Skyrim Mods: now with paid option

[Executor32]

...and it's gone:

Valve has removed paid mods functionality from Steam Workshop

Shaun Prescott 22 minutes ago

A representative from Valve has announced that the company will remove Steam Workshop's controversial paid mods functionality. In a post today, Valve employee Alden Kroll confirmed that the functionality will be removed, and all customers who have paid for mods will be refunded. The move has been made with Bethesda's blessing, Kroll added.

"We've done this because it's clear we didn't understand exactly what we were doing," Kroll wrote. "We've been shipping many features over the years aimed at allowing community creators to receive a share of the rewards, and in the past, they've been received well. It's obvious now that this case is different.

"To help you understand why we thought this was a good idea, our main goals were to allow mod makers the opportunity to work on their mods full time if they wanted to, and to encourage developers to provide better support to their mod communities. We thought this would result in better mods for everyone, both free and paid. We wanted more great mods becoming great products, like Dota, Counter-strike, DayZ, and Killing Floor, and we wanted that to happen organically for any mod maker who wanted to take a shot at it."
Kroll said that while the feature has its merits, it was not wise introducing it into a community which had prospered without the model.

"We underestimated the differences between our previously successful revenue sharing models, and the addition of paid mods to Skyrim's workshop. We understand our own game's communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. We think this made us miss the mark pretty badly, even though we believe there's a useful feature somewhere here.

"Now that you've backed a dump truck of feedback onto our inboxes, we'll be chewing through that, but if you have any further thoughts let us know."

It's unusual timing, as Bethesda released its own statement earlier today explaining its position on the controversy. The new functionality has been subject to a weeklong controversy, with several prominent modders and developers addressing the matter. Gabe Newell, Garry Newman of Garry's Mod fame and renown Counter-Strike modder FMPONE have all spoken publicly in favour of the development, but that didn't stop a petition against the functionality accruing more than 130,000 signatures.

[Joun_Lord]

but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start iterating. ]

That definitely seems to be one of many problems with this idea. Skyrim, and Elder Scrolls modding in general, has been around for a long time. It has an established community, established way of doing things. Trying to change it now, with the game they are trying to change being several years old already, just wouldn't go over very well.

Maybe if they had debuted it with the sequel to Skyrim or more likely Fallout 4 it might have worked better. Having better control of the Workshop and possibly a better split would have done more towards helping out too.

I still say if they want paid mods they skip this stupid ass paid Workshop shit, have donation buttons for the mods on there, and for the best mods that are worth money (as some defintely are) they put together in a "Communities Choice" Official DLC.

[Grumman]

I still say if they want paid mods they skip this stupid ass paid Workshop shit, have donation buttons for the mods on there, and for the best mods that are worth money (as some defintely are) they put together in a "Communities Choice" Official DLC.

Yes to both of these. Let people donate to people who produce art assets and code you like (that's the modder, not Valve and Bethesda - they already got their cut), and integrate the best mods into the core game, like Egosoft does with the X games.

[salm]

Valve and developers still want that cut of mods. They´ll come back with some modified version and try to cash in.

[Darth Nostril]

Yes to both of these. Let people donate to people who produce art assets and code you like (that's the modder, not Valve and Bethesda - they already got their cut), and integrate the best mods into the core game, like Egosoft does with the X games.

But then Valthesda won't be able to gouge their completely unjustified 75% cut from someone elses hard work! Won't someone please think of the poor starving developers trying to cash in four years after the game was released!

When all's said and done Steam Workshop is a piss poor way to try to monetize mods - no transparency, no QA, direct download into your game data folder overwriting files with no buyer end control ..... fuck that.
The Nexus may not be perfect but I'll take that over the Workshop any day, at least I can download a mod via Mod Organizer, run it through TESVEdit & Wrye Bash for error checking then decide whether to enable it or delete.

[Oskuro]

Note how they don't mention some of the biggest problems with the model in their retraction message, namely:

- The ease with which unscrupulous uploaders could claim and monetize content not originally created by them
- The "gold rush" resulting in overpricing of mods, or release of subpar mods for quick monetization
- And, of course, the atrocious revenue split, specially with mods that fix issues with the actual game

But admitting to these would be admitting that their policies with Greenlight and Early Access have the same issues (maybe not the revenue split though)

[Darth Nostril]

I still say if they want paid mods they skip this stupid ass paid Workshop shit, have donation buttons for the mods on there, and for the best mods that are worth money (as some defintely are) they put together in a "Communities Choice" Official DLC.

