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

Devmarta · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28569244.

MotoSxorpio wrote:
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. :)

I like your idea of 5 star endorsements, based on different criteria.

Psijonica · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089, #28568234, #28570559, #28573034 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.

FredNotBob wrote: 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.

Psijonica wrote: @ Dark0ne

Many points you have made have already been discussed to death in my Think Tank. I just scratched the surface with this post to see what the response would be. I certainly have not and can not post all of our work here right now as some members are looking into some business possibilities but what I can share I will.

1) One square of advertising is not going to make much as you have said. Then give more for the real popular mods.

2) This point should be the first but it is 10pm here, I just got home and walked my dogs and I am tired... ***Lets face it, the future of the internet is in advertising. It will soon become so expensive that the majority of websites will purposely not work if if a user has an ad-blocker. My idea only works if people see the advertising. My thinking is, "If users learn that by seeing ads that they are actually donating to mod authors then they would be more willing to put up with them." Of course, the ads need to be respectful.

3) I happen to disagree with you way of thinking that a system has to benefit all mod authors. There will never be such a system. Just like in real life, there are tiers, income levels that we are all fall into and once you are in one it becomes very difficult to get to the nexrt tier. The system is set up so that even if you got bumped up one tier the income tax usually wipes away any gains. You really have to bump up 2 or 3 tax brackets for you to enjoy your new wealth.

My point is: In this system, I would let the Authors of the Top Mods receive all the advertising income on their page. Since it is really such a small percentage of this website it really wouldn't hurt you so much as you have the rest of the site to gain from.

4) Ad-sense was just an idea I shot in and many people have shot it down for reasons that I won't get in to right now but in the end it just seems it is not a good fit. Still as I have argued in the past, "It is just one more pizza slice in the box."

You would be suprissed that Google is very open to ideas regarding Ad-Sense. Have you ever approached them? They can help you set up a system here.

THAT IS WHAT THEY DO!

YES, like any company you are going to have to be a leader and maybe look into what it would take to set up a system whereas you members get paid for their work.

Dark0ne??? I don't hear any other ideas that solve your TWO MAIN PROBLEMS which are 1) you want mod authors to have an opportunity to make some extra cash and 2) solve your legal problems.

I never said this would be easy. All I have said is that it solves your problems. It certainly creates some hurdles but so what! You are going to HAVE to change your business model a little bit because from what I have been hearing, I think what Bethesda will be doing in the next 3-5 years will change the entire gaming spectrum.

Hey listen, 6 years I was laughed off every TES forum when I posted my predictions about the future of gaming and that people would be paying for mods. That prediction has come true. People are paying for mods right now. The new generation of modders want to pay for mods (LoL) so they are going to win this war because the gaming companies want them to pay for mods as well... from them of course.

We are in a golden age of modding. I remember when you had an idea and called it TESSource and asked people to upload their mods so you could test out your upload system LoL Those were the days eh? The future is a little bit foggy. Yes there will always be free mods however, it is inevitable that the top tier talent will want to make money once somebody figures this all out.

Dark0ne, you are going up against Bethesda and Steam (not to mention a few others) and they are now amalgamating and reorganizing. I suggest you do the same and keep an open mind. You are the top dog and they are coming for you. My idea is that you take your talent and come up with a system that keeps them here and loyal. Look how fast a portion of your members jump ship to try their hand last time. Bethesda is not giving up. That was a test run. What is coming next will blow everyone's pants off. Once they see that they can make money they will leave. It is just human nature. The old guard will stay but that wont be enough to keep afloat. This website relies on new members, new modders constantly signing up, downloading mods and uploading mods. You don't want to lose your top tier talent.

You are a leader in this modding community whether you want to admit it or not. Leaders have to lead and they do so by making difficult decisions. I think the only way modders will eveer make money here at Nexusmods is if YOU manage it. Otherwise Dark0ne, you can bet that Bethesda will be implementing and managing a system with or without Valve. Most likely with them eventually.

Btw, your Premium members could still be add free except on certain mod author pages.

Cheers

PS. Call Google Ad-Sense and discuss the possibilities before blowing it off so quickly. If you don't want to manage a system then they can do it for you. It is a win-win and right now I don't see any better ideas.

GamerPoets wrote: @Dark0ne

Youtubers make more money off of ads than what the ads on nexus make but by no means is it a "crap ton" = ) . If you simply monetize a video with the standard, pre-video, post video and single mid-roll ad (3 in total for a video more than 10 minutes long), and enable all of the types of ads including non-skip ones (which don't play every single view) a youtuber with a 90% ad cut (me) makes about $1 per thousand views. We are then left to put 30% of that aside for taxes. I work 100 hours a week on my channel as I'm on disability and have the time. I have been doing so for the last 18 months since I started the channel. Becoming somewhat known, at least in small circles and having 2.1 million views (not a lot for a youtuber), the channel has made a wopping $2,700 dollars, just over $800 of that to the govt, and over those 18 months working nearly 8,000 hours I pocket $1,900 all of which has gone back into pc equipment and programs to record and edit video. So while its definitely more than a mod page gets, its by no means a crap ton (not to mention that I donate 1/3rd of everything after taxes back to the modding community and as far as I know, myself, and Dirty Weasel Media, are the only youtube channels to donate back to community at all in regards of youtubers who benefit from it) Just wanted to get that off of my chest. That's all lol. Good day. =)
-Michael

@ GamerPoets

Thanks for your post. Of course this idea would work and you are proof of it. Tying into Google, Youtube and ad-sense is really the only course of action that makes sense here because in one swoop all the problems are solved.

To me this is a No-Brainer. It is easy to blow off any idea you hear before you even bother to sit down and explore it. Google has "Solution" teams that specialize in coming up with ideas that solve problems for businesses.

