When Beth wins, and mods cost money...

[gunslinger6792]

He is about as relevant as

OO oooooo oooooo John Oliver is my favorite!

[Thicketford]

Allowing mod authors to receive money for their work isn't an inherently bad idea. It's just that Valve & Bethesda tried to implement it in one of the worst ways possible.

 

I would be okay with paid mods as long as the following two rules were adhered to. These are non negotiable in my view;

 

1) Mod authors can set a 'recommended' price. Mod users can choose to pay this price, some other value or download the mod for free. Setting a recommended price is optional and mod authors can simply set their mods as free if they choose.

 

2) Mods should not be locked to Bethesda.net for PC. Sites like Nexus would continue to provide other options for mods.

 

 

By keeping the money as a donation, there wouldn't be an obligation for authors to provide bug fixes / support etc (although any self respecting mod author would certainly try to make their mods as good as they can), which would deflect any complaints or claims of entitlement towards Bethesda or modders. If people are forced to pay for something they expect a certain level of support in return. I mod because it's a hobby. I don't want that hobby to become a job.

[lelcat]

Allowing mod authors to receive money for their work isn't an inherently bad idea. It's just that Valve & Bethesda tried to implement it in one of the worst ways possible.

 

I would be okay with paid mods as long as the following two rules were adhered to. These are non negotiable in my view;

 

1) Mod authors can set a 'recommended' price. Mod users can choose to pay this price, some other value or download the mod for free. Setting a recommended price is optional and mod authors can simply set their mods as free if they choose.

 

2) Mods should not be locked to Bethesda.net for PC. Sites like Nexus would continue to provide other options for mods.

 

 

By keeping the money as a donation, there wouldn't be an obligation for authors to provide bug fixes / support etc (although any self respecting mod author would certainly try to make their mods as good as they can), which would deflect any complaints or claims of entitlement towards Bethesda or modders. If people are forced to pay for something they expect a certain level of support in return. I mod because it's a hobby. I don't want that hobby to become a job.

I disagree. The price should be set by the author and the customer can decide if he wants it or not. No "guilt-based" pricing like Humble Bundle. It's take it or leave it.

 

Mods wont be locked to Bethesda, unless they are paid. Free mods will still be available to any site. But I do not have a problem with the Nexus being locked out at all from hosting paid mods. Nexus already makes piles of $ without the mod creators getting any share of it.

[elmetnuter]

Donation or Free options are the only one relevant in Beth.net world or Nexus because:

> A mod will be always in a Beta state.

> A modder is not a product manager or a sales person nor obligated to deliver anything.

 

Free or Donation makes possible for the Author to have a life besides modding so he can appreciate modding.

Asking for a definitive price is denying modding as a hobby and ignite the inner entitlement that comes with a product you paid.

 

Donation is a Thank you, a recognition and help. Price tag is call to fire.

[PG1]

The same issue persists now as then, people simply can't afford hundreds of dollars for mods, and I'm not even talking about single armour mods or minor gameplay things. There are dozens of mods that people consider essential to making the game playable at all. All that will happen is people will only pay for a couple of the central mods like SkyUI and modders of other stuff like Wyrmstooth or Homemaker won't bother because hardly anyone will pay for them. They'll either release them for free anyway or get annoyed that their hard work isn't being rewarded like others and give up entirely.

 

As others have said, donations are the only sensible solution here and Nexus already does that.

Edited July 7, 2016 by PG1

[Reneer]

The same issue persists now as then, people simply can't afford hundreds of dollars for mods, and I'm not even talking about single armour mods or minor gameplay things. There are dozens of mods that people consider essential to making the game playable at all. All that will happen is people will only pay for a couple of the central mods like SkyUI and modders of other stuff like Wyrmstooth or Homemaker won't bother because hardly anyone will pay for them. They'll either release them for free anyway or get annoyed that their hard work isn't being rewarded like others and give up entirely.

 

As others have said, donations are the only sensible solution here and Nexus already does that.