The Workshop did have donate buttons, but once the paywall was put up the donation option quietly disappeared.

Note how they don't mention some of the biggest problems with the model in their retraction message, namely:

- The ease with which unscrupulous uploaders could claim and monetize content not originally created by them
- The "gold rush" resulting in overpricing of mods, or release of subpar mods for quick monetization
- And, of course, the atrocious revenue split, specially with mods that fix issues with the actual game

But admitting to these would be admitting that their policies with Greenlight and Early Access have the same issues (maybe not the revenue split though)

But Gaben the Hutt did say that it was Bethesda that decided to monetize mods and that they set the revenue split, not Steam. Of course Steam automatically takes 30% anyway.

One good thing to come of this is that a lot of people have realised they take free mods for granted and at least on the Nexus are now actually endorsing mods to let the creators know that their work is appreciated and hitting the donate button if they can afford it. Might only be able to afford $0.50 but when you get a couple of hundred people doing that, well that's a decent chunk of a mod creators utility bills covered for the month.

[PREDATOR490]

They backed down because of the feedback they got but it is fairly obvious it will be attempted again either in bits or with more spin to sell it. The damage is done, the mod community is going to be fighting over this for years with mod makers raging that they wont be able to get money because the entitled community wants to freeload.

A clear point that was brought up but constantly gets drowned out in the argument is this:

Paid Mods = DLC - The moment you start charging for a mod it should be held to a different level of quality because people are actually PAYING for something. As it is, this system was woefully pathetic because it has no moderation to make sure what is being made is appropriate or rules about it. They mentioned that mod makers could make claims of theft which would cause mod takedowns which anyone with a brain would realize would be really stupid. I doubt Steam are going to go into the files and check so I fully expect lots of cross issues of mods that do the same things being accused of stealing and that is assuming the claims are being genuine.
I'm sure Steam wont indulge in the financial interest of siding with a mod that is being paid for if someone that makes a 'free' version filed a complaint, oh wait, the Lawyer pretty much did not give a shit.

If the guys that make the nude mods or the sex mods put up their works on the Steam Workshop - I can only see Steam pulling a veto card which instantly goes against their own declaration of not moderating the mods or mods like that getting through which would cause a gigantic drama. If Grand Theft Auto can cause a shit storm with their depictions of sex and violence... oh my how the reaction to Animated Prostitution or graphic death kill moves will cause a scene.

The only way 'paid mods' work is if they are actually moderated and / or Bethseda come in and work to make large optional community DLC packs. However, it is clear that Bethseda and Valve are only interested in getting a cut with the minimal of effort rather than trying to 'improve' the mod community by promoting better mods.
Nothing says your trying to improve Mod selection by offering non moderated selling of alpha ware mods with no quality control or support.

[Darth Nostril]

Schlangster has come out of hiding and stated that SkyUI 5 will be available for free once SKSE is updated. Oh and he's not a sore loser.

As to paid mods, Steam Workshop is what you point at and say "how not to do it".

[Thanas]

Steam workshop already was shit for mods to begin with anyway, due to the stupid and inefficient setup of the steam forums. Real mods need proper discussion boards.

Look at the Paradox mods for example. That is how you integrate the modding community.

[Lagmonster]

It's clear that some mods are so time-intensive and/or of such quality that the creator straight up deserves to charge for his effort. Even something as simple as a new armour mesh or a weapon re-skin implies artistic talent that many people don't have and, thus, is something they can sell. If you, the consumer, don't agree that said time, talent or product is worth your money, you can rightly go fuck yourself with a grizzly bear's dick.

So at the end of this, I think Valve was correct in their reasoning - both that big-ticket modders deserved to be supported for the hundreds of hours they worked, and that Skyrim's established community was a shitty place to start. But I have absolutely no problem with going full libertarian on mods from here out, because video games are a luxury, and luxuries are where nobody deserves anything besides a working product.