Top Tier modders can legitimately start making money here within a a few months. This idea makes too much sense that the general public will just come up with every idea why it can't work. That is human nature but this idea solves everything.

There you have folks. Not one, but TWO ideas that will make money for the modders here and solve the legal issues.

An d I still have not heard of any other ideas that make any sense and solve the two main issues. My question is, "What are you waiting for?" :)

Pal2alax · September 10, 2015

I really hope this isn't the start of the ending just yet

gezegond · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089, #28568234, #28570559, #28573034, #28579039 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.

FredNotBob wrote: 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.

Psijonica wrote: @ Dark0ne

Many points you have made have already been discussed to death in my Think Tank. I just scratched the surface with this post to see what the response would be. I certainly have not and can not post all of our work here right now as some members are looking into some business possibilities but what I can share I will.

1) One square of advertising is not going to make much as you have said. Then give more for the real popular mods.

2) This point should be the first but it is 10pm here, I just got home and walked my dogs and I am tired... ***Lets face it, the future of the internet is in advertising. It will soon become so expensive that the majority of websites will purposely not work if if a user has an ad-blocker. My idea only works if people see the advertising. My thinking is, "If users learn that by seeing ads that they are actually donating to mod authors then they would be more willing to put up with them." Of course, the ads need to be respectful.

3) I happen to disagree with you way of thinking that a system has to benefit all mod authors. There will never be such a system. Just like in real life, there are tiers, income levels that we are all fall into and once you are in one it becomes very difficult to get to the nexrt tier. The system is set up so that even if you got bumped up one tier the income tax usually wipes away any gains. You really have to bump up 2 or 3 tax brackets for you to enjoy your new wealth.

My point is: In this system, I would let the Authors of the Top Mods receive all the advertising income on their page. Since it is really such a small percentage of this website it really wouldn't hurt you so much as you have the rest of the site to gain from.

4) Ad-sense was just an idea I shot in and many people have shot it down for reasons that I won't get in to right now but in the end it just seems it is not a good fit. Still as I have argued in the past, "It is just one more pizza slice in the box."

You would be suprissed that Google is very open to ideas regarding Ad-Sense. Have you ever approached them? They can help you set up a system here.

THAT IS WHAT THEY DO!

YES, like any company you are going to have to be a leader and maybe look into what it would take to set up a system whereas you members get paid for their work.

Dark0ne??? I don't hear any other ideas that solve your TWO MAIN PROBLEMS which are 1) you want mod authors to have an opportunity to make some extra cash and 2) solve your legal problems.

I never said this would be easy. All I have said is that it solves your problems. It certainly creates some hurdles but so what! You are going to HAVE to change your business model a little bit because from what I have been hearing, I think what Bethesda will be doing in the next 3-5 years will change the entire gaming spectrum.

Hey listen, 6 years I was laughed off every TES forum when I posted my predictions about the future of gaming and that people would be paying for mods. That prediction has come true. People are paying for mods right now. The new generation of modders want to pay for mods (LoL) so they are going to win this war because the gaming companies want them to pay for mods as well... from them of course.

We are in a golden age of modding. I remember when you had an idea and called it TESSource and asked people to upload their mods so you could test out your upload system LoL Those were the days eh? The future is a little bit foggy. Yes there will always be free mods however, it is inevitable that the top tier talent will want to make money once somebody figures this all out.

Dark0ne, you are going up against Bethesda and Steam (not to mention a few others) and they are now amalgamating and reorganizing. I suggest you do the same and keep an open mind. You are the top dog and they are coming for you. My idea is that you take your talent and come up with a system that keeps them here and loyal. Look how fast a portion of your members jump ship to try their hand last time. Bethesda is not giving up. That was a test run. What is coming next will blow everyone's pants off. Once they see that they can make money they will leave. It is just human nature. The old guard will stay but that wont be enough to keep afloat. This website relies on new members, new modders constantly signing up, downloading mods and uploading mods. You don't want to lose your top tier talent.

You are a leader in this modding community whether you want to admit it or not. Leaders have to lead and they do so by making difficult decisions. I think the only way modders will eveer make money here at Nexusmods is if YOU manage it. Otherwise Dark0ne, you can bet that Bethesda will be implementing and managing a system with or without Valve. Most likely with them eventually.

Btw, your Premium members could still be add free except on certain mod author pages.

Cheers

PS. Call Google Ad-Sense and discuss the possibilities before blowing it off so quickly. If you don't want to manage a system then they can do it for you. It is a win-win and right now I don't see any better ideas.

GamerPoets wrote: @Dark0ne

Youtubers make more money off of ads than what the ads on nexus make but by no means is it a "crap ton" = ) . If you simply monetize a video with the standard, pre-video, post video and single mid-roll ad (3 in total for a video more than 10 minutes long), and enable all of the types of ads including non-skip ones (which don't play every single view) a youtuber with a 90% ad cut (me) makes about $1 per thousand views. We are then left to put 30% of that aside for taxes. I work 100 hours a week on my channel as I'm on disability and have the time. I have been doing so for the last 18 months since I started the channel. Becoming somewhat known, at least in small circles and having 2.1 million views (not a lot for a youtuber), the channel has made a wopping $2,700 dollars, just over $800 of that to the govt, and over those 18 months working nearly 8,000 hours I pocket $1,900 all of which has gone back into pc equipment and programs to record and edit video. So while its definitely more than a mod page gets, its by no means a crap ton (not to mention that I donate 1/3rd of everything after taxes back to the modding community and as far as I know, myself, and Dirty Weasel Media, are the only youtube channels to donate back to community at all in regards of youtubers who benefit from it) Just wanted to get that off of my chest. That's all lol. Good day. =)
-Michael

Psijonica wrote: @ GamerPoets

Thanks for your post. Of course this idea would work and you are proof of it. Tying into Google, Youtube and ad-sense is really the only course of action that makes sense here because in one swoop all the problems are solved.

