First, let me start by saying I'm not singeling on any individual or group, and this is just my friendly opinion.

I've noticed modders asking for payment, whether it be donations or other, it's a slippery slope.

Many gaming companies do not allow official modding of their games, they do not provide free tools, but Bethesda amongst few others do.

Modding has never been about cash payment, it's about the community sharing ideas and mods, if we start asking for money how long before you think the gaming company will cut us off.

Don't let moddng become another form of DLC.

The choice is yours.

Thank you for reading.

Is that what happened with Second Life? The Sims series? C'mon. That's an exaggeration.

Granted, mod users constitute a tiny minority of players for multiplatform games like Fallout 3 and NV, as TalkieToaster will no doubt remind us from time to time, but it is gradually becoming a business model, especially for indie PC game developers who need to compete with big name publishers like EA, where some of the work for generating content for the game is outsourced to players and the developers have merely supplied an engine ("Mount and Blade" is a fine example of this). You are under the impression that encouagement of modding is some altruristic move on behalf of the game publisher/developer like Bethesda and Obsidian. I wish CuteUnit was here to refute this. Modding can (but perhaps not significantly, depending on the game) extend the shelf-life of a game, help generate sales (again, perhaps not significantly, depending on the game) and is sometimes one of its main attraction,

Let's take the Community Bug Fixes Compilation Patch as an example. I remember a time when a game developer would go bankrupt if they released a game as buggy as FNV, back before the DSL or cable modem was a household appliance, when patches had to be delivered on floppy disks through the mail or dial-up downloads (yeah, I've been playing games that long). That was a time when game developers actually took quality control and testing seriously. Now, couretesy of widespread hi-speed internet access and generational gaps, we (are) all (supposed to) happily accept that we have become unpaid beta testers for games that usually requires at least 2 or 3 patches before the company's tech support is no longer innundated with bug reports, where some modders are providing short-term fixes in the absence of a patch that addresses outstanding bugs which satiates some displeased customers who might otherwise be bombarding the tech support forum with complaints. In this instance, users are doing things that the product maker would have had to hire (more) people to do in the past. So yeah, there are some people who would like to get something out of it for the amount of time and effort they spend doing it. I wouldn't pay for mods but I don't blame them. Afterall, when even mod hosting sites like Nexus can't operate without user donations and financial sponsors, isn't it a bit unfair to expect modders to do otherwise?

Also, it's not as if there is an epidemic of Fallout modders requesting donations or payments, so why so concerned?

Slippery slope

I just got reminded about the paid sites for The Sims, my concern is things will head in that direction, and I've seen 3 in just the last week ask for donations/payment.
I'm sorry if I seem somewhat niave, but it spoils the spirit of the modding community in my opinion.

Here's my two caps on the matter.

Getting paid to mod would be awesome, I would love to recieve money for doing something I think is fun. That however, is not the way it works, and should not be the way it works.
Let's face it, Bethesda/Obsidian did most of the work here, sure, some mods use custom resources and the ones who absolutely deserve notice. But the vast majority of mods are entirely based on content that was made by the game developer, in the case of New Vegas, that would be Obsidian, with assets from Bethesda as well.

Hence, you as a modder does not own that content, so why should you get paid or be allowed to recieve money for it? Answer: You shouldn't.

Now, I'm not one of the big modders around here, I've done a fair share of mods now but they're all fairly small and simple, I am working on something bigger, but even then I don't feel comfortable asking people for money to support something I'm only spending time on. I choose to spend my time this way, I could spend it doing other things, but I choose to mod because it's fun. It can be frustrating at times, but it's a choice I've made. What I do with my time is my business and I can choose how I spend it, if the time I spent money was time that should have gone towards a job or something else, then I would have to make a priority and modding would not win in that case most likely.

At any rate, the only things I own in my mods are textures, and only a select few of them. I wouldn't dream of asking for money for a 10 minute Photoshop job. Any other resources I use, I can't recieve money for legally.

Bottom line though, I've followed the modding community since 2004 more or less, I respect this community and I respect the "rules" of modding. Always ask permission before using content, always give credit for stuff that isn't yours, and do not charge for your mod in any way, shape or form. That includes donations.

I honestly don't know what to say.

EDIT: Maybe that the administration should just outright lock threads pertaining to donations and explain why that is and why you should dealwithit.jpg

Modified game materials are property of the publisher.

There is no point in discussing this, there is no slippery slope, this is not a point of morality, but of legality.
And it's not legal to sell mods.

/thread

It's not really unfair to expect modders to work for free, modding is a hobby, something I do for fun. I don't spend any actual money on modding, if I did then I most likely wouldn't mod as much or at all. True, we are providing content for a game, but we do not own the engine, in most cases we don't own the resources and assets being used and we are not entitled to payment for what we do, it's as simple as that. I'd love to get paid for modding, but I'm not entitled to it, I don't expect it to happen and getting positive feedback on a mod is enough for me. If people like it, great. As long as I have fun modding, I'll do it, when it's not fun, I'll stop.

I understand where people are coming from though, but if the rules say you can't recieve any money whatsoever for modding, then that's just something you need to live with.

Any topics involving payment for mods or any part of them, or those linking to such mods are closed. It is not a topic up for discussion here.