Which brings up the one caveat I'll add: There needs to be more consumer protection against developers who churn out shitty products so that there is no market for paid "unofficial patches". A warranty program for video games, for example, comparable to what you find in manufacturing. As in, if there are any bugs in the initial product, fuck you game developer, you have to give people their money back. This will, in turn, raise the development time and cost to make video games, at which point fuck you consumer, that's what it costs to make a Skyrim that works.

[Thanas]

It's clear that some mods are so time-intensive and/or of such quality that the creator straight up deserves to charge for his effort. Even something as simple as a new armour mesh or a weapon re-skin implies artistic talent that many people don't have and, thus, is something they can sell. If you, the consumer, don't agree that said time, talent or product is worth your money, you can rightly go fuck yourself with a grizzly bear's dick.

I think anybody who charges for mods that are based on community work can go fuck himself and those who don't agree with this can go fuck themselves with a whale penis.

There.

Now that we got that out of the way:

There is no way that mods can be sold fairly. Why? Take a huge conversion mod, like HIP for CKII, or PDM for Victoria II.

All those mods use, at least in parts, work of odder modders. They all use scripts and workarounds which other people found and the head modders then tweaked. Mods are almost always collaboration effects of the community anyway. For example, I researched historical uniforms and medals for a mod and I tested ship models as a beta tester. It took me several days of work. I do not expect to be compensated for it anymore than the mod developer was, or anymore than the other mods/games who took the info and used them compensated me.

It is very rare that there is a single content creator who did everything from idea to research to coding to beta test. So you tell me - how do you fairly compensate the people involved there? Let's say the core enhancement of a mod is based on a script of another mod. Who gets the profit?

So no. Mods oftentimes only exist because there is a community that is freely sharing information in the full knowledge that other modders may use it for their own mods. If you monetize this, you kill the mod.

[Lagmonster]

You and I are talking about different tiers of the modding community, though. I said that some mods (and identified things like new armour meshes and existing sword re-skins) are the specific work of the modder or mod team, and that's it, and that said modder deserves the right to ask to be compensated for his talent and his time.

Now, if someone comes along and re-packages a mod and sells it, that's not cool. But that's already a crime - you can't make your own mix CD from songs you've downloaded and sell it. At which point it becomes a problem only of enforcement against someone trying to profit from unlicensed reproduction. I'll be the first to admit that some mods are so intertwined with each other that it becomes a problem to sell them fairly, but I'd argue that mod makers usually already seek specific permission from mod authors to use their content, where it isn't already explicitly granted. It can't be impossible to manage the problem.

[Thanas]

You and I are talking about different tiers of the modding community, though. I said that some mods (and identified things like new armour meshes and existing sword re-skins) are the specific work of the modder or mod team, and that's it, and that said modder deserves the right to ask to be compensated for his talent and his time.

Even those works are usually dependant on the work done by other people (like figuring out how to import/export models, what kind of scripts need to be attached etc.) The number of modders who figure that all out on their own is miniscule.

Now, if someone comes along and re-packages a mod and sells it, that's not cool. But that's already a crime - you can't make your own mix CD from songs you've downloaded and sell it. At which point it becomes a problem only of enforcement against someone trying to profit from unlicensed reproduction. I'll be the first to admit that some mods are so intertwined with each other that it becomes a problem to sell them fairly, but I'd argue that mod makers usually already seek specific permission from mod authors to use their content, where it isn't already explicitly granted. It can't be impossible to manage the problem.

I don't think you see the scope of the problem. Are you involved in any mod scene/have you made and published your own mods?

Besides, nobody has the time to police the mod scene anyway, least of all modders who won't know if their stuff gets stolen.

[TheFeniX]

You and I are talking about different tiers of the modding community, though. I said that some mods (and identified things like new armour meshes and existing sword re-skins) are the specific work of the modder or mod team, and that's it, and that said modder deserves the right to ask to be compensated for his talent and his time.

As has been said, there's nothing inherently wrong with charging for boring reskins or models, but those aren't the kinds of mods we should be pushing/incentivizing the modding community to focus on. We've already got enough publishers charging us stupid money for reskins. Further, just policing those is hard enough because there's more than enough paid sites that allow free use of their assets provided they aren't being sold for money.

