Donation Points system now live for mod authors on Nexus Mods

[nerdofprey]

In response to post #60346482.

steve40 wrote:

I saw this today and thought "oh, that's nice" and set all my stuff to opt-in. I've made some relatively popular mods and I thought hey, maybe between all of them this could pay for a premium subscription to the site...

Then I thought about it a bit and... some of my best and most well-liked mods borrow little elements here and there from other modders who have kindly given permission. I certainly wouldn't see this arrangement as "profiting off of someone else's work," - not when I take into account the tremendous amount of work I have personally put into my mods, and the insignificant "profit" I might see - but there very well might be somebody out there who DOES see it that way, absolutely flips their fricken lid, and starts causing huge problems for me. I don't really need the money that bad, and I don't need that kind of drama in my life. I've been turning off donations on my mod pages for a while, and I'll go ahead and turn this off too.

Really nice idea. It's just a shame about... people.

 

Why not simply share your DP equally with all active contributors rather than not opt-in at all? No need to over-complicate things.

Assuming that dozens of people have contributed in equal measure, when their assets have been chopped up, remixed and repurposed as TINY parts of a HUGE mod that took months for me to make, is absurd. Trying to apportion credit fairly would be futile. What percentage to give someone who, say, made a whole separate program that I employed extensively as a modding tool to create original designs... is not uncomplicated. If I'm working alone to create something wildly original that incorporates a few little scraps of other people's work, and end up with 2% of the reward for it, that's not uncomplicated.

I'm happy to give every single one of those people credit. If I build an epic quest with new locations and fully voiced characters, I'm happy to say the rabbit that hopped past in the background at one point was made by so-and-so, but anybody that says so-and-so thus deserves half of the credit for my work is insane... and I'm not even going to put myself in a situation where I have to dignify that kind of argument with a response.

Opting out, though, is very simple.

[steve40]

In response to post #60346482.

 

 

 

 

steve40 wrote:

 

I saw this today and thought "oh, that's nice" and set all my stuff to opt-in. I've made some relatively popular mods and I thought hey, maybe between all of them this could pay for a premium subscription to the site...

 

Then I thought about it a bit and... some of my best and most well-liked mods borrow little elements here and there from other modders who have kindly given permission. I certainly wouldn't see this arrangement as "profiting off of someone else's work," - not when I take into account the tremendous amount of work I have personally put into my mods, and the insignificant "profit" I might see - but there very well might be somebody out there who DOES see it that way, absolutely flips their fricken lid, and starts causing huge problems for me. I don't really need the money that bad, and I don't need that kind of drama in my life. I've been turning off donations on my mod pages for a while, and I'll go ahead and turn this off too.

 

Really nice idea. It's just a shame about... people.

Why not simply share your DP equally with all active contributors rather than not opt-in at all? No need to over-complicate things.

 

 

Assuming that dozens of people have contributed in equal measure, when their assets have been chopped up, remixed and repurposed as TINY parts of a HUGE mod that took months for me to make, is absurd. Trying to apportion credit fairly would be futile. What percentage to give someone who, say, made a whole separate program that I employed extensively as a modding tool to create original designs... is not uncomplicated. If I'm working alone to create something wildly original that incorporates a few little scraps of other people's work, and end up with 2% of the reward for it, that's not uncomplicated.

 

I'm happy to give every single one of those people credit. If I build an epic quest with new locations and fully voiced characters, I'm happy to say the rabbit that hopped past in the background at one point was made by so-and-so, but anybody that says so-and-so thus deserves half of the credit for my work is insane... and I'm not even going to put myself in a situation where I have to dignify that kind of argument with a response.

 

Opting out, though, is very simple.

 

Oh, I see. Being unselfish is insane and absurd. To each his own.

[Zeridian]

In response to post #60345712. #60346357 is also a reply to the same post.

nerdofprey wrote: I saw this today and thought "oh, that's nice" and set all my stuff to opt-in. I've made some relatively popular mods and I thought hey, maybe between all of them this could pay for a premium subscription to the site...

