LoveMods

You have the right to sell a mod if Bethesda says so. The community has the right to protest the pay-mod system. Bethesda has the right to listen to the protesters and take the right to sell away again since it's theirs to start with. Every user has always had the right to download any mod that is ever uploaded publicly. Why do you want to charge them money for that right? In case I'm not making this obvious, it's disingenuous to pretend this is a question of what rights people have and who is or isn't taking them away. It's a question of what is best for everyone in the community - modders, users, and hybrids of all stripes. I believe, as lot of other people seem to, that what is best is a continued open source style environment where everyone can freely acquire all public mods to study, utilize, and enjoy; but every effort is made to ensure modders are compensated through things like easy donations, donation prompts, and/or additional advertising revenue that goes straight to the modder. I am also very much in favor of actually curated modder-made DLCs, like the Premium Modules for Neverwinter Nights. Given that previously the Donate button was so well hidden as to be missed by most users, I'm not really sure why its failure to financially support modders has several people in this thread so adamant that there are no other solutions than the ridiculously terrible one proposed by Valve and Bethesda. Further, it's not the people protesting's fault that Bethesda shut things down rather than offer a better split. Bethesda mentioned the revenue division in their post; they are aware that it was a large part of the outrage. You are in a better position to "negotiate" for a better split now than you were when the program was ongoing. It will be coming back, and it will be in future Bethesda games. There will probably be a more amenable split between the modder and Beth/Valve, and there may be the option of a donate button for modders who don't choose to set a price tag; they have to pretend to compromise, after all. It will be years before things start to constrict further; their only mistake now was biting off too much at once, but they deliberately chose an older game to get people used to the idea, so it won't hurt them. So many people are eager to believe they didn't mean it after all.

Yes, a "donation wallet" system for the Nexus would be fantastic, I was just thinking of suggesting it directly. I was worried that a quiet idea request might get lost in all the sound and fury. It's a great idea for a number of reasons: It reduces the user effort required per modder donation drastically - this is a big deal and should not be understated! It can theoretically reduce the percentage of the donation that goes to credit card fees (depending on how it's handled). Also, while I don't know a ton about these things, I think the money in reserve in wallets could accrue interest for the Nexus to use; it's technically money in their bank, just being held against when a user wants to donate it specifically. If this is added, I think it would also be pretty cool if the Nexus occasionally did a "donation match %" when there are extra funds, where Nexus matches a percentage of modder donations! That would help to promote the program and be another way that 'extra' Nexus funds (yeah, I know) could be used to promote the modding scene. Plus as everyone involved in gaming metrics knows, the real hurdle is the first payment - get people putting money on that wallet and it's way easier the next time. It might even be possible to get a company to sponsor donation matching briefly for an advertising gimmick! I'm sure the idea is more difficult and complex than it sounds to me the user, but I still think it would be excellent and hope it's considered.

http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/5561.html This page's source code is cut off. It ends <div class="file_box" sty and doesn't actually link the mod, show the number of downloads, or have the advertisement bar. This actually appears to be happening with a fair number of pages... is it just something kooky user-side? It's never happened to me prior to tonight. I use Firefox, if that helps. Other pages it's happening with: http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/4492.html http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/4843.html http://www.tessource.net/files/cache/4490.html (all 3 of these are mods by the same person, but their fourth mod's page works fine)