Paid modding Solutions, lets rebuild what we have burned.

[blackasm]

Since this whole paid modding fiasco erupted I have been more vocal in standing up for the artists right to earn a living and I still strongly feel the modding community lost out as a whole as proven by the re-emergence of great mod authors and their subsequent quitting. I and a number of other modders feel like we lost an immense opportunity to create newer and better content for everyone that would have benefitted what would have been both the paid and non paid community. The general opinion amongst many mod authors was to still keep their free content free and only charge for newer better content (content that would require a full time jobs worth of effort). I think at the end of the day we have proven that free modding is here to stay and wont leave, the nexus will stay free and the collaboration will still be strong. In fact the only thing that seemed to seriously hurt the modding community here was the fact that many mod authors just realized that their time and efforts were greatly undervalued and the moment that their skills and talants were about to be appreciated in a meaningful way, they had their dream taken away from them because the people who were unwilling to pay for that dream drowned out the people who were.

 

Everyone agrees the implementation was atrocious, and even though the percentage break down seems unfair to most, I am actually more for a 30 to valve (that is how steam operates with everything) and 25% Bethesda 40% modder and 5% to a mod oversight, there are a number of ways this could be implemented and I want to hear all suggestions. I have heard all of the concerns and they are all true but realistically I feel they are all also resolvable so I want this thread to be a constructive brainstorm of how this can be implemented. What is a realistic return policy? To me the funds should be held not paid to the mod author by steam, until 5 days, giving the user ample time to test and see if the mod is compatible if not it gets returned. In prevention of piracy I think the community can help but it also would take a little more than that, that is why earlier I mentioned an oversight that would have to be implemented but also what about when someone is found guilty after the fact. To me it is theft plain and simple without explicit permission, someone trying to sell content better have created it themselves and should be subject to the consequences, not valve or Bethesda but the uploader this is money after all and theft is a big deal. That means their needs to be a much more comprehensive system to uploading mods, mod pages in general. What about mod compatability, mod managers and the fact that so many mods are dependant on others? Already many of the free modder resources have declared they would remain free while other authors said the opposite, even the skyui team were simply going to make a newer version of their mod. would that mean free mods will all follow the older outdated skyui, Should that newer version have been done differently, been treated different from the other mods?

 

A lot of these questions I don't have answers to and the ones I do I am not sure of. These are just my starting thoughts I want to hear everyone else's opinion on this providing it is constructive, I don't want this to be an us vs them thread, or why paid modding is good or bad, I want to see how both can work ideally for the free community, the mod authors, and for willing to pay community.