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

[Mattiewagg]

Thanks for the post, Dark0ne. Lots and lots of reason. ;)

[Psijonica]

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

@ 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. Edited September 10, 2015 by Psijonica

[PearlDragon]

It is good to get a more formal and official statement on this. An important step of figuring out a fair donation system is eliminating possibilities that can't work.

[Brumbek]

Thanks for the information Dark0ne. Like many of us, I've tried to forget about all this stuff. The Bethesda.net stuff is quite concerning...but that's another topic for another day. Thanks again for the Nexus, the best modding site around!

[DrakeTheDragon]

In response to post #28567949. #28568274, #28568494 are all replies on the same post.

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

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

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

I wish people would stop repeatedly posting this nonsense when they don't know the harmful unintended implications it does have.

You cannot tell authors why they are modding or for what reasons. They do it for their own, whatever these are, and many authors think about it very differently. Trying to do so offends "many" authors in general every single time.

As you can't know why they started modding, you also can't tell them they should stop it. Reading you doing so "again" offends many authors, whether they're your target group or not.

I really wish people posting these would understand that in most cases it's the still free sharing authors rather taking up their suggestions instead and leaving, as these have absolutely nothing of value to loose by quitting, and the receiving end is making itself more and more not worth the time and effort, whereas the ones hoping for payment at some point will stay until it becomes clear they won't get it ever, which quite frankly will never happen as long as the companies themselves are still looking into it on a big scale.

Mod authors in a way are in many cases somewhat like a hive mind. Attack one and chances are really high many others, if not most, will feel attacked just as much, or at least really offended by "one of them" being attacked. Blanket statements made against some, the more blanket they are, the more authors in general they will hit, but mostly those "not" intended to get hit.

These people are doing lists, mind you, mentally or actually on paper, of all the s#*! they already had to take, whether personally or against mod authors in general, and how much more of it they still can take, before too much is too much. Every single time statements like this, and suggestions like "..., then you should just stop sharing your mods and do something else", pop up again somewhere in comments and these people see them, there goes another tally.

Everyone has a different limit, of course, but would you be an author, and able to read behind the curtains, where they discuss these things among themselves in private, you'd see how many have already quit and left over the community's reaction to the Steam paid mods attempt alone, or the comments made against the very idea of the work of these people being "worth anything", or how much they "should" be doing it "for the community" or they're "not doing it right", or better yet "shouldn't be doing it at all" to begin with. These all hit the mark, but mostly also with the wrong targets.

They hear you, they listen, they leave, or just stop sharing... but it's "not" (just) the ones you're talking to.

I'm seeing far too many of these popping up in comments recently, and considering their number is in direct relation to the number of free sharing authors quitting over it and similar things, it's by far not a pleasant picture.
I really wish they'd stop. But like all the others along the same ilk, they just won't.

So congratulations, for successfully removing yet another X mod authors and/or their mods and/or their knowledge, wisdom and expertise from the community, mostly free sharing ones at that.
(X here is not necessarily a whole number, but it's not unlikely to be >1 either, and at the end of the day, these are just summing up until the point whole numbers are reached again.)
Keep it coming, people, there's still some authors left! Edited September 10, 2015 by DrakeTheDragon

[Shawker]

After reading some more posts. I see three groups. Authors (not all of them) wanting to get paid for their work, Gamers not wanting to pay anymore then the cost of the original game. Lastly, people who are on the fence.

 

I understand Authors want to get paid, however, is this a job or a hobby? If you take money for a product or service you will have to report the income. Nexus being the intermediary will have to track who got paid and how much, due to them acting as a broker.

 

Gamers who already have to shell out between 40 up towards 100 bucks for a game don't want to pay anymore for some extra content whether it is a huge mod/bug fix, or whatever. Some will donate, some won't bother to donate or even endorse mods.

 

Fencers do not care either way.

 

Another issue is what percentage does Nexus get if mods are now sold. I am a premium member and have been for quite a while due to me liking this site the fact that they put a lot of time and effort into making a great place to find all mods for numerous games. So after saying that as a paid member, if people are going to get paid then they have to give at least 10 percent of said earnings back to Nexus for allowing them to use this site as a broker, moderator, quality control manager, and customer service.

 

Donations are the only way to keep Nexus from falling into a business. Plus depending upon where you live electronic material has a ton of rules. Take UK for instance they have a law that roughly states if the product is faulty or fails to live up to the individuals standards they must be refunded. (I am aware that that is not verbatim but it gives you the idea.)

 

That's not even including sales tax, and that varies from state to state. I see this as a bad thing for Nexus as I for one do not want this site to go away or to become like Curse where there are ads everywhere and downloading times sux.

 

Last thing I will say on this, if Nexus decides to go forward they will have to at one point hire an attorney to ensure they are not violating any U.S. Laws and Treaties by doing this which will cost quite a bit of money, they will have to have an even more active group of people who not only moderate but also ensure that no one is performing a scam, or a hostage mod.

 

So if there is a vote my vote is "No" for the above reasons and several more not listed.

[Jafin16]

In response to post #28567949. #28568274, #28568494, #28571489 are all replies on the same post.

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

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

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

DrakeTheDragon wrote: I wish people would stop repeatedly posting this nonsense when they don't know the harmful unintended implications it does have.

