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

[KuhnJ]

In response to post #28561439. #28563124, #28563289, #28564119 are all replies on the same post.

Stewb wrote: Er.. Dark? You left the reply from GStaff in your second message quote from yourself, but you said you weren't showing Gstaff's replies?

Dark0ne wrote: I did!? Where?

sevencardz wrote: I checked twice and I don't see what Stewb sees. I think you're good, Dark0ne.

Stewb wrote: The part

Unfortunately this is something the mod authors are pushing me heavily for so I kind of need a little better wording on this one (sorry!). When you say "it's not something we can support"

Where you say "When you say" it does sounds like you're quoting them. Sorry for the delay I was in-game :S

I also saw it, unless that part was edited to not show GStaff's exact words. It's fairly early in the second paragraph (not counting the greeting).

EDIT: I see I got my post in a bit late. :) Edited September 9, 2015 by KuhnJ

[macintroll]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369 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.

@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]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614 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.

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. Edited September 9, 2015 by Dark0ne

[macintroll]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899 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.

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.

[adopcalipt]

I've made a a few mods, i done them coz i like the games not for want of money but last one i made took over a year to make. So i made an youtube vid and had the minimal adds added to it, then figured it was worth what comes back, so far it's made me 50p, so not giving up the day job just yet but if you like a mod and would want to sponser something new or a redo of something the mod maker has already released then how about a crowd source funding thing where you can pledge for a expansion on project brazil or a follow up to House of Horrors (NV Examples). And if the youtube vids do make more than 50p might just renew my sub to this amazing site that i spend far too long on.

[Toosdey]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409 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.

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. Edited September 9, 2015 by Toosdey

[Sulhir]

In response to post #28555414. #28558194, #28559089, #28560709, #28561369, #28564614, #28564899, #28565409, #28566309 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.

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

[fanuilh1]

I not a modder, leastways not a good one. However how many began because they liked the game but wanted to tweak it a bit? Then some of their friends saw the tweaks and wanted them.....onto the Nexus with them. Once uploaded others began using these tweaks and the author started adding in more ect..

Many learned as they created, some were already into programming or graphic design maybe creating a mod for a thesis. Playing around making mods is not the same as game developement save for the DLC sized ones. Doing something for the love of it or going into a business that you love that maybe started as a hobby....When you feel you need more than accolades it's time to create your own game (avoiding legal snafus) The Nexus isn't about modders getting rich. It's about learning the ropes to tweak your game and if it turns out well sharing. If you find your talented resume time. AKA If you want money for sharing don't share. Just my 2 cents

[Dark0ne]

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

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. Edited September 9, 2015 by Dark0ne

[seweryn]

I really do not get the issue. So exactly do you want money ? Are you saying you cannot mod because are too bored ? Maybe you should stop modding then or take a break. Modding was always a hobby, something you do for fun or personal enjoyment, not something you do for living.

When i was a part of medieval brotherhood, when i was younger, there were a lot of cost involved it, cost of swords and armor, it cost some cash, traveling to tournaments, sometimes to different countries, but did this because i loved it and not becaused i was hoping for some cash, the moment i stoped having fun with it, i left; simple as that.

If you need to be paid to do mods then maybe you should stop doing it altogether, since it is clear you no longer have the love for it. Instead of something that gives you pleasure you want another revenue source.

If i were you i would just leave it and find something that gives you pleasure.