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

[Deleted9904557User]

In response to post #23836199. #23839154, #23845829, #23853369, #23858174, #23858619, #23868714, #23869794, #23870749, #23874494, #23889664, #23897239, #23907889, #23916764, #23947279, #23954734, #23963714, #23965734, #23966599, #23968049, #23982619, #23991979, #23996044, #23996969, #24003409, #24065404, #24074259, #24098119, #24324999, #24346394, #24358294, #24364774, #24365749, #24413559, #24416284, #24562674, #24572154, #24572439, #24572489, #24581119 are all replies on the same post.

MrPandaCommando wrote:

Arthmoor wrote: One question, not necessarily directed at you, but you're handy :P

Why is it considered greedy for a modder to want to get paid? This is something I don't quite get, because it only seems to apply to TES/Fallout for some reason. Nobody seems to be holding this view for hat makers in TF2 and they've made tons of money at it. Or Sims modders for that matter.

RGMage2 wrote: Agree with Arthmoor, that was my question too.

If someone works 60 hours a week at a regular job and they expect to be paid for it, I doubt too many people would say they are being greedy in asking for their money. But if you put 60 hours of work into a mod and want something back for your time you're being greedy?

Most people don't work for greed, they work for need. Your time is the most valuable thing that anyone has (other than friends and family). Throughout our lives we trade our time for other things of value. Food on the table, a roof over our heads. Yet when we spend our time modding we are expected to give it away for free otherwise we are greedy.

I am quite sure there are many great mods that were never made because the potential author figured it would take up too much valuable time with nothing in return for it (time wasted).

Of course everyone loves the modding community, everyone loves you when you give away things for free. Who says you can't buy love?

Shezrie wrote:

Why is it considered greedy for a modder to want to get paid?

I was wondering about that as well. I think RGMage2 covered it absolutely perfectly. :)

SoMteam wrote: Its greedy since modding is no job, its a hobby and supposed to be fun. When you want to make money out of something get a job. Full time modder here, just saying

hippiebill wrote: I'm glad you mentioned the Sims. Soon after the original Sims debuted (15 years ago), there developed a small internet war between free sites and pay sites that still reverberates to this day. Unlike Valve and Bathesda, EA kept out of the fray. The innovation went to the free sites, primarily because of their openness.

Looking for approbation from a corporate site? With only "authorized" mods?

requested wrote: Panda didn't say that a modder is greedy for wanting to get paid, he said: "I honestly do feel that modders should be rewarded for their work. However, that reward should not be to satisfy monetary greed."

For me this means the monetary part should not be the first or (god forbid!) the only purpose of modding.

Like he said, "...modders shouldn't be creating mods for the masses, the money or even the pride of having a popular mod, but rather the modding experience and the end result."

Greed is antisocial and will affect the modding community. It will lower the willingness to share and/or permit usage of assets. And it will lead to endless discussions over who did what first and if somebody stole an idea / a line of code / whatever. There will be drama, mark my words.

That said, there's nothing wrong getting some money for a mod if it is a work of love :D

Shezrie wrote: People mod for their own reasons and I don't think that anyone else has a right to tell others what reasons they 'should' or 'shouldn't' mod for.

requested wrote: We're just sharing opinions here.

RGMage2 wrote: Some people are of the opinion that the best job you can get is the one that pays you for doing something that you love to do. A modder hoping for financial reward for their efforts doesn’t mean they don’t love modding, or they chose a project based solely on whether they could make money from it. Love of modding, imagination and creativity, artistic expression, and being paid for what you do, none of these are mutually exclusive.

We obviously have a divide here in the community that breaks down in what appears to be an ideological and political way. On the right we have the advocates of the Free Market model, who believe that modders should have the option of letting the market decide the true value of what they have to offer. On the left we have the socialists who believe we should all be working together for the common good

Normally the socialist argument works well on me, ’cause there really are some things that can’t be done well if we don’t all work together, but I am also a strong believer in the right of the individual to pursue their own path, as long as exorcising that right doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, and that is where I see a flaw in the socialist - almost communist approach of the left.

The right-wing vision isn’t advocating that anyone be prevented from releasing free mods, they are just saying they want to exorcise basic rights over their work and let the market decide it’s value. Where as the left-wing is saying that everyone should be denied their rights and forced to conform to a communal way of thinking, and failing that, they should move on, get a job (as if we don’t already have jobs) if they want money, ’cause money has no role to play in a community, being the root of all evil as it is. To which I can’t help but say that if anything is the root of evil it would be “the lack of money”. If having money causes problems then you should be so lucky as to have those types of problems. For most people in the world money is what solves problems.

