For the first time since Bethesda’s recent foray into paid mods, Nexus Mods has updated its stance on paid mods, saying it believes “modding should first and foremost be a pursuit of passion.”

Paid mods are always controversial. Just look at Bethesda’s latest attempt at creating a system designed to facilitate such events, and it’s proving to be just as polarizing as its predecessor, even though things have calmed down a bit since the Starstalker League mission controversy in June.

So in the update to the paid modding policy announced yesterday by popular modding site Nexus Mods, its team is never going to please everyone. The good news is that the Nexus team certainly isn’t burying its head in the sand after some modders and players provided critical feedback on some aspects of the actual rules it outlined to align with its stance.

Nexus Mods community manager Pickysaurus wrote in a post: “Over the past year, several game developers have launched different paid modding options, including Bethesda’s Verified Creators (Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starfield) and InZoi’s Creations Marketplace.” “As a result, we have received many requests from users for clarification on our position on paid mods and our rules for paid mods, and we are now updating our policy to reflect our official position.

The new policy is outlined below:

• “Link to paid mods: If an uploader has free content on Nexus Mods and wants to link to where their paid content can be purchased, we will allow them to comply with advertising restrictions.”

• “Lite/Trial/Preview/Demo versions of paid mods: We will not allow the sharing of free mods as they represent inferior versions of the mods with features removed to facilitate the purchase of the full version.”

• “Patches/Dependencies for Paid Mods: We will not allow any patches or add-ons that require payment to unlock user-generated content (this specifically does not include developer-provided DLC – including DLC ​​bundled with items previously sold separately, such as Skyrim Anniversary Update) Similarly, if a mod uploaded to the site requires a paid mod to run, it will not be allowed.”

• “Collections requiring paid mods: Similar to mods, if any collection cannot run without the user purchasing a paid mod, they will not be allowed.”

• “Backlinks required: If a mod author wants to link from free content on Nexus Mods to paid content, the paid content must contain a link back to their Nexus Mods profile.”

“We firmly believe that modding should be a passion pursuit first and foremost, and financial compensation is a nice bonus but not the main driver of creating content,” explains Pickysaurus. “Our mission is to ‘make modding easy,’ and we firmly believe that paid modding is in direct conflict with that goal. Modding a game is already a complex process, forcing users to make confusing distinctions between free and paid mods in order for them to The setup works well and is not indicative of a simple, accessible, and active modding community.”

They went on to outline that the issue wasn’t in vain, saying the site believes long-time modders who choose to monetize through the Bethesda Verified Creators Program “should be allowed to have their paid work recognized as long as it’s not” Would harm the free modding ecosystem and community.”

The policy was met with some mixed reactions, with the rules regarding paid mod patches or dependencies being particularly criticized by some prominent modders and community members.

This led to Pickysaurus trying to provide some clarification, writing in an updated post that the site had spoken with Bethesda to confirm the differences between Creator Club and verified creator content. “We consider Creation Club content to be ‘official content,’ in line with Bethesda’s stance, and therefore treat it as DLC,” they wrote. “This also applies to content published by the official Bethesda Game Studios account on their website Any other verified creator content is considered unofficial and therefore subject to this policy.”

After iGamesNews reached out to us for comment on the policy and its reception, Pickysaurus pointed us to a new post published today in which they wrote: “We spent the morning catching up on all the comments, A meeting has been held for internal discussions to take place later today or tomorrow.”

Where do you stand on the issue of paid mods? Let us know below.