Why we can't use Patreon, and talking about donations and doing more to support mod authors

[Xilandro]

Let's beat the dead horse for a second. Please keep in mind that I'm against pay wall and aggressive paid modding.

Mod A is cool. Mod A has tons of downloads and good amount of endorsements. Mod A doesn't get donations at all. Even if you put " Donate if you like!" right in front of a mod users face. Maaaybe sometime at Christmas some good guy will donate few bucks. Maybe ;)

Mod A requires some new 3D assets. Mod author contacts other mod authors, 3D artists, just to get reply "no", or "maybe later", or "$20/hour" (fellow modders eh? =D). Mod author decides to get assets from Turbosquid or other 3D assets platform. Mod author need some sounds as well. Again, he decides to use some paid sound effects due to high quality. And spend his own money to release it for free, for the people who never donate =D "Free" modding? For users? Yes. But not from Mod A author's perspective.

The only system that acutally worked so far - a big paywall between modder and user, during steam paid modding drama. If the mod itself doesn't motivate people to donate - nothing will motivate them. Any"donate" reminders, or "please donate" at the top of the page + big font + red color, etc.

People will donate only if they get something back. For example - Twitch. Want to use some cool emoticons in the chat of your favorite channel? Subscribe for 5 bucks monthly please. And it works. Want something - pay for it.

I would love to see good donation here on the nexus, I just have doubts it will work, no matter how good it is. As long as users think that mod authors deserve nothing but endorsements and stupid questions in comment section =D

Edited September 10, 2015 by Xilandro

[FredNotBob]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089 are all replies on the same post.

Psijonica wrote: *****************SOLVED****************

The best way to compensate mode authors would be to give the good authors with many a certain amount of downloads a space where they could get some advertising revenue. Essentially they become a partner with you,with no voting or legal rights but they have a square on their page where they can sell an add. This can be set up in a variety of ways where you, the nexus can get advertising to pay more to advertise on popular mod pages and therefore send the mod authors a small percentage of that. The nexus can still have adds on the better spots on the page and not share in that revenue. You can create a sliding scale where the popular mod authors make more of a percentage of their add revenue so it is tied into the amount of page clicks and mod views and also more importantly unique downloads.

Think of it like this Dark0ne: How does the Government guarantee they get their taxes. Here where I live it is called Deduction at Source. The Government makes Companies/Corporations pay their employees taxes by removing the taxes off of their pay-checks. It becomes the Companies responsibility to do this for their employees.

Your mod authors can be thought of as employees. If you really want them to make some money then you need to facilitate that into the function of this website. You wouldn't loose money and you wouldn't have any legal problems. You don't need programmers to solve this, you need accountants.

Have a nice day :)

Edit: I wonder if you would be able to tie it in with Google Adsense and therefore you wouldn't even have any extra work on your end as the Adsense guys would send them their check directly... or you could work directly with Google Adsense and figure out the details.

I think this idea changes the paradigm and solves everything. If you, Dark0ne, truly want mod authors to make some extra cash then this is a way that accomplishes you4r goal and solves the Legal Issues that are preventing you from doing so.

Laast wrote: Nice and fair idea.

My Pure Waters page has more than 3 millions views (just like most of top 50 mods). If it was a youtube video and I was a youtuber, I think I would get a nice amount of money with advertising. Nexus mostly lives because of advertising, so why not share these revenue with modders who generates millions of pages visited and generated click? That's an interesting approach.

AnyOldName3 wrote: The issues I see with this are that people who've paid for supporter membership have done so under the premise of seeing no ads on the nexus ever again. Changing that after they've paid isn't particularly fair (and is probably against a bunch of EU and UK trading laws). However, the payment was taken at a level to cover the Nexus' expenses, but not to reimburse modders for lost ad revenue too, so the price may have to be altered, which means older users will have got a better deal (which is fairer, but still not ideal). I imagine premium membership has a much larger margin, so has room to give some to modders.

People who use adblockers are also a bit of an issue, but the whole site overall copes with that adequately, so it's reasonable to assume ads in mod pages wouldn't fair differently.

Finally, a perfect mod would get fewer page views than a buggy mess, simply because if you're having to come back to troubleshoot that's an extra visit the bug-free mod would have got.

All these mean your solution isn't perfect, but then I'm not sure a perfect solution exists.