Overhauls and other such mods are where the real money should be at for modders. Unfortunately, there's more than a few problems with selling those types of mods. One is that the beg, borrow, stealing nature of Skyrim modding. We already have issues with some modders keeping their work and source under lock and key to forstall anyone changing their mod, even for personal use. While I understand people wanting to protect their work: that's not really how modding works. If you aren't doing it out of a want to make the game better, just because and/or to improve your skills, then you shouldn't have bothered.

This also gives developers like Beth, who already just kind of shit out a large section of code and spread it around to get it into a condition that's usable, into doing that even more so. I didn't pay $60 for Skyrim because it was a pretty buggy console port. It wasn't worth that, so I waited But I knew someone would fix it. And they did. Now what Beth is basically looking to do is to add up Sale Price of game + QoL improvement mods = full (or more) price of game.

Sure, they released the (almost certainly finished before launch) Hi-res texture pack for PC for "free." But (watch out, entitled gamer coming through) I was owed that shit by nature of the system I bought the game on. Just as console player should have a UI that supports their controller, I should have had access to one that supports KB/M. More than that, if your ready assets can't make it on console, but can make it on PC: gimme gimme gimme, entitled gamer wants his stuff. The PC version of Skyrim wasn't resource heavy on a decent PC at launch and graphics sliders used to be a thing.

But really, not going to happen due to parity. MS and Sony don't want to release cross-platform games where their version gets the shaft due to resources. But with this system: Beth isn't making the PC version the definitive one, they're merely letting a third-party do it and keeping most the profits.

Now, if someone comes along and re-packages a mod and sells it, that's not cool. But that's already a crime - you can't make your own mix CD from songs you've downloaded and sell it. At which point it becomes a problem only of enforcement against someone trying to profit from unlicensed reproduction. I'll be the first to admit that some mods are so intertwined with each other that it becomes a problem to sell them fairly, but I'd argue that mod makers usually already seek specific permission from mod authors to use their content, where it isn't already explicitly granted. It can't be impossible to manage the problem.

It's not a crime unless Beth says it's a crime as they are the de facto owner of all mods made for Skyrim due to the EULA. I believe you can copyright your actual code (such as scripts) but no modder making cents on the dollar is really in a position to do that and Beth could crush them with little issue.

What about the guys who got Havok physics working for weapons, armor, clothes, boobs, butts, whatever? How can they sell that mod without the Havok guys getting a cut? It's their framework licensed to Beth, not anonymous modder #4464.

If Beth wants to buy up mods/modders to improve their game, that's one thing. But there's almost no way to make the current attempt of "pay modders for what was free" work in an accetpable fashion. No matter how you set it up, someone gets shafted hard.

[Lagmonster]

I don't think you see the scope of the problem. Are you involved in any mod scene/have you made and published your own mods?

No more than using the GECK to create my own 'tweak mods' in New Vegas to change aspects of items and weapons to my liking, so 'no' to the types of modding you're talking about.

But I recognize that many mods involve a great many interlocking layers building on the work of others, often on the backs of a select few who figured out how to do something that wasn't possible before, or which was too difficult or clunky previously. I would suggest that if the guy borrowing work can't obtain permission to do so then he is, flatly, out of luck. I expect you to argue that a) not every moddable game has access to tools like GECK, and b) this will effectively doom the modding community unless modders elect en masse to release their work for free. I'm okay with that risk.

[Purple]

To put it simply, a reasonable sized modding team for a decent sized mod is about the size of a reasonably sized programing team for proper video games. And equally the tools used are equally complex and in equal number. So the dependance are so diluted that for any serious mod you just can't get away with not involving tens of people directly or indirectly.

Like take for example a mod I am working on right now for Civ 4. The mod is a one man job, at least on paper. I do all the art, coding and everything. However my mod is an expansion module for an existing mod (made by a 5 man or so team) and that mod is in turn an expansion of another major mod (another 5 or so people). The base art I use, so as not to start from scratch is taken with permission for free from another mod that is a team effort as well. Well, actually not one but several such teams. And than of course there are all my various questions and the people who helped me. So my "one man project" is actually technically a 30 or so man job. And that's without even getting into the various free mod tools I use which are again team projects by someone.


