April 26, 2015 10:11 AM EDT
Maybe I overreacted a little. My previous post was written when a red mist clouded my mind, but now that is has been lifted, let me clarify what I think is so bad about Valve's Workshop.
The fact that modders would like to be paid for their mods is understandable as they invested a lot of free time in the development. But they should consider the fact they began modding out of passion for a game such as Skyrim and wanting to expand it. The hate and fury some mod authors received was not deserved (Chesko said it was just an experiment after all), but it is for me logical as they gave off a signal they turned their backs to the community and started to commercialise their products by putting their latest mod versions behind a paywall. That just doesn't justify the death threats some authors received and it is sad to see a mod author leaving the community for this very reason.
Does Valve's Workshop have a future? After considerating and reading a number of articles from the PC Gamer and the Nexus and watching a video of Gopher I think Valve shot itself in its feet. The current status of the Workshop is appalling; the ways to mod Skyrim is limited and there are better mod managers available (NMM, Wyrebash etc.). Its competitor (in this case the Nexus) offers more variety, an incredible useful mod manager and above all, EVERYTHING is free. With the recent update a donation button was added, which allows mod authors to receive money for their work. I am sure some authors already received thousands of dollars worth of donations.
But the biggest flaw of the Workshop is the lack of moderating and quality control. Everybody can decide to upload a weapon retexture and ask two bucks for it. The Workshop is already filled with bullshit mods like a DovahChicken, retextured glass swords etc. Ofcourse, most of them are there to spite Valve, but still, it shows how easy it is to get your mod on the Curated Workshop. The result: the Curated Workshop will be filled with tons of crap mods, adding npc's, weapons, armor and cheat items that will take away the attention from mods that really deserve it. If a mod like Falskaar would be put on the Workshop for 10 bucks, I would buy it, as it is even more expansive than Dawnguard for 30 bucks. If I would even use the Workshop that is.
And that's where the Nexus and the modding community comes into play. By offering a better mod manager and website where you can browse through mods by category, endorsements and top 100 lists, they offer a much better alternative to the Workshop. More people will look for alternative ways to download and install cool looking armors and weapons. The Nexus goes even beyond that and also offers quest mods, complete new DLC sized quests and mods I really don't want to name (let's say there is also some very disturbing shit avilable on the Nexus).
So what is the drama about? People, like me, who judge to soon and were blinded by fury. How could you put a mod behind a paywall? That is not in the spirit of modding!!!
Anyhow, let the dust settle down. Maybe some mods will be published on the Workshop that are definitely worth to check out, but I think the Nexus and other modding communities have to prepare for a flood of new users, looking for free alternatives for the mods behind the paywall of the Curated Workshop.
This is not the end of modding, hell, I think this will show Valve and Bethesda how commercialising mods should NOT be done. Hopefully they wil learn of this and look for a way to improve their system. And if they do not, the Nexus and other modding communities are in for a bright future.