All we’ve really got going on here is speculation, no one here really knows how any of this is going to play out. But as I see it, worst case scenario is no more free mods. If that happened then I agree it would kill the community. It would effectively be No More Modding, just unofficial DLC’s, a disaster for mod makers and mod users.

Best case scenario for modders (though not for mod users) would be modders having the right to sell their mods on Bethesda officially sanctioned site, or release for free if that is their wish. I think what we would see is that only the best and most polished mods would sell, and those of us who couldn’t produce mods of such a high standard would continue to release for free. As long as future SDK's (game editors) are similar to what we have now then the nature of our mods will not change.

As for how it would change the community, I think that some people here have a utopian ideal that they apply to this community that verges on delusional. Everyone here has their own way of thinking and their own perception of what the modding community is. We don’t all move in lock-step, we are a community of individuals. One of the moderators here said it best when she said “trying to control the modding community is like trying to herd cats”. We can only be who we are. Modders who like to hoard knowledge will continue to do so, as they already do. Modders who like to teach and write tutorials will continue to do that because that is who they are. Some resource makers will demand payment, while others will release for free with the stipulation that they never be used in paid mods. Some very good modders will make money from modding, while some other very good modders will release for free because doing so fits in with their own personal ideology. As for myself, I will probably continue to obsessively work on my mods to near completion, only to abandon them because something else becomes more interesting, rarely releasing anything of value, because that is my nature… and money wont change it. :)

Arthmoor wrote:

However, that reward should not be to satisfy monetary greed.

And yet nobody has been able to articulate how getting paid to mod somehow means satisfying monetary greed.

I could say the same about all these guys who post Youtube stuff and monetize the videos. Especially since they are arguably making money off of things OTHER people made. Yet nobody seems to be directing their righteous anger at them for it either.

It doesn't make much sense to me, in the same way people who call Origin and uPlay evil but embrace Steam when all 3 do all of the same things to their customers.

requested wrote: I can only speak for myself, but I never said it was wrong OR greedy to charge money for your work. There's nobody stopping you from doing this right now without Valve or Beth or anybody else sanctioning it.

I expressed my (idealistic?) viewpoint, that a project shouldn't be done just for the money. (= satisfying the author's greed)

I don't wanna namecall, but I could point you to dozens and dozens of software projects that are just a hoax, and simplifying the distribution of paid content without anybody checking it will result in problems.
We don't know yet how it will work, but I won't pay for any mod just to see if it does what I expected and if it does so in an intelligent way or not.

You can do with your work what you want.

Arthmoor wrote: Well, right now, there very much IS someone stopping people from charging money for their mods. Bethesda's legal team. They'll come down on you like a ton of bricks for it.

Also, folks in various parts of this whole thread keep saying you can go run a Kickstarter. No. You can't. Every last one that Beth has found out about has been shut down due to violating the CK EULA.

There's a certain irony in people who say it's greedy to charge money telling people to use Kickstarter in the same breath. Kickstarter usually involves sums of money that are quite large.

In any case, I can't see it as greedy even if someone specifically mods to make money. It's using your talents to benefit yourself. We all do this (if we're lucky) - it's called having a job. Some people get paid to dig ditches, others get paid to sell cars, some get paid to make the games we play, and yes, there are some who make careers out of posting dumb videos to Youtube. I fail to see how someone being able to turn modding into a career is a bad thing.

JinixElder wrote: It's not so much the getting paid bit - it's the legal crappola that goes along with it.... and the direction that takes. The copyright infringements etc... for instance each 'model' would now be owned and no modifications made without a lawsuit.
No simple retexturing without signing legal forms and getting permission for changes etc...
Eventually the big games will have to deal with modders forming into companies trying to reign in modders for profit.

From love of modding to greed for money.

sesom wrote: Do you take the same responsibility as a commercial company Arthmoor if you are paid for making mods?

If the answer is no, it's greedy.

Arthmoor wrote: Then I guess all Indie Dev studios are greedy too since they don't take on the same level of responsibility as AAA developers.