And this is a relatively simple modification at that. All I am doing is adding a new playable race to Civ IV.

[Thanas]

I'm okay with that risk.

Why? Because this reads as nothing but somebody willing to fuck over entire communities in favor of an unworkable system, which is not the image I had of you previously.

[salm]

To put it simply, a reasonable sized modding team for a decent sized mod is about the size of a reasonably sized programing team for proper video games. And equally the tools used are equally complex and in equal number. So the dependance are so diluted that for any serious mod you just can't get away with not involving tens of people directly or indirectly.

Like take for example a mod I am working on right now for Civ 4. The mod is a one man job, at least on paper. I do all the art, coding and everything. However my mod is an expansion module for an existing mod (made by a 5 man or so team) and that mod is in turn an expansion of another major mod (another 5 or so people). The base art I use, so as not to start from scratch is taken with permission for free from another mod that is a team effort as well. Well, actually not one but several such teams. And than of course there are all my various questions and the people who helped me. So my "one man project" is actually technically a 30 or so man job. And that's without even getting into the various free mod tools I use which are again team projects by someone.


And this is a relatively simple modification at that. All I am doing is adding a new playable race to Civ IV.

Is it possible for Valve, Bethesda or the average user to tell that your mod is dependant on others? For example, if you put your mod up for sale, does the user first have to download and install the other mods?
If that was the case it could be easyer to create a functioning pricing system. You put up your mod for sale and state that it is dependant on mod x and mod y and you don´t guarantee that these mods are free now or in the future.
Then Valve needs to ensure somehow that you don´t put up work from other people or at least react quickly if complaints are filed if you do.

No way you do this will keep it from being a mess in the beginning because up til now modders didn´t make their mods with this in mind. However, in the future, when some sort of frame work - technically, legally and ermm... wrokflow wise - exists, I think some sort of system with commercial and free mods coexisting could work and if the demand for system like this is high enough the pieces will slowly fall into place. Could take a while, though.

[Purple]

Is it possible for Valve, Bethesda or the average user to tell that your mod is dependant on others? For example, if you put your mod up for sale, does the user first have to download and install the other mods?

They have to instal the mod I am expanding. As in, the first and closest dependance. But that's only because my mod is designed as an expansion pack to begin with. It that was not the case the answer would be no even for that one. Everything else is just me using script files and models created by other people and plugging it into my mod directly. The end result is a neat zip file they just unpack without ever knowing where it came from.

I literally just browse around the forum until I find a model I like, download the entire mod that might on the side have 1000's of models and custom stuff, copy that one I like over and plug it into my work. And there really is absolutely no way for anyone other than me to tell what came from where. In fact, even I don't know where half of it came from because I only know the last mod I took it from. I don't know where they took it from initially. In fact, I have great problems with this because I actually want to give everyone credit for their work and just can't find where some of the things originated. And I end up following these byzantine paths that lead nowhere for days.

This kind of thing is pretty common in large modding communities that last for many years. People come, make some models or scripts or what ever. Than they leave, some times for good. Years later someone takes those and expands on them or uses them for something cool. And than they leave and the cycle continues. And before you know it every mod is "dependent" on every other in some way or another. It even made it into the official forum policy: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=455115

Read that link carefully. Now imagine what was to happen if I were to say make a mod using content from someone not seen since 2008, monetize it and than have that someone show up to take a cut. Or alternatively imagine if I had to not use anything I can't ensure a permission from. It just would not work. Everything is just too intertwined.

No way you do this will keep it from being a mess in the beginning because up til now modders didn´t make their mods with this in mind. However, in the future, when some sort of frame work - technically, legally and ermm... wrokflow wise - exists, I think some sort of system with commercial and free mods coexisting could work and if the demand for system like this is high enough the pieces will slowly fall into place. Could take a while, though.

The problem is that this just won't work, period. Every mod out there is basically someones love project. But inside of it you have "dependencies" to tens if not hundreds of other content creators. People whose only contribution is allowing that one of their many units, buildings or scripts gets used in that mod. Your system would mean that the end user would have to dish out hundreds of dollars per mod just to pay those people off, even if they go for just 1$ each.

