Steam and Bethesda remove paid modding from Skyrim Workshop

[UberSmaug]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

[Alenderis]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

[Kashrlyyk]

Can someone post the entire text of the blog in here: http://www.bethblog.com/2015/04/27/why-were-trying-paid-skyrim-mods-on-steam/ . No matter what I do I always get redirected to the german webpage and I like to read the english original.

[TheFlamingRed]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

[Kashrlyyk]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

[TheFlamingRed]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too! Edited April 30, 2015 by TheFlamingRed

[KaiNekobayashi]

In my opinion, I believe mods should be free, and if you like the mod then consider donating to the creator. Now, that aside, I feel you left out one HUGE plot point to your thing. The Companies got a 75% cut of the shares, while the mod creators were left with 25%. That is another huge thing that turned off the community when it came to the whole paid mods thing, now if they had it 50% it would be better. because then you get 50%, and they get 50%. IMO the companies screwed up by saying we get 75% of shares, you get 25%. That is a slap to the face for mod makers. They said, "[well] we wanted to make it so that mod makers would be able to work full time on mods." Pop quiz, do you think that a person can make a living off of 25% of .99 cents? Answer: no.

A person cannot make a living off of 1 cent per sale. I mean, lets get real, sure it adds up as people download it, but the big corporation companies decided to say we are letting you post this on our workshop, so we get 75% of all the money you make. I feel like this could of been approached better.

However, I will always stand by the fact that all mods should be free, and people should rely on donations.

 

I would also like to point out another thing that may play a role into the whole paid mods thing. The modding community would have the possibility of turning into something that isn't about creativity, but rather something that someone would just whip up and post just to make a quick buck. Granted there is the possibility of people NOT doing this, but at the same time, it is a 50/50 chance. Not to mention I feel that modding is a passion for people to make something that they can create and say yea I made that. If I had the money, I would donate to mod makers left and right. But I cant afford it unfortunately. The best thing I can do is thank the mod makers for making such awesome additions to games. It's just the way I view it.

[TheFlamingRed]

In response to post #24811984. #24812039, #24813429, #24814149, #24814369, #24814459, #24814579, #24814829, #24815214, #24815539, #24815809, #24815829 are all replies on the same post.

Alenderis wrote:

WightMage wrote: Well said.

TheFlamingRed wrote: This is probabily the view of many modders who really don't say much in the community and simple download mods and play the game, of which I am one and know of several others of similar opinion. It's not like we're heartless for not posting a comment and saying thanks, but we test these mod, enjoy them in our own way and recommend it to our friends if they're good.

To carry on the main point here, if Paid Mods were introduced from the get go of Skyrim, and SKYUI was a paid mod - I would never have paid money for it without trying it first - even though it's a mod that noone plays without. The risk / reward ratio wouldn't have been worth my money. If a mod required SKYUI, a mod I didn't pay for, I wouldn't have even looked at that mod once I read that dependancy, and I feel that many others would have done the same. Like said above, I would never pay to test to see if I liked a new mod.

I am like this with games in general too, if there is no demo, no friend who has it, no Let's play whose first hour makes me think "I need to stop watching and get this game", I simply don't play that game. Falkstar via Gopher's Let's Play, may be the only mod I would have ever paid for if it was a paid mod on release. His spotlights probably would not have been enough for me to get any utility mods, or combat mods, or apparance changing mods, as I look at my money in a 'Pounds Per Minute of Enjoyment' ratio, without any first hand expereince as to whether I would enjoy something or not. Skywind and Skyblivion and Haar-Nien-something would have been the only other mods I may have paid for, given the size and scope of their respective projects (though whether they will ever be finished is another thing)

So Beth/Valve were smart to use a game that already had famous mods that perhaps people would pay for, as it would be very hard to get new people using any paid mods - so looking at that scenario... SKYUI again as everyone knows it, Let's say they released V1 of SkyUI free, but V2 onwards paid... Well, I'd have installed the original version and I remember well how amazed I was at how better the interface was - however, this is their main selling point. V2 onwards did add things, but if they were behind a pay wall, I will probably only stayed with the original, If other mods, free or paid, required V3 with mod configerator - this would not be enough for me to buy it also, I'd just not be testing these other mods (aside that, a feel a lot less people would have made this a requirement had Mod Config been a paid for only feature). I love SKYUI, but without knowing better, I would have loved the original and would have comfortably lived ignorantly how much better V4 is and keep my money. I do not know how many people actually donate, or how much people were earning for the brief amount of paid mods, but I would not have assumed it would have been all that much different to them in the long run, especially if most of the audence of mods are people like me (I cannot even recall the Nexus policy for modders asking for donations but I would hope it is not opposed to such practice).