You realize this logic fails hard, yes?

sesom wrote: Nope it doesn't fail. Because that's actually how the indie studios struggle atm. professionalism (who sold out shortly to MS?). It's the same with youtube where the "big" youtubers suddenly have to realize what business and copyright law means. Responsibility.

All this wonderfull "Kickstarter" projects that promise the customer ...heaven... and can't even deliver a minimal of the promised functionality....

Yeah we need this for mods too ... urgently ... and in thousends. Best with it's own Steam Workshop....

But I am sure all of these "professional" modmakers who sell you their product have payed their licenses for Photoshop, 3DSMax, Substance Painter, .... Sure they have and don't use student licenses or worse.

The commercialisation of mods is a minefield for customer and modmakers. I wouldn't open up this can of worms.

Read about the SIMS 2 modscene and what happend as the "big business" started there. It should open up your eyes why it's a very bad thing and all about greed.

I am not talking about you as person. I am talking about what happpens as soon as this possibility is open.

(Btw. Yes I am working on my own game too and yes it will be a commercial project.)

Shezrie wrote:

But I am sure all of these "professional" modmakers who sell you their product have payed their licenses for Photoshop, 3DSMax, Substance Painter, .....

Why would they need to when they can use Blender, Gimp, Paint.NET, Nifscope, Audacity etc etc....

Arthmoor wrote:

Nope it doesn't fail.

Except it does, because your argument is rooted in the assumption that all modders and Indie game devs are irresponsible children who are borderline software pirates. You may not have noticed, but there are plenty of us right now in the free modding scene who fight hard for proper attribution, permissions, and the rights of our fellow modders. Even when some of them despise us for doing so.

Read about the SIMS 2 modscene and what happend as the "big business" started there. It should open up your eyes why it's a very bad thing and all about greed.

I have. I think the rumors are entirely overblown and are rooted in jealously more than anything else. We don't all see things the same way :P

Shezrie covered the remainder. There are plenty of open source free alternatives to the expensive programs you mentioned. You'd also be surprised just how many modders have donated hard earned money to those projects to keep them alive.

Shezrie wrote:

There always will be modders that won't sell their mods, Gopher, being one of the most well known of them, because they are making the mod for the mod, not money.

Not sure how I missed this before. You do know that Gopher is one of the lucky ones making a full living from making videos about mods, right?

It baffles the mind....how is it that it is okay for others to make money from modders work, yet not okay for modders too. Just thought I would throw that out for folks to think about.

phellen wrote: To add onto Shezrie's and Arthmoors points, why couldn't modders make money exactly the same way that Gopher makes money reviewing mods? Through advertising sponsors and page views.

One can assume most people watching Gopher's videos are going to be also viewing the mod pages to access the download. There's your coinage right there and users still get access to mods for free.

Zaldiir wrote: This would probably be the best solution. Some sort of NexusMods Partnership - for every penny earned from ads on your mod page, you get a cut from NexusMods.

This could be an opt-in thing, and could be only available to those who have access to the Authors Forum.

And to take it further, a subscription model like what Twitch has, if you want to support a mod author more (could basically be an expansion to the donation system - allowing monthly automatic donations).


There are a lot of things that can be done without making the actual mods cost money, and I think ad revenue is the best alternative to it.

surge914 wrote: It's not. It's greedy to make mods for the Main Purpose of getting paid. Take EA and Ubisoft vs. Indie games. Both get paid but recently there have been much better rated indie games than triple AAA games from EA and Ubisoft. Why? because these companies don't care about making games they care about taking your money and is evident with every broken, half-finished game they keep pushing out knowing full well it hasn't properly gone through QA. Indie games on the other hand(and i'm not speaking for all) make these games because they enjoy it and don't expect to get rich of selling a game half the price of a triple AAA game. That's where the expression, "Do what you love and the money will come" comes in. I think games that fit that quote are Angry birds, Clash of clans, divinity original sin, plus the new cities skylines is getting really good ratings by many and these games were made by small groups of people.

phellen wrote: For those arguing for there to be absolutely no change to modding at all, I think there is a problem with that argument and that is the underlying assumption that all modding can remain at the status quo forever. I doubt that's the case as companies like Valve have already realized the earning potential that's there, and are likely chomping at the bit to take hold of it.

How the modding landscape changes will depend upon who is the first to act, and what the response of the entire gaming community will be. I think it's better to be pro-active and adapt if not be the ones to set a precedent/direction, rather than to just sit back and watch it all play out from the sidelines, because if you don't guess who might end up being left out of the equation at the end of the day?