Ideally, I'd have Bethesda just charge a little more for the game, and then have some kind of system where they partner with big mod authors like the unofficial patch team, Mike Hancho, and Fore to give them money and support to release their work as part of the main game, with smaller things from other authors that come down to taste being released as free 'DLC', with everything being screened for bugs and incompatibilities by Bethesda. I feel this would remove Bethesda's incentive to release a feature-poor, buggy game and then profit off modders fixing it, would not stop people making a second mod that does the same job as another, would allow proper quality control, and would allow Bethesda to take some kind of cut without it being solely based on the work of others (after all, it was possible under their previous system to use entirely open-source tools like TES5Edit, Blender and Nifskope without ever even running Skyrim or anything Bethesda made and still have them take a cut).

Psijonica wrote: @ Laast

Exactly this! (read Laast's post)

You see Laast, if Dark0ne really wants to support modders with a financial incentive then this is the only way he could do it and have NO legal issues with Bethesda or any other third party programs.

And it doesn't get rid of Dark0ne's income. In fact it enhances it greatly. We need to think outside the box and change the paradigm here. My idea is just that, an idea. So instead of people posting why this can't work and going on about donations and other systems that don't really work (meaning the mod authors don't really gain any reasonable form of income,) why don't people start building on this idea with reason why and how it could work.

When this pay for mods fiasco started I was ripped a new butthole for mentioning ideas like this and for arguing against paying for mods. Which I still stand by my beliefs. This idea sidesteps all that. It solves everything. It is simple. Simplicity at it's finest.

It makes too much sense. It is also the only strategy that I have read that could possibly combat what Bethesda is planning. I created a Think Tank to discuss these ideas and it was very difficult to organize. I planned and organized two Think Tanks and both failed. (Umm... not sure about what happened to the second group as I and a handful of members splintered off to work on our own.) Fortunately the second attempt did give birth to a smaller more cohesive group of educated like minded individuals with the correct business and legal backgrounds to attack these issues and come up with real life SOLUTIONS.

Although I can't speak for the group, I can share this idea because it is my own and one I have had for many years as I predicted this whole mess around 6 years ago. If people here start to really think about this idea and all the possibilities with the current exploration in the future layout of the website, I think we would all agree that the possibilities are ripe for the picking.

gezegond wrote: edit: sorry wrong post.

macintroll wrote: @Psijonica 100% Agree with your approach.(I had a same proposal, during paid modding fiasco discussions)
So far only Nexus CAN make money from mods.. with ads... and a LOT, you can count thousands of $ per month.
even Youtubers can make money reviewing mods.. but not modders (Hahaha)

Nexus Sharing or implementing some ads revenue to the mods that make them gain money seem fair to me, and if it's a new revenue this will not even take any toll on nexus existing gains.

Dark0ne wrote: The inherent problem with this approach is that people have no clue how little money such an ad placement would make them. It would be a below-the-fold ad for starters, that garners less, and you'd be looking at a $0.05-$0.10 CPM, if that. Probably lower if it was with Adsense, and if it's not with Adsense, then I've got to handle the money. One of the main points I raised during the paid modding fiasco is that I don't want to touch ANY donation money. I don't want that responsibility and it hits some serious legal issues that I'd need to pay a lawyer to drum out and address to ensure I'm doing things right.

YouTube ads earn a crap ton of money as they're targeted, they're video ads, and the viewer is forced to watch them before seeing what they actually want to see. That's worth a lot of money. An ad placement on a site is worth no where near that. No where near. I freaking wish it was! But it isn't.

And yes, I would need the programmers to work on the systems to implement this!

If you do the math, the average mod has ~50,000 page views over the history of this site. That's 5 dollars, total, on that CPM, over the course of years. Adsense wouldn't even pay out on that. The highest viewed mod on the site, SkyUI, would have made between $1,187 and $2,374 over 4 years. Sure, nothing to balk at by any stretch, but we're talking about the biggest mod on the site, and the average mod would make much, much, MUCH less.

It's extremely complicated for something that doesn't have a good return and would only benefit the very biggest of the mods on the site, rather than everyone.

macintroll wrote: Thanks for your response Dark0ne !
1) I do not expect Bunch of $ for each mod only with ads, but some money is still better than nothing...good mods will earn more and i find this logical.
What is the "expected return" ??? So far a modder can expect nothing in term of financial gain.

2) When you do your maths you only count 1 page per mod and 1 ads of course, i can see more than 10 pages for each nexus mod... (description, download, comments , gallery etc..)
so you can raise a little your total. ^^

3) implementing this cost money that's for sure, like any dev for the site.
up to you to find it worth or not. Or to take a toll somewhere.

4) Adsense (and some other advertisers) allow direct payments (a simple paypal account is needed), up to the mod author to subscribe or not. So you don't have to manage any ads money.