Then I thought about it a bit and... some of my best and most well-liked mods borrow little elements here and there from other modders who have kindly given permission. I certainly wouldn't see this arrangement as "profiting off of someone else's work," - not when I take into account the tremendous amount of work I have personally put into my mods, and the insignificant "profit" I might see - but there very well might be somebody out there who DOES see it that way, absolutely flips their fricken lid, and starts causing huge problems for me. I don't really need the money that bad, and I don't need that kind of drama in my life. I've been turning off donations on my mod pages for a while, and I'll go ahead and turn this off too.

Really nice idea. It's just a shame about... people.

nerdofprey wrote: Modders are like, "sure you can borrow my bike... but I better not catch you working a f___ing paper route!"

Well, assuming you had proper permissions when you included those assets then there wouldn't be a problem and even if there was drama, they couldn't do s*** about it because of the ToS regarding permissions. As in, they can't retroactively remove permissions after they've been given. Granted now that this system is here, I'm sure even more modders are going to be dicks about their permissions because now money could be involved for anyone they are giving the permissions to...just great. Even worse because it's a competitive environment striving for the same limited pool of "points."

Oh and btw, you and everyone else's unique downloads you've accumulated so far mean f*** all for this system unfortunately because it's on a per-month basis starting now. So it's ignoring massive amounts of historical influence other than the user in-flow you get from the popularity you've had, going forward.

Looking over the details, this system seems terrible as it is. Authors now have reason to no longer bundle files in one place for user friendliness. People like me, who make compatibility patches left behind from this system in that way. It's not glamorous work and this just makes it even less so. Not that I care about making any coffee money off this ridiculousness, but I have 50+ patches on one page...downloaded 10's of thousands of times but by 13k "unique" people. Instead, now there is all the incentive to just release a new page for every similar file. It's not any less exploitable because it's not per-file but per-page. Edited May 24, 2018 by Zeridian

[Zeridian]

In response to post #60335881.

Elianora wrote: My opinion on others "profiting from my art work" through Donation Points:



I have 126 mod pages, don't feel like updating the permissions on all of them.

In my opinion, the permissions system should be account based and applied as a default template, then with an override available on each page you publish in case you want different permissions for the files hosted on that page. That way hugely active and hard working modders like you don't have to manage so many pages in such a ridiculously unwieldy way. The redesign of the Nexus hasn't really address any of its core failings in that manner. Edited May 24, 2018 by Zeridian

[Reneer]

Looking over the details, this system seems terrible as it is. Authors now have reason to no longer bundle files in one place for user friendliness. People like me, who make compatibility patches left behind from this system in that way. It's not glamorous work and this just makes it even less so. Not that I care about making any coffee money off this ridiculousness, but I have 50+ patches on one page...downloaded 10's of thousands of times but by 13k "unique" people. Instead, now there is all the incentive to just release a new page for every similar file. It's not any less exploitable because it's not per-file but per-page.

Except that if you split your 50 patches into 50 pages, you'll likely get 1/50 of the downloads for each patch, so likely around 260 unique downloads per patch. It's not as if people will download all 50 patches because they won't be using the underlying 50 mods the patches rely on (or are very unlikely to do so). There might be a small incentive to split mod variations into different pages, but it's unlikely going to somehow add up to 2x or 1.25x the downloads because people will only use one variation of the mod.

 

Now the issue I foresee as being a problem is if a mod author releases a "main file" on one mod page and then creates new mod pages for each patch / update, forcing users to "double dip" and inflate the overall unique download numbers. But I'm pretty sure that's against the rules somewhere already. Haven't found it yet, though.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Reneer

[Zeridian]

In response to post #60350082.

Reneer wrote:

Looking over the details, this system seems terrible as it is. Authors now have reason to no longer bundle files in one place for user friendliness. People like me, who make compatibility patches left behind from this system in that way. It's not glamorous work and this just makes it even less so. Not that I care about making any coffee money off this ridiculousness, but I have 50+ patches on one page...downloaded 10's of thousands of times but by 13k "unique" people. Instead, now there is all the incentive to just release a new page for every similar file. It's not any less exploitable because it's not per-file but per-page.