(In response to Zaldiir)
I think if the Nexus were to one day adopt a model similar to what you described, it could only serve to help grow the modding community. The "opt in" feature you mentioned is a great idea in that that it leaves the choice in the hands of the modder(s) for whether or not they want to take advantage of potential advertising income.

Zaldiir wrote: @Surge: I don't think anyone make mods with the main goal of getting rich. But is it really greedy to want to get at least a little bit out of the hours (often hundreds or thousands) spent making the mod(s)?

Ironman5000 wrote: This won't be a debate settled any time soon regardless of how many threads or posts made, like politics there's always gonna be two sides of the fence who will want to challenge each other. Lets just try not to get too riled up ONLY because money MIGHT enter into our world, believe it or not it's not the be-all and end-all of everything, if an individual seeks to gain some for through a hobby it's none of your business. If there ever is a future mandatory change you nay sayers will eventually learn to live with it anyway especially when you see the full picture instead of the singular idea of "greed".

khmp wrote: An assumption for an assumption? I believe what you are basically trying to state is the following: Introducing money into a hobby is intrinsically corrupting to the hobby and the hobbyist. If this is your deduction then I strongly advise you to reconsider your position. There is far too much gray area in that statement to wholly believe it.

There are so many unique circumstances that you and I cannot begin to fathom spurring on their creative works. It may be money. It may be prestige. It may be love. It may be to learn. It might just be a lark. I think you're precluding your ability to see any other motivation than personal betterment as misguided. When in fact any one of those reasons can result in another person's gaming experience becoming enriched.

If I am misconstruing or otherwise projecting, please correct me.

My personal concerns IF modding were to become monetized:
Permissions.
Copyright.
Content Sharing.
Creator/Consumer Interaction/Responsibility.
Stability.
Patching.
Refunding.
DRM.

Anasctazia wrote: deleted

phellen wrote: (Expanding upon my previous point)

One easy way to implement advertising would be to in a sense, follow the example of what google has done with youtube. The Nexus could have an option for modders to attach a video Ad that instantly streams upon someone opening the "files" page of a mod. At the end of the video, or after a few seconds, options can appear for for the user to download the mod via NMM or manually.

dasgones wrote: a big issue I'm seeing here, and i believe the most worrisome, is going to be the limiting of modding in a game to only those selling the the approved marketplace. I would only slightly mind paying for a few mods but would hate to have to pay for all mods. and if the developers start to incorporate the selling of mods (especially at a 75% profit margin) in this direction I fear that is exactly what will happen. Unless the entire modding community united to stop them, there would be nothing to stop developers from monopolizing on the work of volunteers. I'm especially worried about bethesda doing so after seeing their attempt to market TES:O at $60 a month. I respect the hours of effort that goes into modding. I've done a little myself but after realizing how much I suck at it my respect doubled as well as commitment to testing and seeing the wonder created in the modding community. I wouldn't mind buying many of you lunch every now and then for your amazing artwork. But that principle changes drastically when I have to pay someone else for your art. My expectations for something I buy increase with the price. I feel that would be a massive shame towards the community to move from a collective team experiencing something awesome into a community of people fighting over copyrights and royalties from the tablecloth of a developer. As much as I agree you deserve a tangible reward I would despise seeing the developer of the game forcing you to sell yourself. And they will if we let them. it isn't the modder's greed that will destroy the community but the developer's.

treota wrote: The simple truth:
It is in no way greedy to expect 'reward' (could be money) for your effort.

However, when the product you are creating relies almost entirely on something that another person or entity has made (in this case Skyrim) and that product could be argued to be taking potential opportunities away from the creators of the base software then you can not reasonably ask for money as a reward without being 'greedy'.

A good 50-60% of the reason people would consider your mod is due to the base software that it was created for, not to mention the other 40% could easily be from another IP aswell (such as a star wars/star trek mod etc). So at the most you could claim around 20% of the input value. Not to mention that if you ask for money then your quality standards rocket upwards and you will have to put far more effort into said mod.

(Total conversion type mods are a little different but still follow the same kind of rules)

It would be something like standing next to a hotdog vendor with a bottle of mustard, then asking $2 for a squirt of mustard on peoples hotdogs. Now lets say that the mustard you are offering is of poor quality, then that customer develops a poor opinion of the hotdog vendor even though they did not authorize you to give out mustard and to put extra sting on it you are taking potential profit away from their business.

