World's biggest modding site announces new paid mods policies, with caveats—'as long as it isn't to the detriment of the free modding ecosystem'

NexusMods has announced a bunch of new policies to address the issue of paid mods, which have pleased some and hacked-off a bunch of people. This has been a long-running topic for the world's biggest mod site, as modding itself becomes more widespread and potentially lucrative for certain creators: These days it's all-too-common to see a neat mod then, with a sinking feeling, realise you have to sign up to a Patreon to get it.

"Over the past year several game developers have introduced varying paid modding schemes, including Bethesda's Verified Creators (Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starfield) and InZoi's Creations Marketplace," writes NexusMods community manager Pickysaurus. "As a result, we've received a lot of requests for clarity on our paid modding stance and our paid modding rules from a number of our users."

Following consultation with modders, NexusMods' new policies allow creators to link to monetised content, with a few caveats. The major new rules are:

• Linking to paid mods: If the uploader has free content on Nexus Mods and would like to link to the place to purchase their paid content, we will allow it subject to the Advertising Limitations.
• Lite/Trial/Preview/Demo versions of paid mods: We will not allow free mods to be shared where they represent an inferior version of the mod with features stripped out to promote the purchase of the full version.
• Patches for/Dependencies on Paid Mods: We will not allow any patches or addons for user-generated content that requires payment to unlock (this specifically excludes DLCs offered by the developer—including DLCs that bundle items previously sold individually such as Skyrim's Anniversary Upgrade). Equally, if a mod uploaded to the site requires a paid mod to function, it will not be permitted.
• Collections requiring paid mods: Similar to mods, if any collections are not functional without the user purchasing paid mods, they will not be permitted.

That all seems reasonable enough, but this is the internet, and with mods in particular there is a large part of the audience that just doesn't have any truck with the idea of paying for mods. Clearly some of the NexusMods team feel that way too, because the post goes on to clarify why the above policies have been chosen.

"Our mission is to 'Make Modding Easy' and we strongly believe that paid modding is in direct conflict with that goal," writes Pickysaurus. "Modding games is already a complicated process and forcing users to navigate a confusing split of free and paid mods to get their setup working does not represent an easy, accessible and positive modding community."

There's also the potential legal issues over monetising mods, which in the vast majority of cases breaches a game's EULA (there are exceptions), and could get a platform hosting the mod in hot water. While NexusMods says it wants to build "a positive modding community where all content is freely available" it acknowledges that "some community members do not share this view and would like to take advantage of these schemes to directly earn money for content they create rather than relying on donations and Mod Rewards."

And in those cases, where the mods are being made for a game with some sort of approved creator program, NexusMods has chosen to allow them. "Several of the mod authors involved in the Verified Creators program with Bethesda are long-time members of this community who have released great content for free over the years and provided positive interactions with users of their mods," writes Pickysaurus. "We feel that these users should be allowed to acknowledge their paid work as long as it isn't to the detriment of the free modding ecosystem and community."

The post ends by saying that the site will be keeping an eye out for bad actors who just want to use the site's reach to advertise their paid mods, and if this turns out to be an issue then the policies will be revised.

The issues people have mainly concern the rules around 'free' mods that depend on paid mods. Creator Moonracer was one of many asking for "clarification on 'patches for paid mods.' For Bethesda games, does this include anything from Creation Club? Because most of that content is 3rd party and not directly created by Bethesda (even before Starfield). I've got a ton of Creation Club patches up on the Nexus. Does this mean I need to take them down now?"

There were a bunch more responses about the lines being drawn with this policy in particular, and how it may end up backfiring or unfairly penalising some modders. Acknowledging the swell of feedback in this area, Pickysaurus said NexusMods had now "spoken with Bethesda to confirm the difference. We consider Creation Club content as 'official content' in line with Bethesda's stance and therefore will treat it like DLC.

"This also extends to any Creations published by the official Bethesda Game Studios account on their website. You can view the list of mods for Skyrim and Starfield here. Any other Verified Creator content is considered unofficial and this policy therefore applies to it."

So: good news for the modder behind the Armored Dwarven Mudcrab. But some remain concerned that this policy in particular is not well thought-out and, as Pickysaurus puts it, the "passionate feedback" continues. "We've spent the morning catching up on all the comments overnight and have had a meeting internally to discuss them," writes Pickysaurus. "Another update on this will follow later today or tomorrow."

The discussion thread on NexusMods has now reached 26 pages long: Not quite "Is Wario a Libertarian" levels, but it speaks to the interest in the topic among modders. Understandably so, because NexusMods is the biggest mod site out there, and many companies do now consider this aspect of how their games are used post-release.

Most mods are and always will be free. But there is a good argument for certain mods, where the publisher allows it, to be sold and benefit their creator/s. NexusMods may not have all the answers yet: But at least it's grappling with the question.