Except that if you split your 50 patches into 50 pages, you'll likely get 1/50 of the downloads for each patch, so likely around 260 unique downloads per patch. It's not as if people will download all 50 patches because they won't be using the underlying 50 mods the patches rely on (or are very unlikely to do so). There might be a small incentive to split mod variations into different pages, but it's unlikely going to somehow add up to 2x or 1.25x the downloads because people will only use one variation of the mod.

 

Now the issue I foresee as being a problem is if a mod author releases a "main file" on one mod page and then creates new mod pages for each patch / update, forcing users to "double dip" and inflate the overall unique download numbers. But I'm pretty sure that's against the rules somewhere already. Haven't found it yet, though.

Except that they do, I have access to the data dude. That's simply not accurate in the least. There may be some reduction, but overall I would gain far more unique downloads by splitting them up, even if by the inconvenience some people somehow dismiss their need for the file.

As it is, if those files were split up, the unique downloads (as counted by this system) would go from 12-13k to around 120k. And that's being conservative and assuming some people would throw their arms up over the inconvenience. Why? The concept of supply and demand.

Edit: Not even that since my example is slightly off, because what we are shown is the unique downloads for the sum of the files for the page. The opt-in system uses unique users, not even total unique downloads on the page. So if you have 12-13k unique downloads, you aren't even getting that because the unique users is spread multiple times between those unique downloads per file. The incentive problem is still the same and exploitable though.

I could take what is potentially only 2000 unique user downloads (when I'm displayed 12k unique file downloads) and split the files into separate pages and see it multiply upwards to that figure, although it probably wouldn't hit the same amount. Probably in the range of 7-10k. Edited May 24, 2018 by Zeridian

[Reneer]

Except that they do, I have access to the data dude. That's simply not accurate in the least. There may be some reduction, but overall I would gain far more unique downloads by splitting them up, even if by the inconvenience some people somehow dismiss their need for the file.

 

As it is, if those files were split up, the unique downloads (as counted by this system) would go from 12-13k to around 120k. And that's being conservative and assuming some people would throw their arms up over the inconvenience. Why? The concept of supply and demand.

 

Edit: Not even that since my example is slightly off, because what we are shown is the unique downloads for the sum of the files for the page. The opt-in system uses unique users, not even total unique downloads on the page. So if you have 12-13k unique downloads, you aren't even getting that because the unique users is spread multiple times between those unique downloads per file. The incentive problem is still the same and exploitable though.

 

I could take what is potentially only 2000 unique user downloads (when I'm displayed 12k) and split the files into separate pages and see it multiply upwards to that figure, although it probably wouldn't hit the same amount. Probably in the range of 7-10k.

You called your mod "patches" so I assumed they were, well, patches. They aren't, at least not as far as I can see. You've basically got three different mods on one page. So you're right - if you actually split those mods up into "Weapons", "Shields", and "Sets" you'd definitely get a lot more unique downloads because you obviously have people downloading the three files all together.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Reneer

[Zeridian]

In response to post #60350402.

Reneer wrote:

Except that they do, I have access to the data dude. That's simply not accurate in the least. There may be some reduction, but overall I would gain far more unique downloads by splitting them up, even if by the inconvenience some people somehow dismiss their need for the file.

As it is, if those files were split up, the unique downloads (as counted by this system) would go from 12-13k to around 120k. And that's being conservative and assuming some people would throw their arms up over the inconvenience. Why? The concept of supply and demand.

Edit: Not even that since my example is slightly off, because what we are shown is the unique downloads for the sum of the files for the page. The opt-in system uses unique users, not even total unique downloads on the page. So if you have 12-13k unique downloads, you aren't even getting that because the unique users is spread multiple times between those unique downloads per file. The incentive problem is still the same and exploitable though.

