Should mod authors have the option to make mods for money?

[InDarkestNight]

I'm sure this is going to get rather heated, but I've been questioning my opinion lately. I'm clearly in the minority that opposes it. In fact, I don't think I've ever encountered another that shared mine.

Now, to be clear, I understand the benefits that would come of this. It would be a lot easier to do more work on this game if you were getting financial support. Even I could benefit from this as I've stated. Obviously, my modding career isn't the most impressive, but my biggest problem really is my inability to make my own assets. I do have more impressive mods that I've made, but they all use assets that I don't own. Of course, I would prefer to use dedicated assets, rather than recycling assets from other mods. I would also like to have actual voice actors, because then I could actually do quests. I could probably do scripting too, but the thing holding me back from that is my inability to get the creation kit to compile anything, or perform half its functions. Now that I'm on a new OS, I was sorta hoping that may be fixed now. Of course, I have yet to even try it, but thinking about it isn't the CK available through steam? Does that mean I could use my proton emulator to run it? Maybe I should look into that.

Point is, I don't deny that good things could come from that, but I think the negative outweighs the positive. All mods made are passion projects, that means people actually care about their product. The only reason you would make one is to help out other people. If money was involved, such things may not go away but they would surely become a minority amidst a flood of mods for profit. Guess maybe Bethesda's (to hell with them) numerous attempts to monetize mods, and how they're all cheap garbage not worth using (they literally had to forcibly install them onto people's computers just to get people to play them, and even then few want to, what does that say? The cc garbage is just one reason of many I've stuck to playing LE for years and still have no intent to change). Even CC garbage made by famous mod authors for some reason is always inferior to what they've made for free. I don't know why that happens, but its hard not to think its because they were just making it for money and abandoning the project as soon as they got their pay.

The reason I'm making this topic though, is because I'll be honest, I've been starting to question my unpopular stance. Some mod authors lately have genuinely impressed me with their work enough where I've lamented that they aren't getting financial compesation for what they're doing. The latest two would be Xavbio and SkySinclair. Don't ask me how I stumbled upon his fluffworks patches; as I said I haven't played SE in years, and I rarely bother to even look on SE anymore. Its just sheer dumb luck I ran into his mod. I can't even use it, and I'm pretty certain that a backport is never coming. The fact that those patches exist at all is hard to imagine. I'm also aware of that one mod author who was making the best city overhauls we've ever seen by a longshot, quit modding because he decided that for his skill and time investment, he was better off doing something that actually made a profit. He literally used his mods to land himself a job, and of course no one's heard of him since. He never even released Riften, the last city mod he was working on before he quit. I still lament that those mods will never be finished, but what can you do? This is the only incident though where I think money would've helped.

I'm unsure what to think now. I still think paid mods would do too much harm, but lately I'm starting to think that maybe there's more benefits than I initially realized. Of course, I'm probably not going to see anyone that shares in my opinion. Of course, part of that may be that a good chunk of the people who use these boards are mod authors themselves; why wouldn't they advocate for something that could bring them money? Guess I just feel like that's being crooked. As I said, I would love to be able to pay people to make assets for me or do voice work, but I've just long thought that such a thing would harm the community far too much.

Fire away I guess. Hopefully this doesn't get too vicious.

[ScytheBearer]

I would like to make only one observation, and will avoid the bait to argue the benefits of paid vs free mods. 

After more than fifteen years making mods, it is my experience that the majority of mod authors make mods for themselves, and not to "help out other people".  A great number of mods are only shared for the fame and glory such sharing gains an author. 

And I include myself in that last sentence.  I'm too old to start lying to myself now. 

[HeyYou]

Of course they do. Some of the content they put out is far superior to the stuff Beth wants to charge us for. And that applies to everything from small texture mods, all the way up to full blown quest mods with hours of game play.

[showler]

Considering the arguments over DP in the other forum I think this is already a lost cause.  Mods are already being made for money.

[HeyYou]

On 1/27/2024 at 10:02 AM, showler said:

Considering the arguments over DP in the other forum I think this is already a lost cause.  Mods are already being made for money.

As this is something beth wants to implement, I fully expect this to happen. For them, there really isn't a downside, they can make money from something they are already doing, without much more of an investment. Sure, the torch and pitchfork gang will be out in force initially, but, that will blow over in a couple weeks/months, and that will be the end of it. Then beth will just rake in the profits...

[Pagafyr]

LIke many other people I was applying my attention to providing samples of my work in a port folio.   Best to get work with a team of up and coming game developers, rather then hang on to a tigers tail.

I've got a tiger by the tail it's plain to see

[Robrechtve]

The problem with paid mods is that most of the time the majority of people who contributed to the making of the mod don't and can't get paid.

Because most people don't realise how much the larger modding community relies on the free exchange of ideas and materials. And that free exchange is only made possible by the fact that mods are free, so it's not an economic disadvantage for a modder to allow other modders to use, in part or in full, stuff they made for their own mod.

But when modders start charging for their mods, that falls apart. That's why so many made-for-pay stuff made by modders is worse than what they made for free: In order to sell it and not lose everything they earn in a lawsuit, they have to remove absolutely everything that was contributed by someone else who isn't getting paid and create absolutely everything themselves without drawing on the exchange of the modding community.

And all the biggest and best mods contain the work of far more people than just the ones who are officially on the team when the mod gets released.

So yeah, Pagafyr is right. The best way for modders to make money, if they want to make money, is to team up and make their own dang game, rather than trying to get paid for modding.

[MuteSignals]

Some authors have Patreons/SubscribeStar/Ko-Fi if you want to consider other options to allow users to support your work. Depends on how much of/what audience you attract whether those are for you.

It wasn't until maybe a year ago I realized you could earn a little bit of income haha, before that I was solely motivated by sharing what I liked. Honestly, it's the healthier way of producing work too because there's no expectations or goals of revenue to reach which might discourage mod creation. I wonder if some users might consider quitting modmaking if there wasn't DP.

Making your own game is certainly an alternative too, almost like a natural progression from fan to creator to developer, certainly has the opportunity for bigger payouts in the end and collaborating with others is always cool.

Edit: Always make your mods free for all to use, never paywall them.

Edited February 1 by MuteSignals

[MrJoseCuervo]

Want to ruin something? Bring money into it.

Want money? Get a job.

Free Mods forever.

[Chadonraz]

In my opinion, it depends.

If someone makes a mod from scratch (i.e. without using assets from someone else's free mod), then I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to paywall it.
But if content from a free mod is used in a paywalled mod, then I see a problem; the paid mod's author is gaining monetary benefit from work done by someone else for free, which doesn't seem fair. Unless the free mod's author explicitly allows it.

I'm never going to use paid mods, but their existence doesn't bother me; I have the freedom to choose what I do or don't use.

Edited March 11 by Chadonraz