Modding itself has been under fire from birth, many companies will flat out ban any mod of their game under the reasoning of profit theft, others will intentionally make it next to impossible to mod their game. We as modders should be thankful to more enlightened companies that are willing to embrace the benefits of having a modding community.

Bonus:
Also, ask this question: A team of potentially hundreds made this software and are asking $40-60, how much is your mod really worth?

Shezrie wrote:

It would be something like standing next to a hotdog vendor with a bottle of mustard, then asking $2 for a squirt of mustard on peoples hotdogs

Following this logic....

- A painter cannot place the value of his/her painting above the value of the canvas/paints/paintbrushes and multitude of other tools artists use.

Lets take that further....that 'cityscape' that artist is painting was designed and created by a multitude of designers, laborers using a multitude of resources built by others. Consequently the artist is building off something that so many others created. Frankly that artist should be paying THEM all to even pick up his paintbrush, never mind thinking to make money from selling his painting!

It doesn't work that way. Just because something is built on something else doesn't devalue the time, effort and unique creativity put into it.

PS...where I come from sauces cost extra. lol

DrakeTheDragon wrote:

It would be something like standing next to a hotdog vendor with a bottle of mustard, then asking $2 for a squirt of mustard on peoples hotdogs. Now lets say that the mustard you are offering is of poor quality, then that customer develops a poor opinion of the hotdog vendor even though they did not authorize you to give out mustard and to put extra sting on it you are taking potential profit away from their business.

Except, let's not forget, this is about "Bethesda" planning to introduce a paid mods scheme via curated workshops or something on the Steam Workshop. It is the hotdog vendor literally "inviting" you to sell your mustard here!

I'm convinced, if Bethesda were in any way worried about your mods devaluing their products, they'd sure as hell never loosen the restriction that mods cannot be sold ever as it is now. But they're going to, or at least that's what this whole article is about, so they must have good reason to and disagree with the issues you brought up in their place.

Like I said a long, long way down the comments in here already, I personally don't see this coming anytime soon, yet. They're by far not even remotely compared for it, yet, and if they rush it, it will put an end to the attempt before it started.

Not that not being prepared for something and being warned about the fact from multiple sources previously has ever stopped them from rushing right ahead into disaster anyways, but... yeah. It takes a multitude of things to be done first, before they can even think of introducing a curated workshop for any of their existing games.

But that's besides the point. I'm in a "Do what you want, I don't care anymore. Unless you force me to put a price on my work as well, then I'm gone" state of mind about it currently. So that is that. I'll sit back and watch things develop, and I won't get involved into this too much, until I see a development that warrants it.

But calling artists (and yes, mod authors == artists) "greedy" for wishing for a little financial gain for sharing their work with the public, in my eyes, is pretty much stretching it here.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still convinced the introduction of paid modding will put an end to the community as we know it. But those artists have all damn right to wish for a little compensation at any time and do not deserve being called "greedy" over it! This relation does not compute.

jacquelope wrote: Good point. I pay for huge amount of DLCs (er, expansions) for Sims and then I also pay for mods.

NOT.

I abandoned the franchise after Sims 1 and I guess I will give up video games entirely in favor of, perhaps, writing stories. It'll be a pain not to watch mods like Vilja evolve across new iterations of Elder Scrolls (assuming ESO isn't the end of single player Elder Scrolls) but c'est la vie. Being microgouged for games is not for me.

Mindprobe24 wrote: Keyword: "Donate" :)

Sslaxx wrote: Deleted.

badkrma wrote: I donated to Arthmoor for his work in the Unofficial Skyrim patches... now that was worth my money.... mods are cool but he and his team actually fix what the game developer dropped....his work has made my game stable, what he does is work, painstaking work...my 2 cents

danjal wrote: @Arthmoor - For me, one of the bigger stumbling blocks will be compatibility.
While a lot of mods would be worth paying for (Falskaar being an obvious example), at the same time most of us here download mods, try them out, put various mods together.
Test often through trial and error untill we reach a balance that we're satisfied with.

Would you pay $5 for a mod you're not even sure will work in your setup?