5) What i find fair in this approach is that NOBODY's pay money to download a mod, the ads pay everything, like here, ads are allowing this site to live. Free mods for all, some $ for modders, the better the mod is the bigger is the revenue.

6) Bethesda will come back on the paid modding, it's just a matter of time, and this day modders will go where they are paid, it's just logic, capitalism perhaps or common sense.

Just my 2 cents.

Toosdey wrote: How is this even remotely fair? Your punishing authors for games that aren't nearly as well known/popular. Just because they made a mod for a game that won't get as many hits doesn't mean they should be essentially blocked out for this.

You essentially devalue the work done for mods to less known games, as if they took less effort.

Sulhir wrote: Personally, I mod the game because some parts of it I got so sick of dealing with and I didn't like the solutions other modders had found... maybe I'm just neurotic.. You couldn't pay me to do it because I have no idea what I'm doing :P

Dark0ne wrote: Unfortunately, the minimum payout threshold for Adsense is $100, and you'll be hard pressed to find a viable ad agency who have a lower payout than that.

This means any mods that don't get over 1,000,000 ad views (or combination of mods belonging to the author) won't get paid. Ever. Money completely down the drain and a wasted inconvenience for users who don't use adblockers to help support the site/mod authors.

Talking of adblockers; around about 50% of Nexus users browse the site with an adblocker. So actually, you'd need about 2,000,000 "page views" across your mods to hit the 1,000,000 ad views necessary to get a pay out from Adsense. And this is at the upper range $0.10 CPM mark.

There are currently 550 file pages on the Nexus that have had over 1,000,000 page views. There are only 214 file pages that have had over 2,000,000 page views. Ergo, only 214 files would have reached the minimum payout threshold for using Adsense. We've done a query on the database and there are currently 391 mod authors who pass this 2,000,000 page view threshold when you add up their total file page views across all their mods.

This is why it's extremely difficult to think providing ad space to mod authors they can sell themselves would be beneficial, when it would only be beneficial to 0.8% of the Nexus's 50,000+ mod authors.

For the record: 'donation' has a very specific legal definition (it's considered a 'gift', with no expectation that the recipient will provide a service).

Patreon's 'What is Patreon?' section describes their service thus: ' if you pledge $2 per video, and the creator releases 3 videos in February, then your card gets charged a total of $6 that month'. That's considered a 'commercial exploitation' (payment in return for services), which is forbidden under the Skyrim Creation Kit EULA.

That said, using AdSense makes the most...er, sense, since there would be no 'commercial exploitation' in a legal sense. AdSense pays its participants for advertising space, not Skyrim content creation.

[Xilandro]

In response to post #28567949.

seweryn wrote: I really do not get the issue. So exactly do you want money ? Are you saying you cannot mod because are too bored ? Maybe you should stop modding then or take a break. Modding was always a hobby, something you do for fun or personal enjoyment, not something you do for living.
When i was a part of medieval brotherhood, when i was younger, there were a lot of cost involved it, cost of swords and armor, it cost some cash, traveling to tournaments, sometimes to different countries, but did this because i loved it and not becaused i was hoping for some cash, the moment i stoped having fun with it, i left; simple as that.
If you need to be paid to do mods then maybe you should stop doing it altogether, since it is clear you no longer have the love for it. Instead of something that gives you pleasure you want another revenue source.
If i were you i would just leave it and find something that gives you pleasure.

You're clearly not a modder =D Want to know what modders think? Become one, and then - speak. No offence.

[Ducksaws]

In response to post #28567949. #28568274 is also a reply to the same post.

seweryn wrote: I really do not get the issue. So exactly do you want money ? Are you saying you cannot mod because are too bored ? Maybe you should stop modding then or take a break. Modding was always a hobby, something you do for fun or personal enjoyment, not something you do for living.
When i was a part of medieval brotherhood, when i was younger, there were a lot of cost involved it, cost of swords and armor, it cost some cash, traveling to tournaments, sometimes to different countries, but did this because i loved it and not becaused i was hoping for some cash, the moment i stoped having fun with it, i left; simple as that.
If you need to be paid to do mods then maybe you should stop doing it altogether, since it is clear you no longer have the love for it. Instead of something that gives you pleasure you want another revenue source.
If i were you i would just leave it and find something that gives you pleasure.

Xilandro wrote: You're clearly not a modder =D Want to know what modders think? Become one, and then - speak. No offence.

Just because I love my job means I don't deserve to get paid for the work??

[Darole]

In response to post #28559499. #28561109 is also a reply to the same post.

EnaiSiaion wrote: To be honest, the current donation popups on the Nexus are aggressively pushy and more likely to upset users than to encourage them to donate.

