Publisher-Approved Paid Modding Policy

[BosDragon]

I read about 15 pages of this entire thread. It is essentially a handful of people regurgitating the same points over and over again. I wish I could undo that and get my time back.

Anyway, for all the alarmists out there, the modding scene will be fine. As someone said, paid mods are here to stay but so are the Nexus policies which I welcome. There should be a clear separation between paid and free content.

It's not the end of the world, just move on and go make some mods. Upload them wherever you can/want. Back in the day I built my own website for just one mod I made for a random video game. It still got traffic without any advertisement. The point is - gamers will find a way to do what they like one way or another. 

[Varana]

3 minutes ago, Blackread said:

So, by this definition, Verified Creations is the worst you can do for modding. Or at least I can't think of something that makes it harder to access content than putting it behind a paywall.

And by that definition anything that has the potential of damaging the Verified Creations system is the best you can do for modding.

This is not hurting Verified Creations specifically. This is hurting all mod users, and especially those who are new or don't care about modding politics. It's like clusterbombing a telephone pole.

[Blackread]

7 minutes ago, Remiros said:

That's a very subjective opinion that I can't, in good faith, take seriously. How are they "promoting" paid mods by allowing for compatibility patches to exist. Paid mods that, mind you, were made by creators who allow this site to exist in the first place. I'm not a fan of paid mods either, at least not in their current form, but I'll never understand the passionate dislike towards them when you can just move on and not buy them. I also don't really see the difference between verified creations and paid DLC / Creation Club content. Why is one fine and not the other? How did Bethesda "invent the problem" with verified creations, when they have been doing the exact same thing for close to 20 years now, just under a different name?

My bad, English is not my first language and I didn't consider every choice of word that thoroughly.

What I wanted to say is that paid mods are a net negative to the modding community as a whole, and any decision that has the potential to curb them is a positive.

It is indeed true that the VC program is not the first time Bethesda tried to milk the modding community for money. I did not mean to imply it is somehow worse than the previous attempts. Should Nexus have reacted to the Creation Club the same way it reacted now to Verified Creations? In hindsight I would say yes, but hindsight is easy, and Creation Club has existed for so long it's too late to do anything about it now.

If we allow paid mods to continue to exist, Skyrim will likely be the last Bethesda game with a thriving modding community.

[Blackread]

6 minutes ago, Varana said:

This is not hurting Verified Creations specifically. This is hurting all mod users, and especially those who are new or don't care about modding politics. It's like clusterbombing a telephone pole.

If you have an idea that targets Verified Creations more directly I'm very much interested to hear it.

[Zanderat]

3 minutes ago, Blackread said:

If we allow paid mods to continue to exist, Skyrim will likely be the last Bethesda game with a thriving modding community.

This whole comment section is TL:DR.  But this I agree with. 

[ak0d]

58 minutes ago, ParagonFury said:

Actually, I just thought of something.

Doesn't this change mean that Nexus is actually taking a position against itself in the Parlor vs. Cathedral debate it had all those years ago? That Nexus is essentially saying that free mods must be Cathedral, mod maker's wishes be damned but that paid mods must be Parlor, regardless if the community or users want them to be more open or treated the same?

EDIT: This whole thing about "free modding being sacred" too really stinks because it seems like Nexus is okay with making money off of mods or modding-related services through ads and their subscription service, but seems to have a problem when Bethesda and individual modders do the same thing directly on the mods. I wanna know why Nexus thinks their Netflix/Youtube Premium-esque monetary scheme is okay, but Bethesda's Point of Sale/By-Item scheme isn't.

You're forgetting (or intentionally omitting) something. It is not necessary to purchase anything from Nexus to download mods. Nexus uses ads and optional premium subscriptions to keep their servers up and very fairly give modders some pocket money as a kudos for their hard work. In no instance are you required to pay in any form to download a mod from Nexus. Comparisons of monetization strategy are therefore irrelevant in this discussion and only serve to muddy the waters, which I guess is your real intention.

Another thing you've left out is that Bethesda net doesn't even have posts or bug sections on individual VC mod pages. This means that support discussions for paid mods will naturally gravitate towards taking place on Nexus (on patch pages, had they been allowed). That is not fair to users or Nexus. Zenimax should do better, not leave the onus on Nexus to pick up their slack.

[Kant3n]

34 minutes ago, Blackread said:

The positive aspect is not promoting paid mods, the sole existence of which is a detriment to the modding community as a whole.

It is very much about whether the Nexus is better. If it was possible to post a "Bard's College Expansion patch collection" with an auto-installing FOMOD on Bethesda.net, people would for sure do it. I would argue it would be even more convenient for the users because the patches would be on the same platform as the mod itself. But because Bethesda.net does not support this they want to post it on Nexus instead and then cry when the Nexus doesn't allow it.

Bethesda invented the problem, called Verified Creations. Nexus is just trying to be a part of the solution instead. Paid mods, no matter the form they come in, are a cancer. Not terminal yet, but the more it grows the worse it gets.

Burning down the load orders of users out of spite is not a solution to anything.

[Gaztec]

This compromise was just a twist of the knife. Now users have extra justification to pester individual authors for patches to paid content those authors may not even own, being that they're the only ones who can host patches.

Also, yes, I have passed along extensive feedback to Bethesda about creations menu -- It is weird some people assume because I want Nexus to be better that I cannot also want to better Bethesda too. We are only here out of love for Beth games.

[ak0d]

2 minutes ago, Gaztec said:

This compromise was just a twist of the knife. Now users have extra justification to pester individual authors for patches to paid content those authors may not even own, being that they're the only ones who can host patches.

Also, yes, I have passed along extensive feedback to Bethesda about creations menu -- It is weird some people assume because I want Nexus to be better that I cannot also want to better Bethesda too. We are only here out of love for Beth games.

Users can learn to make their own patches. Authors can accept third-party patches with caveats that they haven't tested it themselves. I have accepted many such patches for my own mods and never had any issues.

This is a small and justified trade-off for reinforcing the free modding platform as a free modding platform. There is no knife, only butthurt scabs and shills.

[DavidJCobb]

Quote

There is no knife, only butthurt scabs and shills.

Perhaps the Nexus should consider adding a "rolling eyes" react option to the forums, given the quality of discussion seen over most of this thread.