. I already told you what they would do. They will Bethesda-ize mods. Lower their features and quality to work with consoles. In the end it will result in bland content that is afraid to experiment and try new things. Profitability > Innovation Yeah, like Shivering Isles, that just sucked. The production of quality free mods slowed to basically a halt the day after beth announced the first paid mods attempt. That should tell you something. Also I will still see $1.99 bow mod for skyrim on the CC (but i have to buy todd tokens so ill need to spend 5usd to get the bow) again the major issues consumers had with the curated workshop are still there with the creation club. What? Nobody released a major mod for two whole days? Wow. It's the end of the world...... Yeah, I am not a fan of the 'credits' thing, and I am quite sure that the scenario you describe is EXACTLY why beth did it that way. They get cash when you buy the credits, and it is rather unlikely that you will find a mod set that will permit you to burn all of them, therefore, they get 'free money'...... I DO disagree with that.. but, I don't plan on buying anything anyway. :smile: Unless it is something on par with Shivering isles....... I am happy to just sit back, watch, and see what happens. Not like I get a lot of choice in the matter, eh? It may crash and burn, or, it may be the next best thing since sliced bread. The biggest thing here is, we just don't know. At least give it a chance. (again, like we have a choice.....) Well the entire endeavor only lasted 2 days lol. Yeah you are right that we don't have a choice in the matter part of me just wishes bethesda (or more likely zenimax) would have done focus or something. Consulted with the consumer in someway before doing this. Honestly I would love to see mod authors employed by bethesda to make DLC. Like real DLC (read skyrim DLC that takes you to stros m'kai and some islands on hammerfell with functional sailing mechanics like the witcher and professionally made throwing weapons) if that was what the creation club was far I would gladly pay 20-30 dollars for that provided it gave me around far harbour/dragon born hours of content. They could even do mini games i guess. Like you make a new character thats in hammerfell not the dragonborn so they dont have to mess too much with canon. This would also mean that beth would really only be hiring the best of the best because they want to keep people buying more expansions until TES6 or fallout 5 while also making improvements to the base game as part of developing the dlcs. I wouldn't just be OK with that I would be head over heels hyped for that. But alas the limit of bethesda's vision is apparently bow micro transactions.

And the games DID have free mods, they still do. With CC, you will only see NEW content. No 'parts' of mods, or anything else of that nature. Apparently, it IS possible for beth to learn something. (astounding as that revelation is......) Yup. Mod authors have put out some truly amazing stuff, all on their own, now, just think what they will be able to do working WITH Beth. Your predictions of gloom and doom have zero basis in fact, and are just your opinion, meaningless. You can no more predict the future than I can. I already told you what they would do. They will Bethesda-ize mods. Lower their features and quality to work with consoles. In the end it will result in bland content that is afraid to experiment and try new things. Profitability > Innovation Yeah, like Shivering Isles, that just sucked. The production of quality free mods slowed to basically a halt the day after beth announced the first paid mods attempt. That should tell you something. Also I will still see $1.99 bow mod for skyrim on the CC (but i have to buy todd tokens so ill need to spend 5usd to get the bow) again the major issues consumers had with the curated workshop are still there with the creation club.

