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Whelp. If this were to happen with the Fallout games, then I'd probably just keep it vanilla. If this doesn't sort itself out then I'm not sure if I'll ever actually try Skyrim


I support the idea of Mod makers getting paid. They shouldn't work for free. BUT it should not be mandatory. A donation system like the one suggested earlier would be perfect. And if this happens to GMod I'm not sure what's going to happen there. Literally no-one shoould ever play Gmod vanilla

I might deviate from the norm a little bit, but I'm not opposed to purchasable mods as an idea. Some of the big mods out there have 2000+ combined hours work on it, and the authors deserve something. It would be up to the the authors to set the price. I just don't like how Valve has implemented this. Only 25% of the profits is stupid, I could see Bethesda getting in on some of it (probably no more than 25%), but valve neither needs nor deserves any sizable chunk, maybe 5%, if that. It would need some very thorough policing, to not only make sure the mods work and aren't stolen. As well as the worry of mods going un-updated, and no longer working with the game. And if any purchasable mod system were made, it would need a pay-what-you-want or donate option as well. I'm all for donations to mod authors, I've given a buck or five on occasion, when I think the author deserves it.

Nexus is doing it right. That's how Steam should have done it from the get go.

Valve is getting 35%, Bethesda 45%. And personally, I can see how stuff like Falskaar could be worth paying for. But the problems just outweigh the benefits. Especially since its a lot easier to just reskin an armourset and sell that than it is to coordinate dozens, even hundred of people who might all want a share. Youre splitting 25%, minus taxes, amongst all those people. Never mind about relative workloads... ("a contributed one song, b three songs"... should b get three times more money? What about less obvious stuff, like actually coordinating everything?)

Seems like the big projects wont be monetizing for just these reasons... and it seems unlikely someone will start a big project to monetize it really.
So those mods that *would* be worth paying for, probably wont get any money, and might not get started in the first place.

 Melissia wrote:
I just don't see Valve doing a good job moderating. Basically anything that isn't a sex animation will probably go, and those will probably manage to sneak in, too.

This. Have a look at Greenlight and look at the utter trash that makes it to the voting stage.

http://kotaku.com/valve-cancels-paid-mods-for-skyrim-1700526130

They've reversed their decision based off of customer feedback. They're likely to try again someday, but they realize that this was probably a bad idea the way it was implemented.

 Melissia wrote:
http://kotaku.com/valve-cancels-paid-mods-for-skyrim-1700526130

They've reversed their decision based off of customer feedback. They're likely to try again someday, but they realize that this was probably a bad idea the way it was implemented.

Considering how Gabe himself was trying to play it up as a good thing, seems they finally got it in that this was a bad idea.

As above have mentioned, implementing it into a new game would probably function better. I still hope they try to change it up. Don't get me wrong, there are some mods that I frankly do believe are worth money and wouldn't mind tossing money at them. Catch is, I'm concerned of the problems it has with the open source style of modding at large and would much prefer curation and some sort of paypal (even if that has faults and honestly donations don't seem to work as well as mods). Also the splits are pretty bad. I mean, sure they'd make some money but for the amount of work, making less than steam when the brunt of the work goes to the developer feels wrong.

Let's be honest though, they'd never take care of the quality of the products considering how they treat early access, old games with their bugs, customer service, and greenlight.

 StarTrotter wrote:
As above have mentioned, implementing it into a new game would probably function better.

It wouldn't as commercialised mods would kill off much of the collaboration that exists between mod makers which can only make the resulting mods worse. The only way that mod makers can be rewarded financially without damaging the integrity of the community is via donations.

Valves statement on this strongly suggests that paid for mods will be returning for new games. In other words Fallout 4.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:
It wouldn't as commercialised mods would kill off much of the collaboration that exists between mod makers which can only make the resulting mods worse. The only way that mod makers can be rewarded financially without damaging the integrity of the community is via donations.

Being bought out by Bethesda would also work. I don't use SkyUI myself, but if it makes the game that much better, just pay the creators for making Skyrim a better game and integrate it into the game proper.

Bethesda doesn't really need to do that. They've taken mods that they liked and then simply re-did them in-house, and released it as added content or DLC.

This is how Hearthfires came to be, it's based on a housing mod created for Oblivion, later updated for Skyrim. Bethesda just decided to do their own version of it.