[ux-app]

In the end, most modders don't WANT to be paid for their mods, because it's not a profession.

That's an interesting perspective. Sounds like there are some valid criticisms of the system Valve has put in place.

To me it seems that gamers have cut off their nose to spite their own face in this regard. It seems to me that a paid modding ecosystem would be a big win in favor of gamers.

If lone hobbyists can improve a game so much, can you imagine if a studio of 5-10 could make a viable living from modding?

[Vraxx]

I think another valid pov from most of the gamers is the dislike for the system that has been growing where once you purchase a game there are usually a series of other purchases associated the game to get all of the content that somebody else has been playing. It's extremely frustrating to many of the players to have to continually purchase little bits of the game, and this trend has been started by "day one DLC (downloadable content)" and persisted with "pay to win" freemium models. In the end it seems most people saw this as a cash grab by valve, pushed by Bethesda to milk even more money out of their players. They see the charitable donations currently being given and want to translate that to earnings that a game can make, and this doesn't sit well with the fans.

[chc]

That POV doesn't seem very valid in the general case. It's extremely similar to "I already bought a ticket to Avengers, so why are they charging me again for the rest of the story?"

There are some cases where companies have been overly greedy and compromised the core game to sell mods, but the general hatred toward expansion content seems to come mainly from a desire to get things for free rather than a rational complaint about harm they've experienced from expansion content. You'll also see a lot of gamers suggest that charging $60 for a game is morally questionable (unless you're Nintendo). The freak out over paid mods seems to be that variety to me — it's really hard to say that the existence of community mods devalues the core game. People just don't want to pay money for things.

[Vraxx]

It's definitely that in part, I would have to agree with you. This generation of gamer grew up with the relatively easy ability to pirate games instead of pay for them and steam sales on PC. So there is some resistance to paying for it even if it's not outspoken. My own personal reasoning (now that paying for a game isn't saving weeks of allowance) relies more on resistance to change on the way things have always been, with a bit of skepticism on the way they are monetizing the mods with the split amount.

After playing multiple games by Bethesda that have been relatively unpolished compared to what the modding community has done, I see the move as a cash grab by Bethesda in releasing a game and cashing in on people who just want the game to be more playable by selling the mods to other players as free generated DLC content. I understand that the modders have a lot of a headstart on the work as well, given to them by Bethesda, which is why I wouldn't support modders selling mods on their own. I think the free + donate model has worked very successfully in the past in both motivating and (I assume, but can't be sure in generalizations) compensation.

My last note on the issue is that at the very least this move should not be implemented on a fully developed modding ecosystem where the mods have already intertwined to a degree that this causes a single person decisions to need to be made by multiple mod developers. With mods using other mods, it would be acceptable to have to buy the used mod if that was a design decision by the original modder, but that information was not present as the ecosystem developed and I think it introduces a great deal of harm. As a source I cite all of the trauma that Nexus experienced in the wake of this system being released.

[leppr]

>It seems to me that a paid modding ecosystem would be a big win in favor of gamers. If lone hobbyists can improve a game so much, can you imagine if a studio of 5-10 could make a viable living from modding?

I think the worry is that the move would have killed the lone hobbyists. Even though you could argue that this feature is pure value-added as it doesn't stop anyone from modding the same way as before, it would have reshaped the community. So you'd have a few great mods by semi-professional studios but it could also discourage the hundreds of passionate modders who enjoy putting quality before marketability. In my opinion, the Android and iOS app stores are a good example of this.

[speeder]

Many mods are interesting because the modder solved a personal problem of his.

And some mods do end having a "studio" backing... For example the Network Addon Mod for SimCity 4, it started with several individual modders solving their own problems with the game, and now it has a official "NAM Team" that act as a professional team (they give release dates, have deadlines, make their own installer, etc...)

[jeeva]

>If lone hobbyists can improve a game so much, can you imagine if a studio of 5-10 could make a viable living from modding?

If this was viable, you'd think that studios would consider paying small teams to continue patching and generating content for games for some years. </?>

Obviously this has happened with a few games, but one minor argument I've seen put out over the weekend was something along the lines of "why don't $studio just hire these guys?", and some sadness that it might happen even less often.

[ux-app]

>If this was viable, you'd think that studios would consider paying small teams to continue patching and generating content for games for some years.

If you're Bethesda then maybe you don't get out of bed for less than $10,000,000. This leaves the door open for small teams that will be more than happy with a much smaller pay day.