To me this is a No-Brainer. It is easy to blow off any idea you hear before you even bother to sit down and explore it. Google has "Solution" teams that specialize in coming up with ideas that solve problems for businesses.

Top Tier modders can legitimately start making money here within a a few months. This idea makes too much sense that the general public will just come up with every idea why it can't work. That is human nature but this idea solves everything.

There you have folks. Not one, but TWO ideas that will make money for the modders here and solve the legal issues.

An d I still have not heard of any other ideas that make any sense and solve the two main issues. My question is, "What are you waiting for?" :)

@Psijonica: You implement that system, me and the rest of the 99.2% of modders who wouldn't be earning jack s#*! at the expense of the top 0.8% will just close our mod pages and go to some other modding website. You're so naive it's funny.

And if Dark0ne decides to go head to head with valve and bethesda, he better hire his own army of lawyers because lawsuits will be involved one way or another. So far he has avoided them by giving in to their (Bethesda's) demands whether they have been logical or not. I guarantee if Nexus was earning more money than Bethesda they'd send a friendly email and be like "Guess what, we decided we don't allow shared revenue on your website anymore, shut everything down now or see you in court"

macintroll · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089, #28568234, #28570559, #28573034, #28579039, #28579524 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.

FredNotBob wrote: 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.

Psijonica wrote: @ Dark0ne

Many points you have made have already been discussed to death in my Think Tank. I just scratched the surface with this post to see what the response would be. I certainly have not and can not post all of our work here right now as some members are looking into some business possibilities but what I can share I will.

1) One square of advertising is not going to make much as you have said. Then give more for the real popular mods.

2) This point should be the first but it is 10pm here, I just got home and walked my dogs and I am tired... ***Lets face it, the future of the internet is in advertising. It will soon become so expensive that the majority of websites will purposely not work if if a user has an ad-blocker. My idea only works if people see the advertising. My thinking is, "If users learn that by seeing ads that they are actually donating to mod authors then they would be more willing to put up with them." Of course, the ads need to be respectful.

3) I happen to disagree with you way of thinking that a system has to benefit all mod authors. There will never be such a system. Just like in real life, there are tiers, income levels that we are all fall into and once you are in one it becomes very difficult to get to the nexrt tier. The system is set up so that even if you got bumped up one tier the income tax usually wipes away any gains. You really have to bump up 2 or 3 tax brackets for you to enjoy your new wealth.

My point is: In this system, I would let the Authors of the Top Mods receive all the advertising income on their page. Since it is really such a small percentage of this website it really wouldn't hurt you so much as you have the rest of the site to gain from.

4) Ad-sense was just an idea I shot in and many people have shot it down for reasons that I won't get in to right now but in the end it just seems it is not a good fit. Still as I have argued in the past, "It is just one more pizza slice in the box."

You would be suprissed that Google is very open to ideas regarding Ad-Sense. Have you ever approached them? They can help you set up a system here.

THAT IS WHAT THEY DO!

YES, like any company you are going to have to be a leader and maybe look into what it would take to set up a system whereas you members get paid for their work.

Dark0ne??? I don't hear any other ideas that solve your TWO MAIN PROBLEMS which are 1) you want mod authors to have an opportunity to make some extra cash and 2) solve your legal problems.

I never said this would be easy. All I have said is that it solves your problems. It certainly creates some hurdles but so what! You are going to HAVE to change your business model a little bit because from what I have been hearing, I think what Bethesda will be doing in the next 3-5 years will change the entire gaming spectrum.

Hey listen, 6 years I was laughed off every TES forum when I posted my predictions about the future of gaming and that people would be paying for mods. That prediction has come true. People are paying for mods right now. The new generation of modders want to pay for mods (LoL) so they are going to win this war because the gaming companies want them to pay for mods as well... from them of course.

We are in a golden age of modding. I remember when you had an idea and called it TESSource and asked people to upload their mods so you could test out your upload system LoL Those were the days eh? The future is a little bit foggy. Yes there will always be free mods however, it is inevitable that the top tier talent will want to make money once somebody figures this all out.

Dark0ne, you are going up against Bethesda and Steam (not to mention a few others) and they are now amalgamating and reorganizing. I suggest you do the same and keep an open mind. You are the top dog and they are coming for you. My idea is that you take your talent and come up with a system that keeps them here and loyal. Look how fast a portion of your members jump ship to try their hand last time. Bethesda is not giving up. That was a test run. What is coming next will blow everyone's pants off. Once they see that they can make money they will leave. It is just human nature. The old guard will stay but that wont be enough to keep afloat. This website relies on new members, new modders constantly signing up, downloading mods and uploading mods. You don't want to lose your top tier talent.

You are a leader in this modding community whether you want to admit it or not. Leaders have to lead and they do so by making difficult decisions. I think the only way modders will eveer make money here at Nexusmods is if YOU manage it. Otherwise Dark0ne, you can bet that Bethesda will be implementing and managing a system with or without Valve. Most likely with them eventually.

Btw, your Premium members could still be add free except on certain mod author pages.

Cheers

PS. Call Google Ad-Sense and discuss the possibilities before blowing it off so quickly. If you don't want to manage a system then they can do it for you. It is a win-win and right now I don't see any better ideas.