You cannot tell authors why they are modding or for what reasons. They do it for their own, whatever these are, and many authors think about it very differently. Trying to do so offends "many" authors in general every single time.

As you can't know why they started modding, you also can't tell them they should stop it. Reading you doing so "again" offends many authors, whether they're your target group or not.

I really wish people posting these would understand that in most cases it's the still free sharing authors rather taking up their suggestions instead and leaving, as these have absolutely nothing of value to loose by quitting, and the receiving end is making itself more and more not worth the time and effort, whereas the ones hoping for payment at some point will stay until it becomes clear they won't get it ever, which quite frankly will never happen as long as the companies themselves are still looking into it on a big scale.

Mod authors in a way are in many cases somewhat like a hive mind. Attack one and chances are really high many others, if not most, will feel attacked just as much, or at least really offended by "one of them" being attacked. Blanket statements made against some, the more blanket they are, the more authors in general they will hit, but mostly those "not" intended to get hit.

These people are doing lists, mind you, mentally or actually on paper, of all the s#*! they already had to take, whether personally or against mod authors in general, and how much more of it they still can take, before too much is too much. Every single time statements like this, and suggestions like "..., then you should just stop sharing your mods and do something else", pop up again somewhere in comments and these people see them, there goes another tally.

Everyone has a different limit, of course, but would you be an author, and able to read behind the curtains, where they discuss these things among themselves in private, you'd see how many have already quit and left over the community's reaction to the Steam paid mods attempt alone, or the comments made against the very idea of the work of these people being "worth anything", or how much they "should" be doing it "for the community" or they're "not doing it right", or better yet "shouldn't be doing it at all" to begin with. These all hit the mark, but mostly also with the wrong targets.

They hear you, they listen, they leave, or just stop sharing... but it's "not" (just) the ones you're talking to.

I'm seeing far too many of these popping up in comments recently, and considering their number is in direct relation to the number of free sharing authors quitting over it and similar things, it's by far not a pleasant picture.
I really wish they'd stop. But like all the others along the same ilk, they just won't.

So congratulations, for successfully removing yet another X mod authors and/or their mods and/or their knowledge, wisdom and expertise from the community, mostly free sharing ones at that.
(X here is not necessarily a whole number, but it's not unlikely to be >1 either, and at the end of the day, these are just summing up until the point whole numbers are reached again.)
Keep it coming, people, there's still some authors left!

Why don't you make a mod and try to support that mod? Then come back in 6 months and say the same. You won't. You're right, in general (but certainly not exclusively) modders make mods because they want to make them, whether for use in their game, because they like the process, it's practice for schooling or work (thinking 3D modelling here... and Falskaar which got the guy a job), and other reasons. However, the primary motivator for many is not sharing the mod and certainly not doing all the support necessary. Many (most?) mod authors share the mod out of the goodness of their heart... and then the requests, the inane, repetitive questions, the "this mod is crap" comments start coming in. Suddenly, instead of modding for fun, you're running tech support and, if you're generous, you might start helping people fix their computers they broke themselves in an effort to help them get your REALLY SIMPLE TO INSTALL AND USE MOD to work on their borked systems. After awhile, you might like it when someone sends you five bucks, or buys you a game on Steam or the like because you've been putting up with a ridiculous number of annoyances and abuse for your good hearted effort to share with the community... a community which very rarely gives back.

This is just one possible example why a donation might be nice once in awhile... even if it's just $5. You may respond with "Well if you don't like doing it, then maybe you shouldn't do it anymore!" Ok, all of the mod authors who would maybe like a donation once in awhile, even though they rarely if ever get them, will just take our mods down and use them ourselves. OH WAIT! You can't have that! Then you won't have any mods to use! See the problem with your thesis? It actually hurts the mod users more than the authors. The authors can make their own content. Those who are simply mod users, well they can't.

Ok, I'm done. *shuffles away*

[GamerPoets]

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

@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

[RichWebster]

I think most authors who support donations would agree it would just be nice to get a free coffee and muffin, or some pennies to put towards that blue yeti mic they're saving for.

 

A little something tangible for the tangible time and effort they've selflessly donated to Mod users.

[Dragonfire12]

I have always wondered how educated people, that is people who go to school to enter a certain profession, can be so stupid? I found that Mark Twain had a term for this sort of person, a Mugwamp. Someone who has been educated beyond their intelligence.

 

I present, The Steam Wars, as exhibit One.

 

How could the people of Bethesda Game Studios/Valve/Steam (most of whom have college degrees as programmers, accountants, lawyers and such) be so stupid as to not foresee the outcome of this debacle. I can only conclude that they are Mugwamps and have been educated beyond their intelligence.

 

I once read a top ten list of things you need to be an, Evil Overlord. Number one was to have a trusted 5 year old advisor, because most 5 year olds can see the fatal flaws in your plan for world domination. Ironically, 5 year olds also do not understand economics nor have they been corrupted by the lust for money.

 

Bethesda Game Studios/Valve/Steam, you need a trusted 5 year old advisor.

 

To simply monetarize a system that has been free from the start was doomed at the gate and worse, they may well have slain the, Goose that laid the Golden Egg.

 

Fallout 4 is about to crest the horizon. My advise to modders is, don’t. Wait a month or two, let your silence speak.

 

Let the Steam Wars begin!