Asking for donations is one thing, but slamming a popup into the user's face with "Amount: ______" before they can so much as try the mod reminds me a lot of Midas Magic's ingame advertisements for the paid version. Interrupting the user to panhandle for money seems rather desperate.

So I turned them off on my own mods. If people like them, they will donate (several hundred bucks so far), but it should be their own freaking decision.

But I can easily see mod creators turning on every donation option to dredge for the largest possible number of donations and users getting pissed off by a constant barrage of nag popups to the point where they don't donate at all anymore.

Arthmoor wrote: Actually those pop-ups are directly responsible for the clearly visible rise in donations vs not having them at all where people ignored the green button to the upper right. There was a verifiable dip in these when something got tweaked in how those were displayed, which appears to have been reversed now that the pop-ups during downloads are working properly again.

If people were as pissed off about it as you say, they'd vent their frustration by not donating any money and possibly by filling the comments with nasty notes. This obviously hasn't happened, so I think for the most part the majority of users are OK with it.

As a user of the site (ie. someone whose skills with the GECK/CK really sucks) all I find those popups to be is... well... slightly embarrassing. I don't have much money, so while I would love to donate, it just isn't in the budget (and fyi I don't drink $5 & up coffee, and my games were gifts or bought on one of the super sales). I actually feel a bit guilty about the downloads. I try to make up for it by posting (what I hope are) helpful postings in the forums, supporting the authors as much as I can.

And yes, I have downloaded a lot of mods, I play these same games over and over and over and really do appreciate those with the gift that they share.

[joeblow06]

"that they seemingly want mod authors to be compensated for their work, provided they can take a cut"

 

I believe the answer is right in there.

 

Bigcorp has much more money than the little guy and will sue just to destroy them regardless of whether or not they even have a true or provable stance to take. I'm quite confident you're more than aware of this by your writing. It doesn't matter if it's just or unjust, fair or unfair, right or wrong, or good or evil. Business believes it's an ethic unto itself. It's only wrong if they get caught or lose.

 

The only way I can see that would simply work is if indeed Bigcorp somehow gets their "cut" regardless of whether anyone believes they have a claim to this possible revenue.

 

Unfortunately, this would require an action on Bigcorp's part rather than you. They don't like the way other mod donation services such as the mentioned Patreon and Flattr work since they get cut out of the picture. Then why doesn't Bigcorp create their own? Users here could simply donate (or maybe mandatory depending on what they decide) the same way the other services would allow and Bigcorp gets their cut, the modder gets their cut, and the hosting site can get theirs. Everyone is happy and gets along. Not to mention the hosting site can continue to gain its revenue from existing ad placements, etc.

 

But this would require action on Bigcorp.

Edited September 10, 2015 by joeblow06

[Natterforme]

In response to post #28556534. #28557359, #28561169 are all replies on the same post.

Natterforme wrote: Unfortunately Skyrim is not Minecraft. You dont own your copy and since it is basically a permanent rental you cant do anything you want with it (especially concerning money). It will probably be very similar with Fallout 4. If Bethesda wants Fallout 5 or TES 6 to be competitive (in 3-5 years) it is going to have to reconsider its business model and its association with Valve.

-Natterforme

Elgar82 wrote: You don't own your Minecraft copy either.

When you buy our Game, we give you permission to install the Game on your own personal computer and use and play it on that computer as set out in this EULA. This permission is personal to you, so you are not allowed to distribute the Game (or any part of it) to anyone else. This also means you cannot sell or rent the Game, or make it available for access to other people and you cannot pass on or resell any licence keys.

Although we give you permission to play our Game, we are still the owners of it. We are also the owners of our brands and any content contained in the Game. Therefore, when you pay for our Game, you are buying a permission to play / use our Game in accordance with this EULA - you are not buying the Game itself. The only permissions you have in connection with the Game are the permissions set out in this EULA.

https://account.mojang.com/documents/minecraft_eula

Arthmoor wrote: You don't "own" your copy of anything bought in the last 15 years since pretty much everyone uses the same boilerplate EULAs :P

@Elgar82-

Fair point my mistake.

-Natterforme

[thelastzombie79]

I remember when people could purchase a complete video game for one price, then we got partial games and have to buy the DLC for the full game. Paid modding looks like a wonderful opportunity to purchase a poorly made base game and then I would have to continue to purchase even smaller pieces at a time to get a full video game. If this becomes a reality I will no longer play or purchase video games and I hope that others will follow.

[MotoSxorpio]

Endorsements could be a long process, five qualifications for endorsement.

 

- does what it advertises.

- has minimal maintenance or hassle with other mods.

