This sticky post on bethesda.net is interesting in the light of the "paid mods" fiasco.

This appears to go even further in the opposite direction than I thought possible, and perhaps even prohibits the "donate" button at the Nexus.

It does make me wonder if that whole thing was Valve's idea, and had nothing to do with Bethesda/Zenimax, and if it heralds a move away from Steam entirely?

My gosh. Such a mess....

Modders should be able to ask for donations, at least, for all the work they do. My guess is you are right, and this has nothing to do with Beth & Zenimax.

As much as I would love to see Bethesda divorce itself from Steam, I suspect it is more simply a matter of Bethesda trying to do some belated damage control after all the backlash from their paid mods attempt. I would not lay the latter all upon Steam's feet either. Valve did not hold a gun to Todd Howard's head and make him an offer he could not refuse. Both companies saw a way to make money for literally no work on their part. Now that paid mods sleep with the fishes, I am sure Bethesda wants to distance itself as much as possible from the whole thing.

I agree with your assessment here 100%. And I have all the original copies of the EULA that came with each game I bought from Bethesda; and I would have to dig them out and look it up first because I don't want to rely on my memory; but isn't this the original wording's meaning as well?

(meaning they were breaking their own EULA by trying to get in on selling mods to begin with).

I also agree that Steam may have brought the idea of charging for mods up to Bethesda; but they were willing to be swayed (and I would guess without much persuasion required).

I noticed Bethnet has mod hosting now too, and the paid mod fiasco instantly came to mind since all this "Bethnet" BS started once their paid mod fiasco was shut down.

It struck me back when that paid mod thing was going on, that Bethesda is going to try and take control of the mods (so by their sudden decision to host them most def feels connected to the upcoming releases of any future TES and possibly Fallout games.


l

Well one thing I've noticed since putting the PC version of Orc Hearthfires on the Nexus and the Xbox one on Bethesda.net is the difference in downloads. 1500 for Xbox versus 171 for PC. Now some of that is because PC users have it for OE (5700 of them) but at this rate the console users will catch up very soon.

I'm sure that has a lot to do with the way mods are now offered in-game in SE, as a choice on the main menu. Add some mods, before you start up again!

Edit: As of 10/4/2017 downloads were 8,469 for Original Edition, 2,633 for Special Edition, and 20,870 on Xbox1.

It's hard to tell if Creation Club will start to affect anything, but I'll be monitoring.