Are we living in the same reality? The arts in this day and age are sheet. Everything is done by a formula to maximize profits. Movies are judged by how much cash they rake in. How many Mummy, Beauty and the Beast remakes do you need to see? Don't even get me started on music... Inject money into mods and have them filtered , curated and Bethesda-ized , what do you think will happen? Do you think they will push the envelope and come up with something outside of the formula? They have systematically dumbed down the franchise for maximum profitability. I don't think they are capable of being innovative anymore, I believe this is part of the reason they want to hijack our community. It takes modders like Kinggath to fix their profit driven after thought of a settlement system. It takes the Unofficial Patch crew to touch up and fix bugs that Bethesda to this day will not fix. Its all about money now with them. The artistry of gaming only exists for the grunts doing the actual art and even they are stifled and their creativity forced into a mold. You can be a negative pessimist to your hearts content, completely neglecting all the great works of art that has been made just to make it seem like you got a point. I need only point to the fact that you're here discussing video games and enjoying all types of media and it should be clear as day that you're an unrealistic hypocrite only pushing an agenda. So to answer your question; no, we don't live in the same reality. I am just dealing in facts, I don't think any thinking person would disagree that we are in a Dark Age when it comes to artistic expression.. I am sure there are plenty who think Harry Potter is a great work of literature and that Kanye West is indeed the greatest artist of all time, but I would hope they are a minority.. Bottom line, our modding community has nothing to gain from the intrusion of Bethesda. They have shown us what they are offering. $1 weapons and $5 Crab Armor. Until I see something else from them I will be a pessimist because they have a history to live down. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...I won't get fooled again." - GW Bush Our community is releasing incredible content now without their help. None of you sellouts has yet to say what exactly the community has to gain from this. Its all about what Modders wallets will gain. You're confusing facts with your own personal views and hyperbole opinions. You might be unwilling to look at alle the positives but I think it's sad that you'd go as far as wanting to destroy something so potetially rewarding - not only for mod authors but for users too - just out of spite. And what exactly are we risking if it fails? Nothing. But you're not afraid of failure, you're afraid of paid mods succeeding. Because in your mind that translates to just the same quality of mods except now you got to pay for them, as if having to pay for work is a legitimate reason to be against it in the first place. But if we're being realistic rather than a bunch of pessimistic doomsayers it is a whole lot more likely that money and the responsbility it intails will lead to higher quality mods developed by more professional "modders" who would never work for free. This is the only fact that matters: You are entitled to nothing. "Our community" as you put it will be whatever we as individual modders make it out to be and only a hypocrite would pretend to dictate what is best for us as a collective. Paid mods is only a choice that each individual mod author can choose to pursue, and if you're against people making a choice then you should seriously reconsider your position. Yes and what are the benefits for users? We get the privilege of getting fleeced by Bethesda? Please lay it out for me. You can't because there are no benefits. Yes there are. More official content, yes, that you have to pay for, that does not eat into your mod space, doesn't come with any restrictions, and, for the PS4 crowd, can use external assets. It is, quite literally, Official DLC. No one is forcing you to buy it, no one is even forcing you to look at it. However, there just might be some really good content made available, for small price. There really is NO downside here. If you don't want the content, don't buy it. Did you buy Horse Armor for Oblivion? When you didn't, did a beth employee come to your house, and put a bullet in the back of your head? No? Ok, so, where is the problem? We have great content now. Why should PS4 users have to pay for content that everyone else has? Why should other users have to pay so Ps4 Users can get content? Shouldn't Bethesda be eating that if they want it so bad? They are the ones who promised them content, not me. And I saw no evidence of DLC. I saw swords and armor for sale. That's it. They didn't even bother to try and provide a scale of DLC. I think we saw exactly what we are getting. Paid mods to mainly fleece Ps4 users but it will hit us all. PS4 folks are being screwed by Sony. Not beth, not zenimax, not mod authors. They should know exactly who to blame by now. And no one at beth works for free. They are in business to make money. Not give stuff away for free. Once again, that is on Sony. That was a demo. Likely not even 'real' content. And even if that is all 'we' get, how does it hurt anyone at all? If the PS4 folks want it, they can get it, if you don't want it, you don't have to. Thank You! Someone that 'gets it'. CC is NOT going to be the end of free modding. It simply is. not. It can't be. Not only for the reasons pointed out by the destroyed spacecraft, but also because without free mods, beths pool of potential authors immediately dries up. I will grant that beth has made some less-than-appealing decisions in the past, but, I don't find it very likely that they are really looking to fall on their own swords. And what is keeping them bound to this? They have lied over promised many many times. There is no reason for me to believe their words, especially when it doesn't match what they present to the public. I will grant that they don't have the best rep, but, you CAN bet that they are going to do what is in their own best interests. If they dispose of free modding, their labor pool immediately dries up, and CC becomes useless. Do you really think they are that stupid? we already waited and saw. It was called the steam curated workshop. Totally different situation here. The steam workshop was open to anyone that wanted to upload their version of Horse Armor. CC is going to have an EXTREMELY limited participation rate. Less than .1% of mod authors will likely ever be involved. That leaves the other 99.9% cranking out free stuff. If you'll recall most people were not upset because anyone could upload to the curated workshop. Most people were upset because they were being charged for food retextures and bow mods. The core issues haven't changed in the slightest honestly. At least it doesn't seem like they have at all. And anyone paying for those only had themselves to blame. What is so hard to understand about "If you don't want it, DON'T BUY IT."??????? The REASON you were seeing idiocy like that, is BECAUSE it was open to anyone. And as I recall, most folks were upset simply because mod authors could put their mods behind a paywall, regardless of quality, or content. The 'always been free, always should be free' folks raised quite a stink. Gabe folded under pressure. I don't think Beth is going to. Thats exactly what ive been saying. People wont pay for small content additions no matter how high quality. Very few people are going to pay money so they can have one bow added into the game even if its a really good bow. On the flipside its very possible that this paid mods attempt will have a similar effect on the community as the last one and all so mod authors can make next to nothing from it. Most folks were mad because beth advertised their games as having quality free mods and sold them on that premise. Then secretly went around and started talking with mod authors privately setting up a paid mods scheme then those same authors did exactly what beth did and advertised part of their mods as free then turned around and put them behind a paywall. This new attempt is basically the exact same thing as the old attempt except maybe you wont see funny memes like "literally nothing just pay me money" on the creation club this time around.

