One of the biggest gaffs in gaming history was when both Valve and Bethesda attempted to start charging for game mods that were, until then, entirely free. The pushback from communities was huge and even though both companies championed the idea of paying modders for all of the time they put into crafting the expansions to various games, gamers rejected it wholesale because of the implications. Now Nexus Mods is trying to give us the best of both worlds, by paying modders a little for their time, but not charging anyone to use them.
"We are working on a Donation Points system on Nexus Mods that mod authors will be able to accumulate, through unique file page downloads, that can then be redeemed for rewards through a storefront style system,"Nexus said via Kotaku
That's not going to pay the bills, but it does equate to some sort of compensation and it means that the most popular modders will get a little money for their time. With more than 10 million registered users, Nexus makes a good stack from ad revenue, so why not spread it around?
Next month Nexus will begin the donation system, giving out between $5,000 and $10,000 to the modders on the site. There will also be a donation, pay what you want, feature on the site, so if individual downloaders want to pay modders, they can do, but there will be no encouragement to do so.
For modders, they can simply cash out their small earnings, or spend them on things through Nexus, which will add a little weight to it. Nexus is looking to have companies sponsor certain months, offering discounted hardware and software to modders. There will also be an option to donate the earnings to charity.
To make sure everyone is happy with the system though, Nexus is also going to make it opt-in only, so no modder will be forced to add the donation points system.
How do you guys feel about this? It seems like a pretty good way to give something back without charging consumers for the privilege to us.
