BLOG PIECE: Modding as a hobby versus modding as a career, and the position of the Nexus

[JenniA]

I am no good at modding files. I have no talent at creating things for games. That being said, I know it takes lots of time to make a mod worth having or using. Most do it for fun, some want to get paid. I use to play the Sims games. I never went to paid sites that hosted mods which I had to pay for. Not because I didn't want to support them, but because I couldn't. When I found mods that were free and had donation buttons on them, if I had a couple extra dollars from my expenses, I would be glad to donate to them for their time.

 

But I am one of many on a fixed income. I have to choose between games and eating, heat, electricity, food etc., etc. When I donate for something, I have to cut down on other things in order to pay that donation.

 

If they come out with a game and people make mods for it and demand payment for those mods, they can look to others for it. I will not bother wasting my time or money giving into the demands of greedy people. Especially when you consider that I would say at least 50% of the mods out there that say they do one thing or another, aren't really mods, just cheats or hacks of game play, maybe they make armor a little stronger, or arrows fly a little farther. Yes, they are mods but are they really worth paying for?

 

I guess what I am trying to say is, it should be the purchaser's choice to give a donation to someone who makes a mod, not the mod creator demanding payment for a mod that no one can use until they pay for it, and once they have paid for it, what if it doesn't work right.... then the purchaser has to chase down the creator for the fraudulent mod.

 

But if I can download a mod, use it, it works and I like it, I would rather have a choice to make a donation then to have them demand payment.

 

It's like this website, I would love to donate to here and become a premium member, but if I do that I will have to change my food to less, or use less power, or change something else that I need just to pay this site for premium services that I really can not afford.

[Kalell]

Monetizing mods would likely destroy the modding community. Most of the best modders would choose to sell their mods. This means that the only mods available for free (if they even still allowed free mods) would be those made by less experienced modders, and with the work of better modders stuck behind a pay wall there would be fewer chances for new modders to examine their work so they could learn how to improve. We'll end up with a small group of very talented modders selling their work with pretty much everything else not even being worth a download.

 

I also, unfortunately, expect this to happen. There's a lot of money to be made on modding and companies know this. There's a huge source of income just sitting there and eventually they'll want to tap into it. It's only a matter of time.

[fknye]

... then you'll find us sitting where we've always been sitting, right here, without fundamentally changing. We're still going to be about the free and open distribution of mods for everyone and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Thank you.

[TheBlitz77]

Modding is my passion and i do that for free.

[zzjay]

In response to post #23623854. #23626074 is also a reply to the same post.

many workshop mods use lots of ilegal content taken from other games

[SydneyB]

Thank you Dark One :)

[sesom]

In response to post #23623379. #23623839, #23637439 are all replies on the same post.

It was tried. Look what happend to SIMS2. Take your time and read what happend as the monetization has begun. It will destroy the modding scene and yes you will have fun with paywalls, stolen content, crippled mods (they have to be protected) and quarrel all over the place.

It's a bad, bad idea. Edited March 21, 2015 by sesom

[FMod]

Modding for money has been tried before. It results in lowest common denominator mods with one attractive feature being produced or bought on the cheap from their authors and sold by third parties.

 

Sure I wouldn't mind more money, who would, but turning mods into a business right when open source software is taking over the money is going against the current.

 

That said, there is a certain segment of modding where copyrighted for-profit will always be a viable model. Custom character skins for online games, sims furniture, what have you. These mods only require a finite amount of effort, they serve a specific purpose, they can't be improved further by community involvement, so they lose nothing from being monetized.

 

It's just important that it doesn't get mixed up with other segments, huge community TC mods or small improvement mods. A massive mod taking 50 people to create will never generate enough revenue to pay all 50 even a minimum wage; it will break up in conflicts to leave 10 or so to split the profit, missing out on much of what it could have been.

 

A major exception is mods splitting off into separate games, like DOTA and Garrysmod. But even so these take relatively little effort in their initial stages and only more once they're turned into a business.

[HellKnightX88]

There's nothing wrong with a mod authors making some money through donations and what not. But once you start charging people to use your mods you're running through quicksand, so may things can go wrong and the community will suffer in the long run.

 

Besides you already have problems with people re-uploading stuff when they're not supposed to or using assets from other mods without permission. I encourage people to be open with other people using their work in their own mods but I can definitely see the other point of view where someone wants to have more control over their work and why it's infuriating seeing your work published without any permission or credit (credit should always be given). But once you throw money in the mix I can only see all that getting worse (mod piracy basically).

[pdurak]

In response to post #23616384. #23617599, #23617724, #23619779 are all replies on the same post.

You're skipping the point as usual.

The Mod author can and does enforce a payment, as is his right, when he so chooses, if he so chooses. A mod Author can make his code proprietary and set some unusual restrictions like not posting the binaries of the ENB on the Nexus.

And I don't have a problem with the above examples.

I do, however, object against games being rigged in such a fashion, that only <<BETHESDA certified>> mods could be launched and used. Having a middleman like the Nexus is necessary, but the moment they start running mandatory transactions, the Author will suffer, and the corporate monsters will flourish on the spoils of a job well done. Even a small percentage commissioned from a .99$ mod can cause a disaster.

Take ID for example. They were the Fathers of Modern 3d engines, and they barely make a release nowadays. Wolfenstein the new order, that would have been impossible if it weren't for the "Abhorrent" id Tech 5. Their leader quits to become an Indie dev. And I, quite surprisingly, think that these two are correlated to the modern way things work: if it's good, the benefit goes to the company that owns the author, if it's bad, then it's evolution baby, the author gets the boot or a cut in the salary.

The DMCA, protects not the author, but the owner of the copyright, and that led to 3 maybe 4 Monster like companies (EA is just an example) in the world, that dictate their terms to the numerous artists. Thus, we have the game industry become a media, rather than a form of art (there are a few masterpieces, that blossom in spite of the circumstances, but many more get repressed).

I dare only speak for myself. But I plead the Mod Creators that happened to read this, to at least consider whether the common good and the good of every individual are one and the same. The community never abandons those who consider the freedom of their users. It's true, that managing a paycheck on donations is nearly impossible. But all of that is due to too many middlemen asking for their cut of the pie. Believe me, if making a donation to the creator of Falskaar was quite as simple as purchasing a cup of coffee, he would have gathered enough for a Porsche in a week, not to mention the Long-Term support.

I'll conclude at saying, that the people behind free and gratis software have as much as they need. The people behind Rip-Off-Ware get all they want, but in addition to their own private heaven they create a global hell... Edited March 21, 2015 by pdurak