Are we living in the same reality? The arts in this day and age are sheet. Everything is done by a formula to maximize profits. Movies are judged by how much cash they rake in. How many Mummy, Beauty and the Beast remakes do you need to see? Don't even get me started on music... Inject money into mods and have them filtered , curated and Bethesda-ized , what do you think will happen? Do you think they will push the envelope and come up with something outside of the formula? They have systematically dumbed down the franchise for maximum profitability. I don't think they are capable of being innovative anymore, I believe this is part of the reason they want to hijack our community. It takes modders like Kinggath to fix their profit driven after thought of a settlement system. It takes the Unofficial Patch crew to touch up and fix bugs that Bethesda to this day will not fix. Its all about money now with them. The artistry of gaming only exists for the grunts doing the actual art and even they are stifled and their creativity forced into a mold. You can be a negative pessimist to your hearts content, completely neglecting all the great works of art that has been made just to make it seem like you got a point. I need only point to the fact that you're here discussing video games and enjoying all types of media and it should be clear as day that you're an unrealistic hypocrite only pushing an agenda. So to answer your question; no, we don't live in the same reality. I am just dealing in facts, I don't think any thinking person would disagree that we are in a Dark Age when it comes to artistic expression.. I am sure there are plenty who think Harry Potter is a great work of literature and that Kanye West is indeed the greatest artist of all time, but I would hope they are a minority.. Bottom line, our modding community has nothing to gain from the intrusion of Bethesda. They have shown us what they are offering. $1 weapons and $5 Crab Armor. Until I see something else from them I will be a pessimist because they have a history to live down. "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice...I won't get fooled again." - GW Bush Our community is releasing incredible content now without their help. None of you sellouts has yet to say what exactly the community has to gain from this. Its all about what Modders wallets will gain. You're confusing facts with your own personal views and hyperbole opinions. You might be unwilling to look at alle the positives but I think it's sad that you'd go as far as wanting to destroy something so potetially rewarding - not only for mod authors but for users too - just out of spite. And what exactly are we risking if it fails? Nothing. But you're not afraid of failure, you're afraid of paid mods succeeding. Because in your mind that translates to just the same quality of mods except now you got to pay for them, as if having to pay for work is a legitimate reason to be against it in the first place. But if we're being realistic rather than a bunch of pessimistic doomsayers it is a whole lot more likely that money and the responsbility it intails will lead to higher quality mods developed by more professional "modders" who would never work for free. This is the only fact that matters: You are entitled to nothing. "Our community" as you put it will be whatever we as individual modders make it out to be and only a hypocrite would pretend to dictate what is best for us as a collective. Paid mods is only a choice that each individual mod author can choose to pursue, and if you're against people making a choice then you should seriously reconsider your position. Yes and what are the benefits for users? We get the privilege of getting fleeced by Bethesda? Please lay it out for me. You can't because there are no benefits. Yes there are. More official content, yes, that you have to pay for, that does not eat into your mod space, doesn't come with any restrictions, and, for the PS4 crowd, can use external assets. It is, quite literally, Official DLC. No one is forcing you to buy it, no one is even forcing you to look at it. However, there just might be some really good content made available, for small price. There really is NO downside here. If you don't want the content, don't buy it. Did you buy Horse Armor for Oblivion? When you didn't, did a beth employee come to your house, and put a bullet in the back of your head? No? Ok, so, where is the problem? We have great content now. Why should PS4 users have to pay for content that everyone else has? Why should other users have to pay so Ps4 Users can get content? Shouldn't Bethesda be eating that if they want it so bad? They are the ones who promised them content, not me. And I saw no evidence of DLC. I saw swords and armor for sale. That's it. They didn't even bother to try and provide a scale of DLC. I think we saw exactly what we are getting. Paid mods to mainly fleece Ps4 users but it will hit us all. PS4 folks are being screwed by Sony. Not beth, not zenimax, not mod authors. They should know exactly who to blame by now. And no one at beth works for free. They are in business to make money. Not give stuff away for free. Once again, that is on Sony. That was a demo. Likely not even 'real' content. And even if that is all 'we' get, how does it hurt anyone at all? If the PS4 folks want it, they can get it, if you don't want it, you don't have to. Thank You! Someone that 'gets it'. CC is NOT going to be the end of free modding. It simply is. not. It can't be. Not only for the reasons pointed out by the destroyed spacecraft, but also because without free mods, beths pool of potential authors immediately dries up. I will grant that beth has made some less-than-appealing decisions in the past, but, I don't find it very likely that they are really looking to fall on their own swords. And what is keeping them bound to this? They have lied over promised many many times. There is no reason for me to believe their words, especially when it doesn't match what they present to the public. I will grant that they don't have the best rep, but, you CAN bet that they are going to do what is in their own best interests. If they dispose of free modding, their labor pool immediately dries up, and CC becomes useless. Do you really think they are that stupid? we already waited and saw. It was called the steam curated workshop. Totally different situation here. The steam workshop was open to anyone that wanted to upload their version of Horse Armor. CC is going to have an EXTREMELY limited participation rate. Less than .1% of mod authors will likely ever be involved. That leaves the other 99.9% cranking out free stuff. If you'll recall most people were not upset because anyone could upload to the curated workshop. Most people were upset because they were being charged for food retextures and bow mods. The core issues haven't changed in the slightest honestly. At least it doesn't seem like they have at all.