Donation or Free options are the only one relevant in Beth.net world or Nexus because:

> A mod will be always in a Beta state.

> A modder is not a product manager or a sales person nor obligated to deliver anything.

 

Free or Donation makes possible for the Author to have a life besides modding so he can appreciate modding.

Asking for a definitive price is denying modding as a hobby and ignite the inner entitlement that comes with a product you paid.

 

Donation is a Thank you, a recognition and help. Price tag is call to fire.

The problem is that no one donates. I've been modding for 10+ years, while donations have been available for 4-5 years. I've received a total of 2 donations in that time period. And they were, combined, less than $10. When you look at the aggregate, practically no one donates.

 

And if people can't afford "hundreds of dollars" for mods, well, I'm sorry that you can't. Neither can I. But first, not all mods will require payment, and secondly, you can't go out and buy every single video game that developers release, now can you? Do you tell all the indie game developers that they shouldn't sell their games because you can't possibly afford to buy them all?

 

As for the whole "appreciating modding", how about you let each individual mod author be the judge of what they do and don't "appreciate", ok?

Edited July 7, 2016 by Reneer

[PG1]

The video game comparison is nonsense. Mods are often interrelated, video games are discrete entities, even within a franchise. As for who donates, that's just a question of visibility. Even after Nexus adjusted the notifications, the site still doesn't make it that clear that donations are even an option. The fact that modders are forbidden from soliciting donations doesn't help either.

[Reneer]

The video game comparison is nonsense. Mods are often interrelated, video games are discrete entities, even within a franchise. As for who donates, that's just a question of visibility. Even after Nexus adjusted the notifications, the site still doesn't make it that clear that donations are even an option. The fact that modders are forbidden from soliciting donations doesn't help either.

The video game comparison is not nonsense. It doesn't matter whether the mod is interrelated with another mod or not, either. You have to buy Windows or a console in order to play Fallout 4, right? Interrelated. Do you complain about having to buy Windows or a console in order to play Fallout 4?

 

And even if interrelation did matter somehow - none of my mods are interrelated with other mods. I've never, in 10 years of modding, developed an "interrelated" mod (one that requires another mod to function) unless my memory fails me. And before you start going on about script extenders, the team that develops those has stated that they will not make people - mod users or mod authors - pay for it.

 

As for visibility thing, the Nexus makes it clear that donations are an option by the donation banners that pop up on most mods now whenever you download a mod.

Edited July 7, 2016 by Reneer

[WhiskeyRiver2]

I just did some rough math. Assuming a price of $1 per download, with half of that going to the creator/uploader, covadonga's Colt Python mod would have earned him $770 for total unique downloads (so not counting people that had to download twice or more) as of the time of this post (1,540 unique downloads at $0.50 per - if we go by total DLs he would've made $811 so far), and that particular mod was uploaded only ~48 hours ago. My -temporary- upload of Modern Firearms over on Beth.Net would have brought in $59,312 (118,624 total downloads) - assuming it was evenly divided between the members of the dev team (currently eight people), we each would have pocketed a little over $7,400 - in less than a month.

 

 

While I'm against forcing people to pay for mods on sheer principle (we do this because we enjoy it, not because we're out to make a profit, and as the Steam/Skyrim debacle proved, if payment is mandatory quality WILL drop like a sack of hammers), those numbers are pretty f***in' shocking.

Edited July 7, 2016 by WhiskeyRiver2

[NorthWolf]

Zanity didn't mean to set the world on fire.

 

He just wanted to start...

 

... a flamewar in our hearts.

 

Honestly, my opinion is that modding should remain in the realm of hobbyists because I'm old fashioned and think that paid modding is just going to result in a weaker overall community. I also feel like it could easily just become a new form of spec work where otherwise talented people who don't appreciate their own skill set work for pennies when they should be given a salary. Though I would be remiss to not admit that's pretty alarmist on my part... it's just it would feel more honest on Bethesda's part in my opinion if they just hired talented community members and paid them an honest wage for the content they generate if they want more paid content.