GamerPoets wrote: @Dark0ne

Youtubers make more money off of ads than what the ads on nexus make but by no means is it a "crap ton" = ) . If you simply monetize a video with the standard, pre-video, post video and single mid-roll ad (3 in total for a video more than 10 minutes long), and enable all of the types of ads including non-skip ones (which don't play every single view) a youtuber with a 90% ad cut (me) makes about $1 per thousand views. We are then left to put 30% of that aside for taxes. I work 100 hours a week on my channel as I'm on disability and have the time. I have been doing so for the last 18 months since I started the channel. Becoming somewhat known, at least in small circles and having 2.1 million views (not a lot for a youtuber), the channel has made a wopping $2,700 dollars, just over $800 of that to the govt, and over those 18 months working nearly 8,000 hours I pocket $1,900 all of which has gone back into pc equipment and programs to record and edit video. So while its definitely more than a mod page gets, its by no means a crap ton (not to mention that I donate 1/3rd of everything after taxes back to the modding community and as far as I know, myself, and Dirty Weasel Media, are the only youtube channels to donate back to community at all in regards of youtubers who benefit from it) Just wanted to get that off of my chest. That's all lol. Good day. =)
-Michael

Psijonica wrote: @ GamerPoets

Thanks for your post. Of course this idea would work and you are proof of it. Tying into Google, Youtube and ad-sense is really the only course of action that makes sense here because in one swoop all the problems are solved.

To me this is a No-Brainer. It is easy to blow off any idea you hear before you even bother to sit down and explore it. Google has "Solution" teams that specialize in coming up with ideas that solve problems for businesses.

Top Tier modders can legitimately start making money here within a a few months. This idea makes too much sense that the general public will just come up with every idea why it can't work. That is human nature but this idea solves everything.

There you have folks. Not one, but TWO ideas that will make money for the modders here and solve the legal issues.

An d I still have not heard of any other ideas that make any sense and solve the two main issues. My question is, "What are you waiting for?" :)

gezegond wrote: @Psijonica: You implement that system, me and the rest of the 99.2% of modders who wouldn't be earning jack s#*! at the expense of the top 0.8% will just close our mod pages and go to some other modding website. You're so naive it's funny.

And if Dark0ne decides to go head to head with valve and bethesda, he better hire his own army of lawyers because lawsuits will be involved one way or another. So far he has avoided them by giving in to their (Bethesda's) demands whether they have been logical or not. I guarantee if Nexus was earning more money than Bethesda they'd send a friendly email and be like "Guess what, we decided we don't allow shared revenue on your website anymore, shut everything down now or see you in court"

@ gezegond :
I don't get your point, with an ads payment system, popular mods can make some $, unpopular ones will not. period. Again it's not the mod itself which earn money, it's the popularity of the pages.

If you can find us a better system where:
1) mods author can make some $ (here, based on popularity)
2) Mods are still 100% free
3) Game company EULA is not broken

Please share

Socratatus · September 10, 2015

I`m sure I`m saying nothing new, but Paid modding will kill the altruistic and wonderful modding of people whom, for years, did what they did because they ENJOYED IT, and simply wanted to pass it on.

Any kind of `forced` or mandatory `pay for mods` will kill it dead. The modding scene is already in after-actions agony from the failure Steam started and it saddens me to hear that Bethesda intend to try again. Once Bethesda succeeds (if they do) every other gaming House will.

I`m talking from a gut feeling and a little experience of the world and how it works. Just my two pennies. The golden age of pc gaming will truly die.

p.s. Even a good old friend of mine is reconsidering building a new gaming pc and going back to consoles because of this whole greedy debackle.

SjoertJansen · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28556219. #28557049, #28557104, #28559119, #28559324, #28559434, #28559484, #28559684, #28559819, #28560459, #28560764, #28560979, #28561394, #28563384, #28575869, #28576329, #28577084, #28578669 are all replies on the same post.

gezegond wrote: Simple. Allow options. Patreon is subscription based and allow people to pay monthly. You can add that functionality with paypal. Same with Flattr. Actually Flattr is a better system. Have people just generally donate an amount "overall", like $10 a month or whatever, then at the end of the month spread that amount between all the mods that they have endorsed.

You could make it so people can go into a settings menu and customize the ratios for each mod. so if they think one mod they endorsed deserves more they could tweak it, but if not or can't be bothered just distribute it evenly between all endorsed mods.

That would probably make people more selective about using the endorsed button as well, making it more meaningful as a side effect.

Damn I'm a genius. :P

Elgar82 wrote: "Make people more selective about using the endorsed button" ?!?

Are you serious ? Endorsements are incredibly and shamefully low. Even very popular mods have endorsements ratios of 5 or 6%.

icecreamassassin wrote: yeah I suggested the paypal recurring donation option months ago but I don't think it got much play, but I suggested it again above with a link. It's really absurd that we aren't just doing this because literally the issue Bethesda seems to have is that they do not want modders paid for the mod itself. They are fine with money going to modders for their overall efforts, so just giving the option for small sustained donations makes total sense IMO.

gezegond wrote: low? compared to what? endorsements are just endorsements man they're not either high or low. By making them more selective I mean that, right now I just pretty much endorse every mod I download, and I think plenty of people are the same. And then there are people who don't endorse any mods that they play. It's either all or nothing, very few are actually selecting what to endorse and what not i think

SagittariusMoon wrote: I have to agree about low endorsements. Most people just download and run, never to be seen or heard from again.

pintocat wrote: How are endorsements low? The endorse / download ratio is pretty consistent across mods generally. If mods all get endorsed by about 5-10% of the people using it, how is it any different than if 100% of people do? The endorsement count's only relevence is relative to other mods, and it's already pretty consistent across mods... if this somehow changes and now all downloads auto-endorsed mod A, and the same happened to mod B, they'll still have the same relative endorsement rate to each other. The endorsement count is nothing really. It's not an indicator of quality, since it's just yes or no... which is why I am stingy about endorsing. There's no way to say "this mod works" vs "this mod is f*#@ing amazing".

shinji72 wrote: I think it ever Paid Mods are to become the norm, the montly fee, all-you-can-eat, Netflix style subscriptions would be the way to go.

When you mod as a user you wanna try them all. Test them. Try different combination. To have to pay for every single mod you download (even a very modest fee) would go against the way people use mods.

