Highly recommended:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aavBAplp5A

Wow! They cover ever thought I had in the past few days about the pros and cons of it, except one. I did not realize (and now agree) that they killed paid mods without getting any real info first.

Great conversation. I had heard of Total Biscuit, but I didn't realize he did real journalism. My respect for all three (Brumbek, Robin, and TB) went up after that convo.

I watched that YouTube video about 7 hours ago or so.

Robin Scott (Dark0ne) Nexus mods web sites owners defends mods being free and staying free, but he is ok with PC gamers who are modders to also earn money from selling mods as long as all mods still stay 100% free.

I like how both Brumbek and Robin Scott talk about how they love very much to help the community for free and to share information for free.

Brumbek has I think very good opinions as well.

All in all I like this YouTube video a lot three well known famous people a modding web site owner, a PC gamer who is a modder, and a YouTuber were the perfect people to be in this YouTube video talking together explaining the bad and the good.

Oops, my bad quoting badly. I meant to post not quote you GamerRIck, sorry.

Great video, I guess I would say that though as they effectively echoed all my views on the matter.

A pro paid, a neutral paid but no anti paid? Why not?

Did anyone else hear the part of the interview when Brumbek said paid content would be higher quality than unpaid mods because unpaid mods are less polished with things like lip synch issues with new NPC dialog that you don't find in Bethesda's official DLC.

Brumbek may be right about unpaid mods being less polished, but Dark One seemed to have a much higher opinion of the unpaid mods currently on Nexus then Brumbek did.

But Brumbek's use of lip synch issues as an example of unpaid mods being less polished than Bethesda's official downloads made him seem really out of touch.

A bug that can be fixed and as far as I know has been fixed as I see no lip sync problems in any mod I play and even then it's not a game breaking bug,

Well, DarkOne is the one running the Nexus. He must be more polite to those using his platform, or they will just leave, hence why he must have a higher opinion on anyones Mod. Brumbek is a Modder with a lot of experience with the CK and related stuff, so he's talking exactly what is true. Specially the 'older' Modders use their userbase as guinea pigs, I myself do, because as a single person I can not catch every single bug I'm creating right away. On the contrary, a lot of us 'olds' are persistent enough to keep working on the product and fixing bugs, which often results in higher quality Mod. @Arthmoor for example does that a lot. I'd say he's even notorious for trying to squish any single bug he got reported or finds himself. His Mods are considerably the most well refined on the Nexus.

I am not arguing that overall Bethesda's official DLC don't have polish than most mods (Edit: although as Dark One points Brumbek acknowledges Bethesda's DLC is riddled with bugs and dirty edits and such), and I agree Arthmoor (who is one of the great modders in both Oblivion and Skyrim) and many other modders go to great lengths to eliminate bugs.

My point about Brumbek was that using lip synch as an example of less polish from unpaid mods than DLC ignores the Elephant in the room of the unfixable lip synch bug that Bethesda included in its last official download, the 1.9 patch. It came across as though Brumbek was unaware of the 1.9 lip synch bug, and I expect someone doing an interview advocating for paid mods and holding themselves out as an expert Skyrim modder with 350,000 followers would be aware of things like the infamous 1.9 lip synch bug.

Are you using the latest official patch, my game looks like a bad Kung Fu movie, not because of any mod. It's caused by Bethesda's latest official Skyrim download.

I felt the same way as well they should have got Gopher to join in imo.

Also, SMIM x9000 (Alright, we get it, you're the mod author of SMIM, we know! )

I am using the latest official patch.

From what I have read, the 1.9 lip synch bug does not seem to affect everyone. So, count yourself lucky.

But it does affect a significant number of players and there is no fix. If you find a fix, please let me know. The only fix I have ever heard of is to unpack all of your bsa files into loose files.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/72850/discussions/0/522730076261820147/

That's no fix at all and could lead to obvious problems and complications, as some of the people who tried it experienced.