I could take what is potentially only 2000 unique user downloads (when I'm displayed 12k) and split the files into separate pages and see it multiply upwards to that figure, although it probably wouldn't hit the same amount. Probably in the range of 7-10k.

You called your mod "patches" so I assumed they were, well, patches. They aren't, at least not as far as I can see. You've basically got three different mods on one page. So you're right - if you actually split those mods up into "Weapons", "Shields", and "Sets" you'd definitely get a lot more unique downloads because you obviously have people downloading the three files all together.

That's not the one I'm talking about, and those -were- patches, that's the only mod I have displayed as (mine) right now. https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/17286 - Maybe you'll get a little more enlightened looking at this case, which is the example I was using. And being patches doesn't change anything other than the maximum potential market (the market being the amount of users using the mod I patch for).

I have upcoming work that was going to be all on one page that is yet unreleased. Assuming I wanted to opt-in to this program (which I don't), the three files I'd release have no reason to be on a single page, because that would only disadvantage me in the system.

Again, I don't personally care how it affects me, because I'm not in it for any money, I'm just pointing out a significant flaw in the system that can potentially change the way people release their mods on the Nexus. Not necessarily for the better of the users. Edited May 24, 2018 by Zeridian

[Reneer]

I get what you're saying. You're right, it looks to be a flaw in the system. If the Nexus staff deem it to be "gaming the system" they will deal with it.

Edited May 24, 2018 by Reneer

[nerdofprey]

In response to post #60349487.

steve40 wrote:

In response to post #60346482.

 

steve40 wrote:

I saw this today and thought "oh, that's nice" and set all my stuff to opt-in. I've made some relatively popular mods and I thought hey, maybe between all of them this could pay for a premium subscription to the site...

Then I thought about it a bit and... some of my best and most well-liked mods borrow little elements here and there from other modders who have kindly given permission. I certainly wouldn't see this arrangement as "profiting off of someone else's work," - not when I take into account the tremendous amount of work I have personally put into my mods, and the insignificant "profit" I might see - but there very well might be somebody out there who DOES see it that way, absolutely flips their fricken lid, and starts causing huge problems for me. I don't really need the money that bad, and I don't need that kind of drama in my life. I've been turning off donations on my mod pages for a while, and I'll go ahead and turn this off too.

Really nice idea. It's just a shame about... people.

Why not simply share your DP equally with all active contributors rather than not opt-in at all? No need to over-complicate things.

 

Assuming that dozens of people have contributed in equal measure, when their assets have been chopped up, remixed and repurposed as TINY parts of a HUGE mod that took months for me to make, is absurd. Trying to apportion credit fairly would be futile. What percentage to give someone who, say, made a whole separate program that I employed extensively as a modding tool to create original designs... is not uncomplicated. If I'm working alone to create something wildly original that incorporates a few little scraps of other people's work, and end up with 2% of the reward for it, that's not uncomplicated.

I'm happy to give every single one of those people credit. If I build an epic quest with new locations and fully voiced characters, I'm happy to say the rabbit that hopped past in the background at one point was made by so-and-so, but anybody that says so-and-so thus deserves half of the credit for my work is insane... and I'm not even going to put myself in a situation where I have to dignify that kind of argument with a response.

Opting out, though, is very simple.

 

Oh, I see. Being unselfish is insane and absurd. To each his own.

Giving somebody 50% of the reward for doing 1% of the work is insane and absurd, as is trying to calculate "what percent of this quest mod is a rabbit?"

This goes both ways. I've been the dude who made the rabbit in this type of scenario. I had already set 100% DP from one of my mods to go to somebody else, before I shut it all down. If somebody did more than half of the work on something I'm cool to let them take credit. If somebody else grabs one thing from my mod and uses it to build something totally new, I'm never going to chase them down demanding royalties. It's petty and crass, and it does nothing but discourage sharing and collaboration. I'll be a lot happier getting nothing out of this deal than getting into slap-fights with my collaborators over who gets how many pennies.