EnaiSiaion wrote:
I have to agree about low endorsements. Most people just download and run, never to be seen or heard from again.
It is actually really hard to not endorse a mod. Ever since the introduction of welfare endorsements a year or so ago, endorsements no longer mean "this mod is really cool, let's go back and endorse it". Now they mean "I was asked to endorse this mod when I downloaded the next mod".

I assume the intention was to cater to newbie mod creators and encourage them to keep going with the equivalent of a participation trophy, but it completely defeats the point of endorsements.

Get off my lawn. :(

Jokerine wrote: "Welfare endorsements"? Yeah, because people can't just, you know, skip the endorsement window? Boo.

gezegond wrote: pintocat : "There's no way to say "this mod works" vs "this mod is f***ing amazing"."

Exactly. That's why i suggested the tweaking option. You may feel like 1 mod deserves a larger portion of your money than another. On the other hand if it's tucked behind in some settings screen it won't confuse the newbies who just want to endorse a mod.

@ shinji72 : this is like what i suggested except on nexus the monthly fee is not mandatory. You can open up a friendly message and be like "would you like to support these modders\content creators? here's how you can support them all at the same time."

EnaiSiaion wrote:
"Welfare endorsements"? Yeah, because people can't just, you know, skip the endorsement window? Boo.
They can, but they could just not come back to endorse a mod either.

It used to require some actual effort to endorse, so only users who were blown away by your mod came back to endorse it. Today, as long as your mod doesn't completely suck, it gets a steady stream of endorsements from logged in users being shown a thumb button and asked to click it.

The information conveyed by endorsements ("how many people thought your mod was awesome") has been sacrificed in the name of generating more endorsements.

:(

Arthmoor wrote: @icecreamassassin:

I suspect the recurring part is mostly what Bethesda has issue with because that converts from a "donation" to a "subscription" which is substantially different in legal terms. Once you get into recurring payments, whether it be a "recurring donation" or something more concrete like Patreon or Flattr, they may view that as crossing into commercialization. Commercializing your mods is currently against their EULA for the various CKs.

gezegond wrote: @Arthmoor: Well Dark0ne can just contact them again and ask if they would have a problem with a recurring payment and\or the global donation distribution model.

If they have a problem with that they probably just don't want modders make money from mods. They're both donation, only one is likely to be more effective. ¯\_(-_-)_/¯

vram1974 wrote: The fact less than 5 % of people return to endorse the product indicates to me a shameful sense of entitlement from gamers. At least paid mods would force users to acknowledge the hard work.

shinji72 wrote: @Arthmoor Indeed the monthly subscription fee would not work here on the Nexus. (Unless the Nexus start giving Bethesda a cut, but would be a complex agreement and Dark0ne clearly stated he want Nexus to remain a haven for free modding).

But I believe a subscription fee, netflix style, would be the only, feasible way to make a Paid Workshop system work (wether run by Steam or directly by Bethesda).
I'm not going to paid 5 dollar to download a single weather mod, but I would pay 1 to 5 dollar monthly to have unlimited access to a vast archive of mods.

AlphaSamadhi wrote: Do not know if this matters to anyone talking about the rate of endorsements on mods.

But I know personally that I would endorse more frequently if using mod organizer to download was not cutting me off from endorsing.

Currently when I go to mods I have several weeks or months of experience with, I cannot endorse them because the site tells me I am not allowed to endorse a mod I do not have.

I have to download mods twice (once with mod organizer, once manually) in order to endorse mods -- given hard drive space limitations and monthly internet traffic caps, this is not always an option unless a mod is both exceptional quality and low in relative file size.

SjoertJansen wrote: I find this low endorsement rate discussion strange... What is an endorsement really... Why do people drive so much for getting them?

Modding is a hobby I enjoy, I share my work with people for them to enjoy it as well, if they do, great, if they don't... So what? Seriously?

I'd rather go back to the time they didn't exist, I rather get 1 good comment than a 1000 endorsements. I also liked the old endorsement system. Yes only a select few came back to endorse, but at least they come back out of their own accord. Endorsing has become click bait these days. You get a pop-up, click all the buttons and done. What value does that hold? Non. I stopped endorsing mods unless I am blown away by the mod, small or big. The reason endorsments are so consistent overall, simply is because it has become routine and click bait. They aren't even a tool to measure the quality of a mod anymore, they used to...

What makes a mod deserve an endorsement is also dependent on the users perception. I find it a stupid system in it's current form.

I hate donations... But that is me. To me adding the pop-up is like saying you deserve other peoples money for your hobby? How is that giving to the community? expecting something in return is never giving. It seems a shift in society driven to get something in return for everything we do these days. Why have we stopped doing things purely for our own enjoyment and the pleasure of being able to share? Isn't a polite thank you enough anymore? Is gratitude only measured in coin? To me it feels like doing volunteering work whilst expecting payment...If you really need the money, I recommend a job.

EDIT: @EnaiSiaion I see we are in agreement on endorsements, apologies for basically copying you. Hadn't read your comment yet.

gezegond wrote: @SjoertJansen: I hate paid modding for all the same reasons you mentioned, but donations are optional, they won't change the free spirit of modding, and people will not do paid modding here. I suspect as soon as Fallout 4's paid modding scheme is revealed all the people who expect to be paid for their work will go there and leave Nexus.

But donations are completely optional. Some people might want to donate to someone even though they know they don't expect to be "paid". And it's optional both ways since modders themselves can opt-in and out of (accepting) donations. What you are suggesting is we take those options away from people so they will be "forced" to follow our vision of free modding, then that would not be "freedom" much anymore would it?

What I'm suggesting is improvements to the system, so it will work better for people who DO want to donate, and people who DO want to accept donations. For people who don't want to have anything to do with money the experience will be exactly the same.