There is a secondary concern though. With regards to Valve/Steam.
Just look at Steam Early Access. Its a massive flustercluck - customer support is nonexistent and its riddled with half-finished pieces of junk.
Moreover, due to the legal status of this, its a wild west. There are barely any explicit regulations in place to enforce anything.
By all rights Early Access falls straight in the "Digital Goods" section of consumer law - yet its impossible to enforce anything.

This won't be any different.
So the question isn't as simple as "Does a modder deserve to be paid?"
As much as it is: "If a modder gets paid, what are his responsibilities towards his product?"
Aswell as: "If Valve/Bethesda start profiting off of mods, what are THEIR responsibilities towards the respective services provided?"
Where do you even being to start quantifying what a mod is worth?

Not to get started on the whole "Horse Armor" debacle.
And plenty of mods would be just that... Freelanced armor/weapon DLC.

danjal wrote:

This would probably be the best solution. Some sort of NexusMods Partnership - for every penny earned from ads on your mod page' date=' you get a cut from NexusMods.[/quote']
Agreed. This WOULD probably a far better solution.

akparkison wrote: Actually Arthmoor there is a lot of division in the Sims community about money and paying for custom content. The Sims Resource used to frequently come under fire for requiring users to pay to have access to several modder's files.

They finally went free, but with tons of ads on their site and longer download times if you block their ads or don't buy a subscription to the site.

I won't even get into how many people used to complain about the prices in the Sims 3 Store. Piracy is/was quite common in the Sims 3 community. But no one ever wants to admit to doing it.

Now Adfly is a problem that many people are unhappy about. Because of the malware frequently attached to it that gets by adblockers.

The most famous Sims modder of them all - Twallan from NRAAS - never took a dime and refused it many times. He always said modding should never be about money. Ever. He always said that it was about making the game you love better and cleaning up EA's messes for the greater good.

He's retired now, but he would be appalled at this.

That's my experience. And I am a long-time Sims player.

Thank you. Actually EA does not agree (to my knowledge) with making people pay for mods or custom content made by players.

They kept that to themselves with the Sims 2 and then the Sims 3 Store. Who knows what they will do with Sims 4.

[smokex]

In response to post #24566899. #24572739 is also a reply to the same post.

Shadeling wrote:

danjal wrote: It'll be interesting to see how many mod authors will go for this midway point.

Putting up an ultimatum style deal that unless they get paid X they'll move exclusively to Workshop (perhaps not as drastic).
Or alternately as someone else suggests, a potential partnership to provide financial benefits for modders with NexusMods or similar.

Until today, they received nothing. 25% is a lot better than nothing.

[Azradun]

In response to post #24566899. #24572739, #24581809 are all replies on the same post.

Shadeling wrote:

danjal wrote: It'll be interesting to see how many mod authors will go for this midway point.

Putting up an ultimatum style deal that unless they get paid X they'll move exclusively to Workshop (perhaps not as drastic).
Or alternately as someone else suggests, a potential partnership to provide financial benefits for modders with NexusMods or similar.

smokex wrote: Until today, they received nothing. 25% is a lot better than nothing.

@smokex

Don't worry, they'll still receive nothing. Valve won't pay them until they scrounge together at least 100$ (shipping fees etc.). It's right in the terms.

[XbrisbyX]

Nobody was complaining before all this, and If valve hadn't decided to pull a total "EA", nobody would be complaining right now. That should be enough for valve to see it was a bad idea. This is the kind of thing you need a survey for. They should have figured out if people would actually pay for mods before dropping this on us. Then this would have been avoided and no one would be bashing on valve or the mod authors.

 

And I dont want to pay for mods, but if I absolutely have to I'd at least want the authors getting 75%, not the people who caused all this outrage.

[deane9850]

In response to post #24566899. #24572739, #24581809, #24582784 are all replies on the same post.

Shadeling wrote:

danjal wrote: It'll be interesting to see how many mod authors will go for this midway point.

Putting up an ultimatum style deal that unless they get paid X they'll move exclusively to Workshop (perhaps not as drastic).
Or alternately as someone else suggests, a potential partnership to provide financial benefits for modders with NexusMods or similar.

smokex wrote: Until today, they received nothing. 25% is a lot better than nothing.

Azradun wrote: @smokex

Don't worry, they'll still receive nothing. Valve won't pay them until they scrounge together at least 100$ (shipping fees etc.). It's right in the terms.

@smokey .. Until today, Valve received nothing. Now they get 75% of everything.