- is easy to install.

- enhances gameplay.

- would recommend to others.

 

5 star endorsements. That might help generate user donations.

 

There's a pop-up for endorsements, and mod authors are still asking for them in their descriptions. :armscrossed: I can see why some users might feel like it is being pushed in their faces. I endorse every file that I have tested or played that meets at least 2 of those qualifiers above. I do it to let the mod author know that I at least thought the mod was worth their efforts to share. Sometimes, when its really good, I comment appropriately. I think with a star qualifier endorsement system, users and modders can see just how badass the mod is...or know that the mod needs help, and how desperately.

 

Donations are just as bad...first time you download something, there's the donate pop-up. Haven't used the mod yet, hell it isn't even on my hard drive yet and I'm getting pestered for money and endorsements. Bet there's a few people have that thought cross their mind while surfing for mods. Even when I'm just catching up with tracked files or notifications for updates or trying to endorse from notifications, I'm interrupted with a donation pop-up. Maybe people feel that if they donate for mods, just makes paying for mods OK when they don't agree with pay wall.

 

Either way, at this point, the mod author has to convince the public that they should elect to make an endorsement or donation. And by numbers, that is not yet working to an advantage.

 

People already pay for mods. They buy them on their Playstations, XBoxs, iPhones and more. What we have here, right now is the last of the free modding. Where modders still care about what they put out, and in some way can be held accountable by public input. Paid modding, there won't be all that, I'm afraid.

 

With the numbers that Robin threw out there for donations, what is it even worth? Pack of chewing gum? Why is donations a thing? Get the endorsements, show why there are endorsements. People will pay for a 5 star mod, by donation or whatever.

 

So, IMHO, fix how you get endorsements. Show why there are endorsements. Two surveys, one public for users; one in the backroom for the modders. Find what the majority over a week say about what qualifiers there should be. Get rid of the in your face pop-up, and go back to "word of mouth" for spreading the news about the latest and greatest mod.

 

Just two cents worth. I hope no one is offended by my verbage, I'm just a carpenter/bouncer/cook who figured out how to do stuff on his computer. :)

[Shawker]

In response to post #28556534. #28557359, #28561169, #28569144 are all replies on the same post.

Natterforme wrote: Unfortunately Skyrim is not Minecraft. You dont own your copy and since it is basically a permanent rental you cant do anything you want with it (especially concerning money). It will probably be very similar with Fallout 4. If Bethesda wants Fallout 5 or TES 6 to be competitive (in 3-5 years) it is going to have to reconsider its business model and its association with Valve.

-Natterforme

Elgar82 wrote: You don't own your Minecraft copy either.

When you buy our Game, we give you permission to install the Game on your own personal computer and use and play it on that computer as set out in this EULA. This permission is personal to you, so you are not allowed to distribute the Game (or any part of it) to anyone else. This also means you cannot sell or rent the Game, or make it available for access to other people and you cannot pass on or resell any licence keys.

Although we give you permission to play our Game, we are still the owners of it. We are also the owners of our brands and any content contained in the Game. Therefore, when you pay for our Game, you are buying a permission to play / use our Game in accordance with this EULA - you are not buying the Game itself. The only permissions you have in connection with the Game are the permissions set out in this EULA.

https://account.mojang.com/documents/minecraft_eula

Arthmoor wrote: You don't "own" your copy of anything bought in the last 15 years since pretty much everyone uses the same boilerplate EULAs :P

Natterforme wrote: @Elgar82-

Fair point my mistake.

-Natterforme

Sorry for the long post, I cut it as short as I could.

As far as I am aware of, this has not been truly tested in court, when making an arbitrary statement that it is a rental and not a purchase of said product. I know Interplay and another company back in the 90's that is no longer around lost a legal battle involving a broad scoped EULA, where everyone got like a 25 cent check (lawyers got a few million)

However, looking at the broader scope as someone else commented is the future of getting a half done game and expecting modders to save it and then milk profit from modders and gamers for even more money when a full product was never delivered.

I foresee, if this occurs that a major law suit will follow with as always the gamers losing, as they will either quit making PC games and stay with consoles as they are easier and cheaper overall, or make it so that to mod a game you have to buy/rent the rights to add content or to fix their product.

I pray this does not happen, as F2p/ptw is already a horrible sub-genre. As for the donations or support for modders. I say the following; 1. Would have to be a significant change/alteration, adds more content, must be reliable and tested against bugs and incompatibilities along with continued patching for a period of time like a warranty and plus you have to offer the ability to reimburse or credit the acct. of the purchaser. This in itself opens up a huge can of worms.