@gezegond

I agree with some of your points. I never said it wasn't voluntarily, and your proposal sure does sound good for that matter. But, like I said, it's a personal opinion and my opinion didn't change. Let me explain a little more:

I've been around since Morrowind, and donations didn't arrive until Skyrim, as far as I'm aware no-one missed them prior to that.... I know I didn't. You make it sound as if people wanted to donate, but couldn't, rather than, people wanted to get donated too, but couldn't. It wasn't those who didn't know about the donate button complaining after the Steam fiasco, but those that noticed most people didn't know they had one.

This site, or community, lives by certain rules. You are, if you like, always forced to abide those rules. There is no absolute freedom, and having no donation does not mean your freedoms are taken away from you. You can go elsewhere for that if you so desire, several modders have already done so. The rules that you were never allowed to ask for money, or even recommend donating were there for a reason. Those rules still exist, even though you now kinda get it shoved into your face. If you put up that donate button, you do "expect", or at least hope to get paid, or you wouldn't put it up. There is nothing wrong with that, I personally don't like it, and certainly feel it is changing this community that is the Nexus.

Again, these are my opinions, not fact.

I fear such systems are a stepping stone towards the subscription based system, such as the one Shinji talked about in this thread, and or normalize the idea of transactions for mods, it makes the move to a paid platform very simple. I personally never believed that it improves the quality of mods, or increases the number of bigger mods. If you look at all current paid for mod systems, they are dominated by weapon skins or in game transactions for clothes or similar. Look at CS and look at EA, tell me, which great big mods take up all the money? Some weapons go for $100.....

Take fallout shelter. The only thing to buy is extra loot. It was the number one grossing app for a long time... It is nice to promise more big and better mods, I just have a hard time believing that dreamy picture.

I get a bitter taste from these donation systems due to the aforementioned reasons. Perhaps I'm pessimistic and wrong, but I see a shift in a community that was based on sharing, both knowledge and resources too!! Most of what people know comes from others sharing knowledge. It is becoming more competitive, we need to do better than others, sell a product so to speak, get more endorsements, end up in the file of the month and or hot file section. I guess I'm too principled for that sort of stuff, boring even... But that's just me.

Peace

Edited September 10, 2015 by SjoertJansen

SjoertJansen · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089, #28568234, #28570559, #28573034, #28579039, #28579524, #28580029 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.

FredNotBob wrote: 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.

Psijonica wrote: @ Dark0ne

Many points you have made have already been discussed to death in my Think Tank. I just scratched the surface with this post to see what the response would be. I certainly have not and can not post all of our work here right now as some members are looking into some business possibilities but what I can share I will.

1) One square of advertising is not going to make much as you have said. Then give more for the real popular mods.

2) This point should be the first but it is 10pm here, I just got home and walked my dogs and I am tired... ***Lets face it, the future of the internet is in advertising. It will soon become so expensive that the majority of websites will purposely not work if if a user has an ad-blocker. My idea only works if people see the advertising. My thinking is, "If users learn that by seeing ads that they are actually donating to mod authors then they would be more willing to put up with them." Of course, the ads need to be respectful.

3) I happen to disagree with you way of thinking that a system has to benefit all mod authors. There will never be such a system. Just like in real life, there are tiers, income levels that we are all fall into and once you are in one it becomes very difficult to get to the nexrt tier. The system is set up so that even if you got bumped up one tier the income tax usually wipes away any gains. You really have to bump up 2 or 3 tax brackets for you to enjoy your new wealth.

My point is: In this system, I would let the Authors of the Top Mods receive all the advertising income on their page. Since it is really such a small percentage of this website it really wouldn't hurt you so much as you have the rest of the site to gain from.

4) Ad-sense was just an idea I shot in and many people have shot it down for reasons that I won't get in to right now but in the end it just seems it is not a good fit. Still as I have argued in the past, "It is just one more pizza slice in the box."

You would be suprissed that Google is very open to ideas regarding Ad-Sense. Have you ever approached them? They can help you set up a system here.

THAT IS WHAT THEY DO!

YES, like any company you are going to have to be a leader and maybe look into what it would take to set up a system whereas you members get paid for their work.

Dark0ne??? I don't hear any other ideas that solve your TWO MAIN PROBLEMS which are 1) you want mod authors to have an opportunity to make some extra cash and 2) solve your legal problems.

I never said this would be easy. All I have said is that it solves your problems. It certainly creates some hurdles but so what! You are going to HAVE to change your business model a little bit because from what I have been hearing, I think what Bethesda will be doing in the next 3-5 years will change the entire gaming spectrum.

Hey listen, 6 years I was laughed off every TES forum when I posted my predictions about the future of gaming and that people would be paying for mods. That prediction has come true. People are paying for mods right now. The new generation of modders want to pay for mods (LoL) so they are going to win this war because the gaming companies want them to pay for mods as well... from them of course.

We are in a golden age of modding. I remember when you had an idea and called it TESSource and asked people to upload their mods so you could test out your upload system LoL Those were the days eh? The future is a little bit foggy. Yes there will always be free mods however, it is inevitable that the top tier talent will want to make money once somebody figures this all out.

Dark0ne, you are going up against Bethesda and Steam (not to mention a few others) and they are now amalgamating and reorganizing. I suggest you do the same and keep an open mind. You are the top dog and they are coming for you. My idea is that you take your talent and come up with a system that keeps them here and loyal. Look how fast a portion of your members jump ship to try their hand last time. Bethesda is not giving up. That was a test run. What is coming next will blow everyone's pants off. Once they see that they can make money they will leave. It is just human nature. The old guard will stay but that wont be enough to keep afloat. This website relies on new members, new modders constantly signing up, downloading mods and uploading mods. You don't want to lose your top tier talent.