we already waited and saw. It was called the steam curated workshop.

Are you seriously suggesting that mod authors should do more than they already do i.e. create mods & offer support for said mods, as well as future updates/patches/bugfixes, in order for users to be more inclined to donate? Is that your solution? Make modders work even harder than they do already, with the limited time that they have, on the flimsy premise that they may get more donations, because users will view this more favourably? That kind of sounds like a really backwards way of saying that Youtubers are harder working than modders, and therefore more deserving of donations. The big difference between donation and purchase - exchange of money for a product is essential in order to have access to use that product. If you want that product enough, you'll be willing to exchange currency for the ability to use it, that's the motivating factor. With donations, that factor is removed as it's not a prerequisite for use. lol I wasn't suggesting anything about "making" anyone work harder. I just provided examples of what other people do to increase their donation rates. Obviously what mod authors choose to do would be tailored to them but the important thing is that they CAN do it. So you think that a consumer base which doesn't want to pay for the product in rates as high as 90% would suddenly start paying for it? While also believing that the same consumer base is so tight with their money that they would never donate at all? As for the work comment im not sure what you expect tbh. That slapping a donation button on a page and calling it a day is going to be enough to generate large revenues? Obviously authors would have to "work" at developing their "brand" so to speak but thats something many might enjoy doing or it might not be that much work for authors that produce high quality content/have their names out there already.

I agree that we are hand-tied by Bethesda with regard to being allowed to use Patreon, as per Dark0ne's post, but... we have a donation system implimented into Nexus, and even with that,it appears that the majority of users don't actually use it to donate to mod authors than those who do. As mentioned by someone else in this thread, we see a similar situation whereby a much larger portion of users don't even endorse the mods that they like & use (I can give you a highly recognizable instance of this, for example the youtuber MxR has endorsed less than 20 mods in all the time that they've been on the Nexus, although being objective & fair, I can also state that we see the exact opposite in the case of the youtuber Oxhorn, who appears to endorse all the mods he uses) Not only that, but endorsement rates currently tend to average at between 7-10% of downloads. If someone doesn't even possess the inclination to visit the page of a mod that they like & use, to simply click a button to show appreciation for that mod (and by extension the mod author) than how do you think that this person will actually donate a small portion of their income via donation? That's not a problem caused by Bethesda is it? Don't misunderstand, this isn't a complaint in any shape or form; it's merely an observation of behaviour. Hmm, as someone living in the UK, I'd have to strongly disagree with your sentiment regarding the US health care system (regardless of what the current UK government are attempting to do with it) plus I don't think you can make a valid comparision between something that is an utterly essential service, and something which isn't essential. You're making assumptions about something which hasn't happened & is not part of reality, so no, the onus is clearly on you to back up your initial statement with actual facts to validate your claim, or we can easily dismiss it as a falsehood. If you can't actually do that, attempting to switch the burden of proof onto me (or others who disagree with your stance) for something which isn't true, is merely a smokescreen for you to attempt to save face and avoid having to provide evidence. The fact is, you don't know. You don't have any proof. No one knows. You have no evidence, so your argument is invalid. Nothing wrong with that, if you admit it or agree that your concerns are pure speculation. But arguing that this isn't the case, and that what you claim will happen is as sure as the moon sits in the sky, you're placing yourself in the position of that guy stood on a street corner with a placard proclaiming 'the end is nigh'. There are a number of possibilities for that. All the nexus does is throw up a rather discrete donate button for authors because thats really the extent of what they can do. If you look at youtubers/streamers as an example they do alot more than just ask people to donate. They develop a community around themselves and their personality and use donations in a much more creative and active way (donate to talk to me kind of thing). None of that creativity or activity is really present when it comes to mods and its arguable that when people donate to a streamer they at least feel like they've gotten something (funny joke/experience from streamer or T-shirt from youtubers merch store). When it comes to mods donations and endorsements don't really make the user feel like they've gotten anything from doing it and I would venture to guess that many users even flat out forget that those buttons are even there. There are potentially alot of creative ways to change that outlook among users but with peoples hands tied as much as they are its impossible. Lastly if you simply think people will never donate money what makes you think they would ever spend money to purchase something?