[jheise44]

Everyone thinks on the basic level about all this. There is so much more to charging for mods than anyone actually realizes. When you provide a product, it needs to work out of the box without extra help. The beginner needs to be able to install it. Well, we all know a Skyrim we enjoy takes 5+ hours to install with merge patches, bashed patches, perfecting load orders, and picking and choosing mods.

 

If something goes wrong, that beginner needs a number or email to contact. You can't just say too bad because they paid for a product. This is how a game works, so that is how a mod for money should work. (BTW why are mods more than Skyrim itself at the moment on Steam?, absurd)

 

Just the tip of the iceberg.

 

What about mods like immersive armors, weapons, wet and cold, or any mod that uses components from other mods. Like Dark0ne said, you think permissions and credits are bad now?? Just wait. Who gets the money? Splitting it isn't a reasonable decision, sometimes mods are made from tons of people. Will it end up being the end of large mods like Falskaar, etc. because no one wants to deal with it all?

 

Now what about mods that use resources from Witcher, or Assassin's Creed, or you name it? That sounds like a legal pain in the butt. When money is involved everything changes.

 

To top it all off, Steam gets 75% and the modder only gets 25% and that is AFTER the mod reaches the $100 mark. LOL ridiculous.

 

I have noticed some modders already abandoning Nexus. If I pay for those mods can said modder come to my house and get it to work with another mod I paid for? Didn't think so. Who would have thought your "business competition" would be a guy with a completely different product but you can't have both because of a small "conflict"

 

I could go on forever but I want to avoid a wall of text. Modding should be done out of love for modding and not for money.

[phantompally76]

In response to post #23719594. #23737919, #23743949, #23746339, #23751059, #23751089, #23758904, #23759199, #23759404, #23763944, #23812394 are all replies on the same post.

Shezrie wrote:

zidders wrote: To me at least it's not a question of whether they're 'worth' a certain amount although I would argue that -most- (but not all) mods are pretty worthless, Sturgeons law being what it is but as far as why it's important mods remain free...well like Dark0ne has pointed out-it's more than just about playing games. It's about expressing creativity and sharing the experience. It's like a bunch of artists creating together in a commune. What happens when you go from the primary motivation being shared creativity to the primary motivation being money?

I dunno...it's definitely a tricky situation but not everyone is saying modders are worthless or their mods have no value. Only idiots and people looking to take advantage of others are saying that.

Skabb92 wrote: I see, one of those, "its ok for me to be greedy and concerned solely with profit as long as someone uses my greed to gain some small amount of pleasure then I can say I did it for them." Modders will NEVER make any money off of mods and if they try, modding will go away. NOBODY asked for these mods, well, I take that back, Ive read nexus comments, most people expect a modder to spend hours so that some jerk can have the color scheme they felt they deserved. But I guarantee if you said "Im making a mod to sell for $15 dollars..." people would reply "good for you, Im positive you will make around $30. To say that modders should get paid is the height of absurdity. Look at apps, 90% on any platform are lies, BS and/or scams. Your greed would turn nexus and steam workshop into the apple app store. For that, I hope you suffer immensely.

CyniclyPink wrote: Brilliantly written!

Nobadovah wrote: I wouldn't pay for mods on steam workshop (or anywhere) before testing them because :

- Steam does not deserve a single coin only a kick in the ass

- Bethesda deserves nothing more than what i already paid for the main game and DLCs (and i buyed only a cheap legendary version) because most glitches got fixed by unnoficial patch made by modders and there were a lot (i played games in closed beta with far less glitches than skyrim when released)

- Some mods seem great in the description but end up being huge disappointments, when they do work at all and don't conflict with other mods.

Now a few modders deserve my respect and my thanks, but mostly my respect, because they did things i could barely imagine. A few others brought me to places i wouldn't even have had imagine. But i think that if you're doing it for money then you should stop, you probably use to do it for fun or because you hoped people would enjoy. And if you now want to sale what you first meant as a free gift for anyone to enjoy then i feel sad for you :/

By the way i'm not selling anything anywhere but writing may be harder than you think, even if it's only 10 pages. It sometimes takes a week or more to get one sentance to feel right.

RGMage2 wrote: The only reason all mods for Bethesda games have been free up til this point is because that's the rules set down by Bethesda. If/When Bethesda changes those rules to allow paid modding, this community will not be consulted and will have no say in the matter. Beth will make their decisions based on what they think is best for their business.