You are a leader in this modding community whether you want to admit it or not. Leaders have to lead and they do so by making difficult decisions. I think the only way modders will eveer make money here at Nexusmods is if YOU manage it. Otherwise Dark0ne, you can bet that Bethesda will be implementing and managing a system with or without Valve. Most likely with them eventually.

Btw, your Premium members could still be add free except on certain mod author pages.

Cheers

PS. Call Google Ad-Sense and discuss the possibilities before blowing it off so quickly. If you don't want to manage a system then they can do it for you. It is a win-win and right now I don't see any better ideas.

GamerPoets wrote: @Dark0ne

Youtubers make more money off of ads than what the ads on nexus make but by no means is it a "crap ton" = ) . If you simply monetize a video with the standard, pre-video, post video and single mid-roll ad (3 in total for a video more than 10 minutes long), and enable all of the types of ads including non-skip ones (which don't play every single view) a youtuber with a 90% ad cut (me) makes about $1 per thousand views. We are then left to put 30% of that aside for taxes. I work 100 hours a week on my channel as I'm on disability and have the time. I have been doing so for the last 18 months since I started the channel. Becoming somewhat known, at least in small circles and having 2.1 million views (not a lot for a youtuber), the channel has made a wopping $2,700 dollars, just over $800 of that to the govt, and over those 18 months working nearly 8,000 hours I pocket $1,900 all of which has gone back into pc equipment and programs to record and edit video. So while its definitely more than a mod page gets, its by no means a crap ton (not to mention that I donate 1/3rd of everything after taxes back to the modding community and as far as I know, myself, and Dirty Weasel Media, are the only youtube channels to donate back to community at all in regards of youtubers who benefit from it) Just wanted to get that off of my chest. That's all lol. Good day. =)
-Michael

Psijonica wrote: @ GamerPoets

Thanks for your post. Of course this idea would work and you are proof of it. Tying into Google, Youtube and ad-sense is really the only course of action that makes sense here because in one swoop all the problems are solved.

To me this is a No-Brainer. It is easy to blow off any idea you hear before you even bother to sit down and explore it. Google has "Solution" teams that specialize in coming up with ideas that solve problems for businesses.

Top Tier modders can legitimately start making money here within a a few months. This idea makes too much sense that the general public will just come up with every idea why it can't work. That is human nature but this idea solves everything.

There you have folks. Not one, but TWO ideas that will make money for the modders here and solve the legal issues.

An d I still have not heard of any other ideas that make any sense and solve the two main issues. My question is, "What are you waiting for?" :)

gezegond wrote: @Psijonica: You implement that system, me and the rest of the 99.2% of modders who wouldn't be earning jack s#*! at the expense of the top 0.8% will just close our mod pages and go to some other modding website. You're so naive it's funny.

And if Dark0ne decides to go head to head with valve and bethesda, he better hire his own army of lawyers because lawsuits will be involved one way or another. So far he has avoided them by giving in to their (Bethesda's) demands whether they have been logical or not. I guarantee if Nexus was earning more money than Bethesda they'd send a friendly email and be like "Guess what, we decided we don't allow shared revenue on your website anymore, shut everything down now or see you in court"

macintroll wrote: @ gezegond :
I don't get your point, with an ads payment system, popular mods can make some $, unpopular ones will not. period. Again it's not the mod itself which earn money, it's the popularity of the pages.

If you can find us a better system where:
1) mods author can make some $ (here, based on popularity)
2) Mods are still 100% free
3) Game company EULA is not broken

Please share

@GamerPoets Nice to see you here mate, and with another great post :).

@psijonica Did you read his post proper? Does it really prove it works? Over 2 million views gets you ~$1900, but only if you have 3 rather annoying ads to bother you.

I, and many others, are supporter/premium members to both support the site, and also, to get rid of these ads. If I could get a lifetime removal of YouTube ads, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

gezegond · September 10, 2015

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309, #28566554, #28567089, #28568234, #28570559, #28573034, #28579039, #28579524, #28580029, #28580564 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.

FredNotBob wrote: 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.

Psijonica wrote: @ Dark0ne

Many points you have made have already been discussed to death in my Think Tank. I just scratched the surface with this post to see what the response would be. I certainly have not and can not post all of our work here right now as some members are looking into some business possibilities but what I can share I will.

1) One square of advertising is not going to make much as you have said. Then give more for the real popular mods.

2) This point should be the first but it is 10pm here, I just got home and walked my dogs and I am tired... ***Lets face it, the future of the internet is in advertising. It will soon become so expensive that the majority of websites will purposely not work if if a user has an ad-blocker. My idea only works if people see the advertising. My thinking is, "If users learn that by seeing ads that they are actually donating to mod authors then they would be more willing to put up with them." Of course, the ads need to be respectful.

3) I happen to disagree with you way of thinking that a system has to benefit all mod authors. There will never be such a system. Just like in real life, there are tiers, income levels that we are all fall into and once you are in one it becomes very difficult to get to the nexrt tier. The system is set up so that even if you got bumped up one tier the income tax usually wipes away any gains. You really have to bump up 2 or 3 tax brackets for you to enjoy your new wealth.

My point is: In this system, I would let the Authors of the Top Mods receive all the advertising income on their page. Since it is really such a small percentage of this website it really wouldn't hurt you so much as you have the rest of the site to gain from.

4) Ad-sense was just an idea I shot in and many people have shot it down for reasons that I won't get in to right now but in the end it just seems it is not a good fit. Still as I have argued in the past, "It is just one more pizza slice in the box."

You would be suprissed that Google is very open to ideas regarding Ad-Sense. Have you ever approached them? They can help you set up a system here.

THAT IS WHAT THEY DO!

YES, like any company you are going to have to be a leader and maybe look into what it would take to set up a system whereas you members get paid for their work.

Dark0ne??? I don't hear any other ideas that solve your TWO MAIN PROBLEMS which are 1) you want mod authors to have an opportunity to make some extra cash and 2) solve your legal problems.