technically the assets belong to the mod author but the ability to monetize them belongs to bethesda. So in a way he actually does have a say in how or if they are monetized. Look at the first paid mods attempt. The consumer voiced their displeasure with the system and valve backed out of it. So there is, to some extent, consumer agency in regards to whether or not mods are monetized (if beth feels no one is buying them and the CC is causing them too much of a PR headache to deal with it they will bring it down.) he has as much right to voice his displeasure with the system and to vote with his wallet as mod authors do to participate in the system. That being said I dont think shaming each other (users shaming authors for being "greedy" or authors shaming users for being "entitled") is very productive at all and we would be much better off coming together to petition bethesda for a solution that works well for everyone. But maybe thats a pipedream at this point lol.

I've been a mod author for over a decade and in that time I've received probably 5 donations total, for a grand total of $20 USD. My mods have been downloaded roughly 249,730 times over that 10 year period or 24,973 downloads per year. Now, donations have only been available on the Nexus for 5 years, so let's divide that download total in half, for 124,865 total downloads. In that time I've still gotten only 5 donations. So, if we do the math, that's a donation to download ratio of 0.00004004324 or 0.004%. Now, tell me again how donations work well? Maybe your mods aren't that good? 200k isn't much after 10 years TBH. I also feel compelled to say as an aside that you need to chill out a little dude. I agree with you on a lot of stuff but this is pretty baseless. Don't try to insult the quality of someones work (or character) without some evidence to back it up. I have never downloaded any of his mods so I can't say if they are quality or not but its literally besides the point since even quality mod authors do receive very little in donations in the current environment. There are obvious explanations why and the quality (or lack of quality) of his individual work isn't one of them so you should avoid discussing it if you want to make a compelling argument. Perhaps instead of good I should have said popular. Your criticism is duly noted. popular would have been a better choice of words forsure. Generally speaking though, when making an argument, you want to always remember WHAT it is that you are trying to argue. In this case that his low rate of donations could be explained by something else. Attempting to use "quality of work" or "popularity" as an explainer for his low rate of donations would only make sense if other authors have higher rates. Which they seemingly dont. Notice that I never argued that but rather the low rate is explained by surrounding circumstances which also works well since most authors also seem to have a low rate of donation. I understand that this is a passionate subject for you (based on your other posts) but argumentation is a bit of an art form and best not pursued when overly passionate or without properly thinking. Truth. My EQ is quite low, I am the first to admit this. I tend to kick people in the teeth before I try talking, but I was pointing out his downloads not his 5 donations. its cool dude. Mistakes in argumentation happen pretty often (ive done it under alot worse circumstances) but you just have to ask yourself what is the ultimate case you are building and why are his (low number of?) downloads relevant to that case and does that premise strengthen it. I just felt a need to call out that particular mistake because I wasn't sure if anyone else (besides Reneer) would and it potentially ran the risk of "devolving" discussion so to speak.

I've been a mod author for over a decade and in that time I've received probably 5 donations total, for a grand total of $20 USD. My mods have been downloaded roughly 249,730 times over that 10 year period or 24,973 downloads per year. Now, donations have only been available on the Nexus for 5 years, so let's divide that download total in half, for 124,865 total downloads. In that time I've still gotten only 5 donations. So, if we do the math, that's a donation to download ratio of 0.00004004324 or 0.004%. Now, tell me again how donations work well? Maybe your mods aren't that good? 200k isn't much after 10 years TBH. I also feel compelled to say as an aside that you need to chill out a little dude. I agree with you on a lot of stuff but this is pretty baseless. Don't try to insult the quality of someones work (or character) without some evidence to back it up. I have never downloaded any of his mods so I can't say if they are quality or not but its literally besides the point since even quality mod authors do receive very little in donations in the current environment. There are obvious explanations why and the quality (or lack of quality) of his individual work isn't one of them so you should avoid discussing it if you want to make a compelling argument. Perhaps instead of good I should have said popular. Your criticism is duly noted. popular would have been a better choice of words forsure. Generally speaking though, when making an argument, you want to always remember WHAT it is that you are trying to argue. In this case that his low rate of donations could be explained by something else. Attempting to use "quality of work" or "popularity" as an explainer for his low rate of donations would only make sense if other authors have higher rates. Which they seemingly dont. Notice that I never argued that but rather the low rate is explained by surrounding circumstances which also works well since most authors also seem to have a low rate of donation. I understand that this is a passionate subject for you (based on your other posts) but argumentation is a bit of an art form and best not pursued when overly passionate or without properly thinking. Thank you. I'll be the first to admit my mods are very niche products - I don't create things that are designed to get millions of downloads. My mods don't titillate or make things go big boom. So, from that perspective, it's perhaps partially my own fault that I don't see more donations. But the fact is, no matter how you slice it, people do not donate to mod authors here on the Nexus. I would gladly jump on the Patreon train like some mod authors have done but Bethesda explicitly disallows that. Who would have thought legal argumentation courses would teach me to be nice of all things. However thats kind of my point I guess. I feel like as a community we should be putting the heat on bethesda for crippling mod authors ability to monetize their work obviously for their own gain. It is even possible (as OP suggested) for beth to make some money as well from donations. I also want to clarify (again) that I dont think mod authors SHOULDN'T monetize their work just that charge for mod schemes are hardly the best way to go about it for everyone involved.