What it would in fact lead to though is simply a shutdown of all the big modding projects. You would have the market flooded by hundreds of cheap one man jobs like reskins or things that add one new model because those have no dependencies. But the kind of large projects we see now would just not happen because they would cost too much for the developer to pay up front or for the end user to pay on purchase.

[salm]

That´s why I said it would most likely be a mess in the beginning. The whole infrastructure and culture of modding is optimized for a free system. You will have to implement infrastructure and incentives for the mod culture to adapt to this new system.

Perhaps it would work better if somebody released a new game that was good for modding and had some sort of system implemented that made it easy for modders to differentiate beteween commercial and free mods or an easy to set liscensing system with differnet kinds of liscenses.

Obviously building and maintaining a system like this costs money. But then, Epic have implemented such a system and seem to be making enough money with it. The Unreal Engine has been free for a while and Epic is now making money on the one hand by taking 30% of the sales form commercial games, similar to google and apple app stores, and on the other by taking a 30% cut from people relaeasing high quality content wich goes through gets quality assured by the community and Epic themselves before hitting the store.
Something like this content store could work for mods as well. You could still have free mods that can be used an build up upon each other. Just like Unreal Engine developer hobbyists share Unreal content and modify it.
The same is true for the Unity Engine (And I believe the CryEngine), so this seems to be more than just an experiment and actually a functioning business model.

[Purple]

That´s why I said it would most likely be a mess in the beginning. The whole infrastructure and culture of modding is optimized for a free system. You will have to implement infrastructure and incentives for the mod culture to adapt to this new system.

You don't get it. There is a reason why the culture has evolved that way independently across all modiging communities. It's not something you can change and still have modding exist. The average mod team, reguardless of how large or small simply does not have the time, manpower or resources to do everything from scratch. Certainly not without actually hiring all those people and making the implicit "dependencies" actual ones. And those that do generally prefer to set up studios and make actual for profit video games.

Large modding projects exist for the sole reason that it is an easier and cheaper way to make a video game without actually going through the economic costs of making one. Remove that and half the good modders will just go make video games whilst the rest will give up.

Perhaps it would work better if somebody released a new game that was good for modding and had some sort of system implemented that made it easy for modders to differentiate beteween commercial and free mods or an easy to set liscensing system with differnet kinds of liscenses.

And again, I explained why this will not work. What you'd end up is a million people all selling puzzle blocks and no one with the money to put them together.

If I have to choose between investing 100000x times the time to make every model from scratch or pay 100's of $ to various content creators just to get to the models I need I won't make mods to begin with. No one will. It simply is not economical.

Something like this content store could work for mods as well. You could still have free mods that can be used an build up upon each other. Just like Unreal Engine developer hobbyists share Unreal content and modify it.
The same is true for the Unity Engine (And I believe the CryEngine), so this seems to be more than just an experiment and actually a functioning business model.

These are so completely and utterly different from modding that I can't even begin to explain it.

[salm]

You don't get it. There is a reason why the culture has evolved that way independently across all modiging communities. It's not something you can change and still have modding exist. The average mod team, reguardless of how large or small simply does not have the time, manpower or resources to do everything from scratch. Certainly not without actually hiring all those people and making the implicit "dependencies" actual ones. And those that do generally prefer to set up studios and make actual for profit video games.

Large modding projects exist for the sole reason that it is an easier and cheaper way to make a video game without actually going through the economic costs of making one. Remove that and half the good modders will just go make video games whilst the rest will give up. Just make it so that creating a free mod stays the same as now and put the burdon of implementing some sort of content owndership tag on the person who wants to go commercial.

There can still be free mods. They just need to implement a system with wich you can tag your mod as commercial so that everybody knows that they may not use it. Mods exist even though there is commercial downloadable content which is nothing else than commercial mods.
There will probably be certain amount of liscensing violation but who cares? That happens almost everywhere. You don´t have to make a perfect system, just one that is good enough.

And again, I explained why this will not work. What you'd end up is a million people all selling puzzle blocks and no one with the money to put them together.

If I have to choose between investing 100000x times the time to make every model from scratch or pay 100's of $ to various content creators just to get to the models I need I won't make mods to begin with. No one will. It simply is not economical.