Will people pay for mods? Robin already answered that question. Valve reported 228 million dollars in revenue from mods, that's over a quarter of a billion, from a business model that is probably still in it's infancy. Bethesda can't ignore those numbers.

What's a mod worth? Depends on the mod, but you know there are some people here who are willing to spend 5 dollars on a cup of coffee from Starbucks, and IMO buying 5 mods for the same price would be much better value for your money.

The way I think this will all work out will be free mods and paid mods being available side by side in the same marketplace. There will probably be some kind of vetting process to decide what mods can have a price tag and for how much.

To Make this work though, Bethesda probably needs to buy the Nexus, or close it down. Better that they buy it really, and then try to continue Robin's legacy and nurture the modding community, and they would have good reason for doing that as the modding community here could be a cash cow for them. We could even see a greater level of cooperation from them than we have in the past. They might be more willing to provide some support for tools that the modding community until now has had to come up with on it's own. A lot of modelers that were active in Oblivion have sat out Skyrim because of the lack of Skyrim support for Blender. Bethesda could have solved that problem if they had enough financial incentive.

Andragon wrote: To me, the idea how much my time to create a mod is worth, never came to mind. My mods were created because I enjoyed the process of making them. My pay was the fun to make the mod, learn something, getting in touch with fellow modders and last but not least the feedback I got from users enjoying what I have created.
I released the source scripts for other authors to build on and frankly I don't care if they want to make money on what I have created. I decided that I was doing it for fun and starting to get greedy afterwards because someone else gets money just simply does not fit my character.
I do enjoy the freedom to tell people to shove it, if they demand support that is uncalled for in a free product but my experience never showed many of those people. Most people simply ask questions or give cool and giving feedback.

Shezrie wrote: Thank you for your feedback everyone.

Rolfskytte wrote: So very right Shezrie.
I agree that many people don't seem to realize that real folks have made the mods they are playing.
Gratitude never hurts! Give more thanks people!

Ithlia wrote: Well said Shezrie

NeoNord wrote: well and truly said!

I knew the second I read this comment last month that you would be among the first to charge for mods.

While it's certainly well within your rights to expect monetary compensation for all your long, arduous hours of changing values in Bethesda's Creation Kit, it is also certainly well within my rights to refuse to pay for early access to in-development, unfinished content with no support.

You stand behind your principles, and I'll stand behind mine. At the end of the day, you'll have a few extra dollars in your pocket, along with the satisfaction of knowing you were complicit in the decline of interest in the hobby of modding video games.

And furthermore, the value of a mod is determined by its QUALITY, not the number of hours spent developing it, nor how hard an author professes to have worked on it (neither of which guarantee quality). I've been working my butt off on a player home mod for over a year, and I've worked really hard on it, but that doesn't change the sad fact that it absolutely sucks and deserves neither recognition nor monetary compensation. Edited April 24, 2015 by phantompally76

[Farvat]

In response to post #24584644.

jheise44 wrote:

Totally agree. The modders that lend themselves to this game also become unofficial developers, without a regular work contract, pack animals, and that Valve and manufacturers like Bethesda exploit mercilessly, for a few crumbs. The two mods of follwers that I published, were made possible thanks to the work of others, in the future this will become much more difficult, if not almost impossible. Under these conditions I won't buy anymore games made by Betheda. I no longer want to do as The Sims, where to buy a washing machine simply Virtual costs vastly more in proportion to a rea onel. Defending Nexus, reward modding free and isolate and boycott the modders who agree to sell themselves, I think the only solution. It's legitimate to ask for donations, but to get paid is a criminal act towards the comunity. Edited April 24, 2015 by Farvat

[beyasal]

If this is going to be their attitude then there is really nothing more to say. So you pay for a mod and then if there are issues you have to "politely" ask the mod author to deal with those issues once your 24 hour trial period is over, thanks EA, I mean valve...enjoy your 75% cut for doing absolutely nothing

 

Q. What happens if a mod I bought breaks?

A. Sometimes one mod may modify the same files as another mod, or a particular combination of mods may cause unexpected outcomes. If you find that mod has broken or is behaving unexpectedly, it is best to post politely on the Workshop item's page and let the mod author know the details of what you are seeing.

[phantompally76]

In response to post #24585514.

beyasal wrote:

I can't wait to see people try to politely ask Arthmoor for......anything.