I've been a mod author for over a decade and in that time I've received probably 5 donations total, for a grand total of $20 USD. My mods have been downloaded roughly 249,730 times over that 10 year period or 24,973 downloads per year. Now, donations have only been available on the Nexus for 5 years, so let's divide that download total in half, for 124,865 total downloads. In that time I've still gotten only 5 donations. So, if we do the math, that's a donation to download ratio of 0.00004004324 or 0.004%. Now, tell me again how donations work well? Maybe your mods aren't that good? 200k isn't much after 10 years TBH. I also feel compelled to say as an aside that you need to chill out a little dude. I agree with you on a lot of stuff but this is pretty baseless. Don't try to insult the quality of someones work (or character) without some evidence to back it up. I have never downloaded any of his mods so I can't say if they are quality or not but its literally besides the point since even quality mod authors do receive very little in donations in the current environment. There are obvious explanations why and the quality (or lack of quality) of his individual work isn't one of them so you should avoid discussing it if you want to make a compelling argument.

I've been a mod author for over a decade and in that time I've received probably 5 donations total, for a grand total of $20 USD. My mods have been downloaded roughly 249,730 times over that 10 year period or 24,973 downloads per year. Now, donations have only been available on the Nexus for 5 years, so let's divide that download total in half, for 124,865 total downloads. In that time I've still gotten only 5 donations. So, if we do the math, that's a donation to download ratio of 0.00004004324 or 0.004%. Now, tell me again how donations work well? it has nothing to do with the fact that nexus can't integrate patreon on the site right? That has nothing to do with the fact that you can't do numerous things like offering to produce mods for top donators or holding chatroom type livestreams with your top donators right? Im not saying donations would for sure work but its obvious there is something wrong here. If donations work for youtubers, twitch streamers, semi pro and pro gamers, kickstarter devs, game reviewers, mod hosting sites like the nexus itself and every single other content creator in the industry and I do mean EVERY SINGLE ONE why dont they work for mod authors? Is it because donations simply will never work or because something is tying your hands in terms how you can creatively implement and advertise them? The answer is incredibly obvious. Edit: additionally imagine if beth sold todd tokens console users could purchase and click to donate straight from their console dashboard? You honestly think you wouldn't see a lot more donations if your hands were untied to advertise them creatively and beth was working with you?

They work. Perhaps not if all you're interested in is money but they work just fine. If all you want is money pick another way, don't destroy our community. You just contradicted yourself. So mod authors earning money from their mods is a bad thing now because it's 'destroying our community'? and how exactly do donations ensure quality and promote creativity? Following this logic of yours, that must mean that all the mod authors who don't/have never recieve/d any donations must (according to you) not produce quality or creative mods? Please provide actual proof that donations work to back up your assertions. You've already had three mod authors telling you that they don't (at least one of them is a veteran modder, but the fact remains that mod authors are in a far more qualified position to state whether donations work or not) so if you want anyone to actually believe you, give us evidence. Back up your claims, or it shows that what you say is irrelevant. literally everywhere else in the gaming industry donations work perfectly fine. The problem with modding is that mod authors and donations are a bit tied in terms of creativity, advertising and support for things like patreon.

to be entirely fair. Its not like bethesda get completely out of the way when it comes to donations. Look at how twitch streamers and youtubers make tons of money. (announced donations, donation leaderboards, pug streams with donators, merch stores, ect. ect.) none of that is really possible given that bethesda doesn't really allow mod authors to promote donations in a similar way to other content creators. Or at least bethesda is pretty vague about whether or not they would allow it which means the nexus also has to be pretty vague about whether or not they support it. Saying donations dont work isn't even an opinion. Its an objective falsehood. Given that donations work for literally every other single content creator in the video games industry (from kickstarter devs to youtubers) except for mod authors. Weird isnt it?