Maybe I will be seen in a bad light here for being tight, unhelpful for not providing income to the mod makers. I also have no stance on this paid/free modding argument as it kinda slipped under my radar until I red this post. But even though I do not post very much, nor endorce all mods i download, or donate. What I am though, is a big appreciator of the mods here, someone who advertised people I know to try mods I know they will enjoy (I cannot count how many times I have recommened SKYUI to people who still play Skyrim unmodded, and iNPCs to basically everyone who loves the game. While I am not contributing much myself, I hope through my advertisements, and the network of advertisements of mods I give, that someone will be donating, endorcing, becoming usefully active in this community.

Anyway, this was just how I see things from being a very much outside / conveince user of this site and mods in general. I mean no disrespect to anyone, and all statements correspond only to my own thoughts.

Take Care

Red

blackasm wrote: your wrong dude, the most popular mods through donations got max a couple hundred dollars in a few years, the paid mods made a thousand in a few days, the difference is huge the reward for modders is clear and the market is very real despite how cheap you and others might be. Would it create a separation between haves and have nots, yup just like dlcs, collectors editions and hell video games themselves. The fact that the entire opportunity was scrapped because a bunch of entitled loafers feel they wouldn't buy it so no one else should so they can keep getting free labor is utterly atrocious, and as far as the cut, basically they were essentially saying the mod authors or worth 25% of what they think which is pretty bad but understandable in business terms, and the community collectively shouted "NO you are worth NOTHING!"

TheFlamingRed wrote: I am surpised modders got a thousand pounds revenue out of a paid not and not through donations. That has confused me greately as I would assume that the target audience would be people who already got free mods. Still, could you point me to the figures you suggested, I cannot find where they are or what mods it was for. Where these for long standing mods or brand new mods? I really cannot find any information.

I am interested to see what the size of the market would be, compared to the the current market for free mods allowing for donations. I, as stated above, would not think the average mod user would use paid mods, so the aim is definatly a niche market, and I am curious just how big that market is.

UberSmaug wrote: Asking for donations is not allowed in the agreement. Its like a tip jar that gathers more dust than money. Technically sounds like it should have been illegal until Bethesda gave us permission to profit from their IP.

TheFlamingRed wrote: That is a shame that asking for donations is now permitted. I love open source software, and in that light, I have donated to things I find almost essential. If modders would like donations to keep on developing, then I see no harm in them stating that fact. Hell, if it means they can use the money to get better hardware, take an hour off their working week so thay can mod a bit more, I don't believe donations generate so little. Hell, even a mini Kickstarter for mods or mod development wouldn't be farfetched if authers wanted some sort of donations to the modding cause.

In open source, you will never make money to live off of like a business will provide, but there is a saying that "if you're providing something good, people want to give you money". By keeping donations on the hush-hush,'means that most people probably don't reliase that you can even donate in this way to mod authors... This is something that maybe Nexus should look at itself (i do not claim to know if there are any legal ramifications of such practice)

UberSmaug wrote: Stats are directly from the workshop about 5 days in. These were the top performers.

Purity selling for $2.99, 1400 subs = $4191.98 25%=$1047.99

Shadow Scale set $1.99, 1985 subs = $3950.15 25% = $987.54
low $1.49 " = $2957.65 25% = $739.41

Wet and Cold $4.99 670 subs = $3343.30 25% = $835.82
low .99 " = $663.30 25% = $165.82

Gifts of Akatosh $1.49 1456 subs = 2169.44 25% = $542.36

Alenderis wrote: blackasm, if you're responding to me I think you chose the wrong comment to respond to. You're essentially insulting me while making the exact same points I made in my initial post... just in a rather standoffish way. If you're going to insult me and argue with me, make sure you're not trying to say the same thing I just said.

My post can be boiled down to a simple statement that I honestly don't understand why you're arguing against: "Paid Mods are not a bad thing, but we should be able to TRY the mods before making the purchase if for a limited time. Also the modders should make more of a cut from it." My only mention of donations was stating "Hey, we should donate more". I'm arguing for Paid Mods to be done correctly, how does that make me an entitled loafer and cheap? Mods aren't an exact science here, its not official and in a lot of cases there's no between-mod support so mods just don't work together. All I stated was that we should be able to TRY the mod for a short time before buying it to make sure it works for us before we pay money.

TheFlamingRed wrote: Awesome, that is some decent money in 5 days.

Again, as a normal consumer of mods, and probably about to subject myself to a lot of hate mail, I would not have got any of those mods, nor would I recommend any of them to anyone I know. The only one i recognise is Wet and Cold - is it the same version as they one that is free on here?

Looking at Purity, lots of Subs and decent money. It made its way to nexus now and in less then a day, has about 3.5x the number of downloads. Its shame we didn't get to see what those figures would have looked like in a month. Would it have continued to grow, is the audience limited?

All it does look like is, providing it for free makes mods far more outreaching but apparently undervalued, and paid mods get some more cash but will narrow the audence significantly. In the end, I guess it is upto the motivations of a mod maker and what they want to see happen out of their mods.

Are there mod makers who want to make a profit? Would they be happy with just more donations?