I never said this would be easy. All I have said is that it solves your problems. It certainly creates some hurdles but so what! You are going to HAVE to change your business model a little bit because from what I have been hearing, I think what Bethesda will be doing in the next 3-5 years will change the entire gaming spectrum.

Hey listen, 6 years I was laughed off every TES forum when I posted my predictions about the future of gaming and that people would be paying for mods. That prediction has come true. People are paying for mods right now. The new generation of modders want to pay for mods (LoL) so they are going to win this war because the gaming companies want them to pay for mods as well... from them of course.

We are in a golden age of modding. I remember when you had an idea and called it TESSource and asked people to upload their mods so you could test out your upload system LoL Those were the days eh? The future is a little bit foggy. Yes there will always be free mods however, it is inevitable that the top tier talent will want to make money once somebody figures this all out.

Dark0ne, you are going up against Bethesda and Steam (not to mention a few others) and they are now amalgamating and reorganizing. I suggest you do the same and keep an open mind. You are the top dog and they are coming for you. My idea is that you take your talent and come up with a system that keeps them here and loyal. Look how fast a portion of your members jump ship to try their hand last time. Bethesda is not giving up. That was a test run. What is coming next will blow everyone's pants off. Once they see that they can make money they will leave. It is just human nature. The old guard will stay but that wont be enough to keep afloat. This website relies on new members, new modders constantly signing up, downloading mods and uploading mods. You don't want to lose your top tier talent.

You are a leader in this modding community whether you want to admit it or not. Leaders have to lead and they do so by making difficult decisions. I think the only way modders will eveer make money here at Nexusmods is if YOU manage it. Otherwise Dark0ne, you can bet that Bethesda will be implementing and managing a system with or without Valve. Most likely with them eventually.

Btw, your Premium members could still be add free except on certain mod author pages.

Cheers

PS. Call Google Ad-Sense and discuss the possibilities before blowing it off so quickly. If you don't want to manage a system then they can do it for you. It is a win-win and right now I don't see any better ideas.

GamerPoets wrote: @Dark0ne

Youtubers make more money off of ads than what the ads on nexus make but by no means is it a "crap ton" = ) . If you simply monetize a video with the standard, pre-video, post video and single mid-roll ad (3 in total for a video more than 10 minutes long), and enable all of the types of ads including non-skip ones (which don't play every single view) a youtuber with a 90% ad cut (me) makes about $1 per thousand views. We are then left to put 30% of that aside for taxes. I work 100 hours a week on my channel as I'm on disability and have the time. I have been doing so for the last 18 months since I started the channel. Becoming somewhat known, at least in small circles and having 2.1 million views (not a lot for a youtuber), the channel has made a wopping $2,700 dollars, just over $800 of that to the govt, and over those 18 months working nearly 8,000 hours I pocket $1,900 all of which has gone back into pc equipment and programs to record and edit video. So while its definitely more than a mod page gets, its by no means a crap ton (not to mention that I donate 1/3rd of everything after taxes back to the modding community and as far as I know, myself, and Dirty Weasel Media, are the only youtube channels to donate back to community at all in regards of youtubers who benefit from it) Just wanted to get that off of my chest. That's all lol. Good day. =)
-Michael

Psijonica wrote: @ GamerPoets

Thanks for your post. Of course this idea would work and you are proof of it. Tying into Google, Youtube and ad-sense is really the only course of action that makes sense here because in one swoop all the problems are solved.

To me this is a No-Brainer. It is easy to blow off any idea you hear before you even bother to sit down and explore it. Google has "Solution" teams that specialize in coming up with ideas that solve problems for businesses.

Top Tier modders can legitimately start making money here within a a few months. This idea makes too much sense that the general public will just come up with every idea why it can't work. That is human nature but this idea solves everything.

There you have folks. Not one, but TWO ideas that will make money for the modders here and solve the legal issues.

An d I still have not heard of any other ideas that make any sense and solve the two main issues. My question is, "What are you waiting for?" :)

gezegond wrote: @Psijonica: You implement that system, me and the rest of the 99.2% of modders who wouldn't be earning jack s#*! at the expense of the top 0.8% will just close our mod pages and go to some other modding website. You're so naive it's funny.

And if Dark0ne decides to go head to head with valve and bethesda, he better hire his own army of lawyers because lawsuits will be involved one way or another. So far he has avoided them by giving in to their (Bethesda's) demands whether they have been logical or not. I guarantee if Nexus was earning more money than Bethesda they'd send a friendly email and be like "Guess what, we decided we don't allow shared revenue on your website anymore, shut everything down now or see you in court"

macintroll wrote: @ gezegond :
I don't get your point, with an ads payment system, popular mods can make some $, unpopular ones will not. period. Again it's not the mod itself which earn money, it's the popularity of the pages.

If you can find us a better system where:
1) mods author can make some $ (here, based on popularity)
2) Mods are still 100% free
3) Game company EULA is not broken

Please share

SjoertJansen wrote: @GamerPoets Nice to see you here mate, and with another great post :).

@psijonica Did you read his post proper? Does it really prove it works? Over 2 million views gets you ~$1900, but only if you have 3 rather annoying ads to bother you.

I, and many others, are supporter/premium members to both support the site, and also, to get rid of these ads. If I could get a lifetime removal of YouTube ads, I'd do so in a heartbeat.

@macintroll: donations.

belisariu · September 10, 2015

My thoughts

You don't need to control where mod authors get its money. Really, don't feel obliged to it. If any, that control should be made by Beth.

Then, a first measure to support mod authors might be not censor them:

Let mod authors add links to the sites they want (paypal, patreon, whatever).

If problem is mod authors asking for money, or messed up mod descriptions, punish people that ask for money, or mods with no proper description.

Edited September 10, 2015 by belisariu

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

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