Honestly one can hope this is just beth hiring mod authors to produce DLC like far harbor or dragonborn but tbh if thats what this was going to be why would they market it the way they did at E3? If they knew the CC was intended for large content expansions why would they show off crab armor and horse armor? Is the entire bethesda marketing dept just incredibly tone deaf? I mean honestly thats just horrible decision making even for bethesda. Odds are incredibly high that what we saw at E3 is going to be representative of a lot of the content there. Additionally I don't think beth will be producing any more story content with the CC. They run into the issue with fallout 4 season passes and I think beth/zeni would just rather avoid that altogether. Edit: Beth bucks? Come on man obviously Todd Tokens is a much better name.

lol Although there isnt exactly a thriving modding community for cs:go now is there? XD. At least with skins I can resell my Dlore for 800 USD. Not like I can resell what beth is trying to sell me in their micro transaction hub

Im not saying, and have never said, that you don't have the right to ask to be paid (although legally speaking you don't since beth holds the IP rights beth has to ask for you but thats besides the point) All im saying is that you probably wont get paid very much, if at all, from this or any other attempt to charge for mods. Maybe in 10 years when the next ES game releases and the newest generation of consumers are potentially acclimatized to the practice but as it stands now it feels like beth is trying to sell me cs:go skins that no other players can even see. If you read any of my other posts, especially from the first paid mods debacle, you would notice that ive never suggested that mod authors shouldn't ask to be paid just that charging directly for mod files is kind of stupid from a business perspective. Also capitalism pro-tip: You don't have to ask in only one way to get paid. You can get paid in loads of other ways or even leverage bethesda to do something better for you. You can create your own game, you can seek employment at a game dev studio, you can stream, you can even open your own merch store and sell coffee mugs and stuff like that. The last one seems to work well for other kinds of content creators. Paid mods aren't the only way for people with similar skills to make money.

Those were mods that developed into fully fledged game titles you mean. As for second life and the sims I never played either of those but ive been playing CS for a very long time and I can tell you no one was selling Dust II map variations for .50 cents.

care to explain to me how im entitled? Or is this somehow reversed and you're entitled to my money? Ive simply said the CC is a bad idea and rubs many consumers the wrong way. I don't intend to pay for any mods and loads of other users don't intend to either. And those users are entitled to not purchase mods from the CC whether you think so or not. What demands or expectations have I ever laid out in this thread? I think you might have me confused with someone else.

And your EPIC contributions to the community! Impressive! Is this supposed to mean something? I don't make mods and never said I did work eats up a lot of my time and its kind of an irregular schedule. Are you implying that you have to make mods to be a part of the modding community? The way I see it both authors and users are part of the same community. Im just giving my opinion from a consumers perspective. You should try engaging with people and what they are saying instead of just going with a very poor ad hominem/attempt at shaming people. Edit: on an unrelated note I feel like the endorsements are off somewhat? Just looking at fallout 4 on NMM alone I have like 40 files endorsed. Not even counting skyrim, SSE, newvegas and FO3.

I feel like that would be more like if a mod author got a job at a game developer. I wouldn't expect to not pay for the game that author helped produce. The CC is more like if a certain community hosted a big garage band festival every month where bands played for the masses for free. Then the record studio bought all the garages and let bands charge money to hear them at each of their individual garages and took a cut. Sure the bands could charge money but a ton of the target consumers would feel alienated and angry and likely wouldn't attend the festival anymore.