I look back on Wet and Cold... Please let me know if it is the same, or near same to the version they have on here... if so, who are the people playing for it? I find it hard to believe they are all new people who have never heard of it before. If many of the people buying it are from the Nexus and said "I will buy it to show my support", then something has gone wrong if they are not getting similar money via donations at the moment!

Kashrlyyk wrote: You are ignoring the fact that the buyer only has 24h to find out if the mod works or not. And you are ignoring that Valves approach to "What can the consumer do if a mod stops working at some point?" is "Well, you can ask the mod maker and if he doesn't fix it than you lost money!" Valve is fine with people losing money with their shitty paid mod system.

The outcry was not just about Valve/Bethesdas cheap attitude towards modders but also that paying consumers are treated like s#*!.

TheFlamingRed wrote: I should add at this point, that all the points I am making are off the bat of Alen. I'm not against the principle, I am saying that I cannot see myself or many modders paying for mods without the ability of testing or, and in my case, seeing some sort of time of enjoyment to money spent ratio. That is impossible to do without some sort of demo. And in addition, if a purely free but less feature version came out, I may still coose to keep that rather then pay for updated version. This leaves test periods... but how long I may wish to test compared to another may differ significantly. I would stuggle to justify to pay for something that may result in my saved game being currupted (thinking old Warzones - awesome at the time, didn't get developed and caused some horrible issues and had to remove it - though admittedly, love the fact they came back and redid it) - but I have no quarms about dealing with such hurdels with free mods... I accept that when using mods, the game will be less stable, but if it happened on something I paid for. These are problems that need to be addressed before you get people like me investing in free mods.

I must appologise to the OP as I have derailed the topic a little, as I my thoughts take me through the scenarios of 'why are paid mods better for the mod author too'. I would think anyone who paid money to get these mods, would normally be more then willing to donate to them too!

Kashrlyyk has hit a big nail here and Warzones is the perfect example of this.

Warzones was amazing, but through lack of development became outdated through patches (and was heroically saved only a few months ago).

But let's take this to the next game.... Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, paid mods comes out. Pay £2 for a mod. Patch 4 comes out breaks mod. Mod is broken and game auto-updates through steam. Author has moved onto modding another game, as not much revenue is being got through original mod. Big Issue that would prevent me from buying a mod until all patches were out. Would a mod author be bound by contract with beth/valve to fix this mod?

I can see that there is money to be made in paid modding given the figures given, but there are also now consumer rights risks that never existed before. I'm not against that approach but it certainly has flaws to work out, both from the modders standpoint and consumers. I would like the idea of 'Open Source' style funding to keep a happy medium between purely free and purely paid modding, but that is something that needs to be sorted out by the community leaders amoung themselves.

[Ghatto]

In response to post #24808104. #24814359 is also a reply to the same post.

GoldenDragonRider wrote:

blackasm wrote: you hit the nail on the head bro, it is not right at all. The worst part of this is that the users don't even see their entitlement (do they ever) and just assume that form of creation must always be utterly worthless. Of course many of these users claiming Bethesda and valve are thieves for taking a huge risk and keeping modding alive in general (remember they really don't have to support modders and it only barely adds to their revenue stream while adding a buckton of headaches). well in an age where less and less game studios hire mod makers or even support mod development (that was really more of a 10+ years ago thing) and where artists work is devalued more and more artists like me need to seriously reconsider our involvement with communities that would further devalue our creative efforts while benefitting off of them, I mean lets not forget the reality here, the nexus mod site and its users benefit more directly from the content of mod authors more than Bethesda or valve does.

Poor analogies both.

People are angry at the painter because a 'free' painting in the gallery (mod) will leave that gallery. If they wanted to pay him for making a new work unassociated with the gallery (separate game) nobody could stop him or really complain.

Your musician friend plays at a show for money, consumers have to pay money for a ticket. This is like how every single modder and user here must pay Bethesda for the game (a ticket) in order to use mods. If the audience was forced to tip your friend for their music in addition to the ticket there would be more contention and argument about value. Admittedly, in this example, Bethesda does not share the proceeds of that ticket, but that's not the consumers fault.

[Vesuvius1745]

Up until about a week ago, mod authors had been putting their stuff on the Nexus for years, and I don't recall ever seeing anyone complain that they weren't getting paid for doing it. Since they have never been paid, it could be assumed they were doing it for the fun of doing it, to give back to the community from which they had also enjoyed free mods from, or perhaps just to hone their programming/ modding skills and have something to put on a resume (or maybe a mix of reasons).

 

The possibility of selling their mods was dangled in front of their faces and then taken away, and now a bunch of mod authors are declaring they won't/can't continue to make mods unless they get paid. For some reason last week it was fine, but now it's just too much work unless they get to punch a clock. Some of them also threw temper tantrums and took down all their mods. Some reluctantly left their mods up, but with the declaration they were quitting modding forever and never coming back.

 

You don't owe anyone anything, but why did you start modding in the first place? And has anything really changed all that much over the past week other than the possibility of profit was given and then taken away?