Or you could use the free mods and puzzle blocks to develop your mods and simply not use the commercial ones. While some modders will leave the free mod community the free mod community won´t be completely depopulated. After all open source software exists and people dedicate time to it even though they could make money with their time and skill.

Furthermore this clearly wouldn´t happen as the Unity and Epic content stores indicate. You can buy or download for free puzzle blocks there and still there are people who use these puzzle blocks to build actual games.

These are so completely and utterly different from modding that I can't even begin to explain it.

These Engines are really not all that different these days. You can downlaod the Unreal or Unity Engine and a bunch of Templates and Models and you build your own game with very little or no programming or 3D modelling skill.
Now, obviously it isn´t the exact same thing but the mechanisms that drive the respective content shops could be used to sell modding content as well. There are similar problems, like what happens if somebody sells a script in the Unreal shop that borrows severely from a different script written by somebody else for free? And despite that they have functioning system.

[Lagmonster]

I'm okay with that risk.

Why? Because this reads as nothing but somebody willing to fuck over entire communities in favor of an unworkable system, which is not the image I had of you previously.

Where it comes to luxuries (and this is a model I do not apply to almost any other good or service) I think that a person who makes the luxuries I enjoy should always have the option to demand compensation from me, even if they refuse to do so because they're working out of a sense of charity or for self-fulfillment. I love the fact that people mod out of love, but I don't like that it is impossible for them to profit materially from work that is, in many cases, as good as or better than the commercial product itself (or worse, which makes the commercial product workable. In many ways, this applies specifically to Bethesda open-world RPGs where it wouldn't to games like, for example, Mass Effect, and it very well may be an important concession for me to say that not all games can employ a paid modding model. See "Sims 2 paysites").

I'm being very specific with my wording when I call it a 'risk', too, because I want to say, "you, the modder, can get paid" according to my principles of what's fair, and then hope that after an initial wild cash grab, the modding community elects to continue to largely operate the way that it has, for the reasons you've stated plus the fact that it specifically benefits me, the gamer.

It's also worth mentioning that I think the model Valve tried was lightspeed stupid, and should have been limited to simple art assets that could be added to the vanilla game using the creation kit. And that in some cases Bethesda should be the ones paying for mods, not the consumer. For example, they should have straight up written a check to the people who made the unofficial patches.

[Thanas]

Where it comes to luxuries (and this is a model I do not apply to almost any other good or service) I think that a person who makes the luxuries I enjoy should always have the option to demand compensation from me, even if they refuse to do so because they're working out of a sense of charity or for self-fulfillment. I love the fact that people mod out of love, but I don't like that it is impossible for them to profit materially from work that is, in many cases, as good as or better than the commercial product itself (or worse, which makes the commercial product workable. In many ways, this applies specifically to Bethesda open-world RPGs where it wouldn't to games like, for example, Mass Effect, and it very well may be an important concession for me to say that not all games can employ a paid modding model. See "Sims 2 paysites").

But here's my problem:
1. Modders already can profit from work, via donations. The entire Silent Hunter mod scene for example finances itself from donations, which kept the main mod site running for several decades now. So I think this is a bit of a false dilemma.
2. You cannot feasibly restrict this to some games. You can expect that the worst devs (aka the especially greedy bastards like EA, Bethesda etc.) will use this for all their games because they see a cash grab. The good developers will not do so and might even fight any attempt to monetize mods because their games live and die with their mod scenes (like Paradox). So in essence, all you get is shittier games becoming shittier due to more shitty dev interference and better games becoming shittier as well because talent might shift to where the money is.
3. If this goes, shitty devs will shift even more of the actual developing over to the mod scene. "After all, these monkey do better work for free and extra profit for us, so why not exploit it?"
4. This will cumulate in mods having DRM as well.

And that in some cases Bethesda should be the ones paying for mods, not the consumer. For example, they should have straight up written a check to the people who made the unofficial patches.

That is just baseless optimism, no way in hell any shitty dev will ever pay for mods. Paradox once bought a mod (Arsenal of Democracy for HoI2) and sold it, but they are by far the exception. So I can't see this ever working out the way you intend to.

So I can't see any good at all coming out of this except for a hypothetical solution to a problem that IMO doesn't even exist in the first place.