How about the modders who "Feel entitled" to be paid? Mods are free. They have been free for years. The truth is some modders are extremely butthurt that You-tubers are making a living talking about mods. You know why they make money? Because people find THEM entertaining, not the video of your mod. If anything you should be thankful they give you the exposure. We've already proven that youtube videos do nothing for modders. Why is it everyone EXCEPT the Mod Author can make money off their products? How is that even remotely fair? It appears to me, that you are the one acting all entitled to the fruits of others labors. So you are telling me if someone makes a video about their love of Pepsi they should pay Pepsi for talking about their product? Or lets make it closer to home, lets say they make a video about how great Banksy (the street artist) is. Should they pay up for discussing or critiquing the art work? LOL that's not the way it works. Your childish jealously will destroy modding for ever. Whaaa! It's not Fair! Well become a Youtuber that mods perhaps? Just stop whining like a little.. I would point out, that in each of your examples, the company/artist already sells their product. They don't give it away for free, so other folks can make money off of it. Should pepsi make their product, and then just give it away? Maybe you should stop whining about folks actually wanting to get paid for their work. No one says that you have to buy it. No one is saying that free mods should be banned. I know, why don't you go to GM, work at a job for several hours a day, for no pay. Then, everyone else can benefit from the fruits of your labor EXCEPT YOU. That is what you are expecting from mod authors. Also, not all of them 'expect' to get paid. As a matter of fact, NONE of them EXPECT to get paid. A selection of them would LIKE to get paid, but, if they don't, that doesn't mean they are going to stop. And if they do get the opportunity to get paid, that doesn't mean they will stop making free mods either. That's the thing. Its not work. You can go through this a thread and read it yourself. To Modders, Modding is their game. They want Players who play the game for entertainment to pay them for modding the game for entertainment. How does that make sense? As I have pointed out, I stepped into their world for a short time. Most modders are pretty cool, others are like Ethreon above who are so arrogant and selfish they have no problem betraying everything that made their hobby possible just because they have some sick elitist attitude. And don't believe for a second that this Creation Cult of Modders is a done deal, we as consumers have the power to steer this ship away from the iceberg. Our buying power will ultimately decide. I suggest people un-endorse any mods by authors who support the Creation Cult and not spend a dime on Bethesda products until they cease and desist. We stopped it last time and we can this time despite the traitors in our midst. Never made a mod, have you. (that's not a question.) So, folks that like what they do shouldn't get paid for it? Is that really your position? You think everyone should hate their job, because that's the only thing that justifies getting paid for it? Wow. Never run for public office...... Not everything needs or should be for profit. Leave the community alone. Leave mods alone. There is no need for paid mods. Is there a shortage of mods? Not the last time I looked around. More accurately if there was a shortage of mod authors but yeah im inclined to agree with this. If beth released a new TES game tomorrow I doubt there would be a shortage of content released on the nexus in the following months. If anything we see slower rates of "mod production" due to a number of factors (paid mod potential being likely one of them but also just the lack of creative freedom many authors seem to have with fallout 4 and skyrim being really old) but not really a shortage of authors. This really just isnt the environment to be trying to introduce this. At least thats what it seems like to me. Its not like you need to entice people to mod with payment since they seem to do it anyway and the consumer base by and large despises the idea of paid mods in the upper 90%. Obviously beth wants to open a new source of revenue where there wasn't one before so they're willing to do whatever but if you are genuinely concerned for the "health" of the modding community from an economic perspective this would look like a really dumb idea.

The key difference in this whole argument about youtuber vs mod author is that youtubers don't charge people to watch their videos. Imagine if youtubers got together and decided they would petition youtube to allow them to charge individuals if they wanted to watch their videos. I would be willing to bet my entire savings account that every channel that participated in the program would vanish in under a couple months and youtube itself would enter a downword spiral as users fled the site in disgust. Hence the CC creates the exact same problems. In fact most youtubers don't even earn most of their money from ads. They open merchandise stores and sell t-shirts and the like as a form of strings off monetization. In fact mod authors could actually learn a lot about good business practices from youtubers. That has been a thing for years on Youtube. Paywall videos have been successful for over half a decade. You're talking about youtube red? Thats more of a subscription model and its actually not as successful as you might think. Youtube doesn't actually give out its performance figures for programs it offers (so im not sure how you would know whether red was successful or not) but looking at some market research on it Ive found pretty abysmal statistics but its a lot of guesswork. Something like only converting 1.24% of youtubes total userbase to Red while also only being able to monetize about 10% of that 1.24%. Secondly an example of the type of content youtube red produces is staggeringly different from what bethesda seems to intend to produce. The most popular youtuber partnering with the entire production team from AMC's the walking dead to produce multiple videos on a pay per month basis is hardly comparable to crab armor and pipboy color mods produced on a pay for download basis. Even then youtube red doesn't actually seem to be a real success by any sense of the word. Especially considering video content has traditionally generated revenue based on the size of audience and red appears to have an abysmal conversion rate. Edit: youtube red itself is also a different animal completely. It provides consumers with many services that people could reasonably find worth paying for such as the ability to watch videos without an internet connection, ad free videos ect. ect. Its not the same as simply charging for videos.

The key difference in this whole argument about youtuber vs mod author is that youtubers don't charge people to watch their videos. Imagine if youtubers got together and decided they would petition youtube to allow them to charge individuals if they wanted to watch their videos. I would be willing to bet my entire savings account that every channel that participated in the program would vanish in under a couple months and youtube itself would enter a downword spiral as users fled the site in disgust. Hence the CC creates the exact same problems. In fact most youtubers don't even earn most of their money from ads. They open merchandise stores and sell t-shirts and the like as a form of strings off monetization. In fact mod authors could actually learn alot about good business practices from youtubers.

But you are also ignoring the fact that paid for mods simply existing will have an effect on free modding. If most/all the high quality mods end up behind a paywall then most people that don't want to pay for mods will loose interest in them as the quality of free mods potentially declines. Fallout and skyrim modding is already in a slowdown and I don't think adding paid for mods is going to revitalize the community in any real way. If anything its going to give fatigued consumers more reason to put the games away for good. But it all depends on how bethesda handles the CC. If they sell the kinds of things they indicated at E3 then the CC is not going to be good for anything. But if they pull teams of mod authors and outside developers together to produce far harbor and dragonborn style expansions then this could end up working out well.