Edit: If you want to see what my game looks like, check out this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnOVpkBpDKg It's not game breaking but it is immersion breaking and annoying.

It could be that I just never really pay attention. I always read the sub-titles instead.

Brumbek and Darkone were both neutral, or came across as such to me. I don't get where you come from thinking any of them are pro paid(really crappy way to describe it too).


If you are familiar at all with Total Biscuit, he (and his team) no doubt tried to contact as many mod authors as possible. Gopher may not been available.

Darkone was neutral but Brumbek was advocating in favor of paid mods. He straight up said he was disappointed Bethesda took the paid system down before he had a chance to see whether his mod would sell. I too thought it was odd that they did not have anyone advocating against paid mods.

TB thought DarkOne was probably against it before the interview, it's really not surprising since he doesn't always check his facts.

No he didn't. His mod didn't even pass the approval process, and he was only using it to see how the system worked and if anyone would even buy it.

And I'm pretty sure that he said that if Bethesda\Valve contacted him he would have said no.
I'm going to listen again.


I would also add that people who are against modders receiving compensation don't have much to say in any case.

They have a lot to say, might I add that this whole thing wasn't a "Mod users vs Modders" incident and that several SEVERAL modders spoke out against it. Hell, there were more modders who spoke out against paid mods then pro-paid modders from what I've seen.

Is this surprising at all? The ones that would actually want to earn money for their content or have become good enough for people to pay will have left for greener pastures ages ago. To be totally honest before I finished studying and had to make a living I probably would have been anti paid modding too, I wish I could justify still modding for Skyrim, but a paying job, the gym, a girlfriend etc all take time. Everyone wishes they could spend time doing things they love all the time, but sadly the world works on money.

I wouldn't categorize either interviewee as pro, anti, or neutral. I think they both did a good job of discussing some of the pros, cons, challenges going forward, etc.

I for one enjoyed hearing more nuanced perspectives instead of from an angry mob. One person repeating their opinion 100 times does not make it 100 times more important. More moderate people by definition tend to take a little more time to weigh things out, and now we're starting to hear some of those thoughts. They're not easily categorized into one-dimensional positions, and that's a good thing, I think.

Would that include me? I believe they should be compensated but without putting mods behind paywalls.

I'm going by the ridiculous definition of what it is to be Pro Paid Mods, implied at in this thread.

If Brumbek is to be considered Pro, based on what he said in the interview, then DarkOne should be pro, I'm pro, TB is pro. You, charon177, are pro.

Cider! up there, based on his statement, is anti. He also hates modders and they should make mods for him alone.


None of what I just wrote is true, but this is what happens when you start throwing people into camps with this for or against attitude. It's stupid and counter productive.
Brumbek was not pro. He spoke out adamantly against the system as it was implement in the podcast, and anyone who doubts should listen again.

You said right there.

What? Cider is a modder if you did not know. I'm a modder. charon177 is a modder and we are against paid mods.

We are not against modders earning money from donations.

Listen to 59:00 Brumbek says: “I think it’s more of a conspiracy theory, and in the end, even if it is, so what if great mods come out that people are willing to pay for – that’s the reason I’m really sad about what happened with Gabe and Valve pulling the plug is because I thought we were going to let the free market decide. It seems like to me we let an angry mob decide, not the free market. SMIM never had the chance to be sold for money. I never got a chance to prove.”

That sounds like he is advocating for paid mods.

EDIT: Brumbek also says this at 1:02:55: “The money will drive what’s going to happen, which is the reason I find it so regrettable, and frankly unfair and a betrayal of trust to modders like myself, where suddenly they just pull it before money was allowed to flow to see who would be winners and losers.”

EDIT: Brumbek also says this at1:33:45 “ I just think it would have been the best for the Skyrim community, and going back to what you were asking Total Biscuit, will they will revisit this? I don’t think they will revisit it . . . and that means that Skyrim modding will be worse for it, so this is not a victory, I consider this a massive defeat for progress in modding and the quality Skyrim. . . . This would have made the game a better thing to play.”