As we mentioned in the previous post, the Donation Points system has been a massive success with tens of thousands of mod authors receiving a bonus reward on top of the donations they'd have normally received directly from the community. However, some of the behaviours this system encouraged have led to a degraded experience for the end-user.
Problem 1: Content optimised to maximise Donation Points
With the old Donation Points algorithm it became apparent that there was a correlation between how many mod pages you posted and how many points you earned each month - this was especially true for our most popular games. As a result, some authors would break their content down into lots and lots of individual mod pages to maximise the rewards they would receive. This resulted in a heavily degraded user experience - a user previously could get all variants of a mod (or parts of a set) on one page, but they now had to go to multiple different pages to get the "complete" mod. Uploading multiple mods will still be rewarded but authors will start to see diminishing returns from having more interactions with the same user(s).
We've also updated the system to use a non-public algorithm to allocate Donation Points. While we understand this isn't great for transparency, it means that we remove the problem of authors min-maxing their Donation Points rather than creating content that's great for the community.
As part of these changes, it will no longer be possible to view a per-mod breakdown of Donation Points earned on the monthly reports. This is because the calculation works by measuring interactions between users over the month rather than solely counting downloads. To replace this functionality, we plan to give mod authors a dashboard displaying downloads per month outside of the rewards system. We aim to make this dashboard available to authors soon and may expand the stats available to include more than just unique downloads in the future.
Problem 2: Abuse of the system through fraudulent downloads
A further exploit of the system that came to light was the ability for malicious users to earn significant amounts of Donation Points by creating thousands of fake accounts and using them to download their own content. This could potentially take significant sums of money away from genuine users, which is not acceptable. Given the accessibility of throw-away email addresses and VPNs this kind of abuse requires significant resources to track down and we decided that the best approach was to make this activity pointless by factoring it into the new algorithm.
Problem 3: Mod list makers earn disproportionate rewards by including lots of their mods
Mod list curators do a great job supporting the community around their content and we feel they should be rewarded for this. The problem we identified was a trend whereby curators would upload resources for their list split across several mod pages. When a user downloads the collection/Wabbajack list/etc this would mean a unique download for each page and therefore generate a substantial amount of points. To be clear, we have no issue with mod authors creating collections that include groups of their mods to allow for easy downloading, but this trend was targeted towards mod files that had almost no value outside the use in the mod list. This is similar to the first problem but is very specific to mod lists. Uploading mods in this way will no longer generate excessive Donation Points.
Problem 4: Posting updated versions of mods on new mod pages
Some mod authors had taken to releasing updates to their mods by creating a new mod page for each version (and, often, deleting the original). This is a horrible experience for your fans as they are no longer able to easily track the mods they're interested in or be notified of new versions. It also breaks the "update" chain so that modding tools can't easily help users to update to the latest version.
This has always been against our Donation Points System Rules and we will be taking stronger action against users who do this, up to and including blocking them from earning any Donation Points.
We know that some of this behaviour is driven by wanting to increase visibility of updates too, so we are looking into ways to better surface the updated content to users.
We've introduced the changes to not only address these problems but also to redistribute the rewards in a way that enables more authors to benefit from the system. Overall we're expecting ~60% of mod authors to see some kind of increase in their mod rewards. The remaining users are expected to see similar amounts, with some of the current "top earners" seeing a drop in Donation Points where distribution is flattened out a bit.
To be clear, if you receive less DP each month going forward this doesn't necessarily mean your upload behaviours are a problem, it just means that the way you've shared your content is valued differently in the new interaction-based algorithm. We still plan to put the same amount of money (or more) into the system each month.
On reviewing the results of the simulated DP payouts we ran during this project we've noticed there are some cases where tool creators or other "high impact" authors in the community are not as well rewarded in the new system. We highly value tool creators who either enable modding or otherwise extend or amplify the mods that are available for games and we think that these individuals should be strongly rewarded for their efforts. As a result of this, we are now planning to create a separate pool of DP to distribute specifically to selected creators. This may be users who create modding tools that are invaluable to the modding scene (e.g. SMAPI for Stardew Valley) or create tools and frameworks which empower others to create great mods. This scheme is in the planning phases now and we aim to have more information on this later in the year. This will not impact the current DP system or how much money we put into the DP system.
Finally, we've also updated our Donation Points System Rules and empowered our Community Managers with new tools to disqualify specific mods or users from participating in the Mod Rewards program. This will allow us to better handle any exploitation of the system and be confident that content which shouldn't earn DP, won't.
TL;DR - If you'd like to join the discussion we strongly recommend reading the whole post!
- The first Donation Points report using the new algorithm will be available in early August 2024 - this is for Donation Points earned in April 2024. The reports for May and June 2024 will also be available to view and the points will be added to your wallets in September and October respectively.
- The inner workings of the new algorithm will not be made public to prevent abuse or exploitation of the system.
- Donation Points are now shared more fairly and our stats show that ~60% of mod authors see an increase in their monthly rewards.
- The new report will no longer include a per-mod breakdown of allocated points, but you will still see the splits with other authors. The per-mod download breakdowns will be moved to a new dashboard outside of the Donation Points system soon.
- We've empowered our Community Team with better tools to tackle abuse of the system.
- Check out our new Best Practices page for advice on creating great mod pages.
- We're looking at setting up a new, separate rewards program to provide better awards for key tool/framework creators in the community using a separate pool of money. More on this later in the year!
- The total amount we're paying into the Donation Points system each month will remain the same or continue to increase.
Overall, this new system will ensure that the Donation Points system rewards modders for producing high-quality content that the community loves and prevent exploitation of the system. We will be closely monitoring the distribution of DP each month and can make tweaks to the algorithm to make sure it's working as we would like it to. If you're a mod author and you have concerns or questions about these changes, please speak to one of our Community Managers using the forums, Discord or leave a comment below.
637 comments
The DP reports for June, July and August are now available to view in your wallet.
These reports have been generated using the new algorithm which we originally announced in August. If you're not sure what's changed please read above for a refresher. You won't see a count of Unique Downloads for these reports as it no longer directly correlates to the amount of DP.
The total amount of DP added to the pool for each month is:
The Donation Points for June will be added to your wallet in early October. Once all the reports are published you will once again be able to see a 3 month forecast of incoming DP.
The wallet section may be a little slow as it's going to be getting a lot of traffic at the moment.
What a joke. Let me guess, older mods getting decrease payment in the algorithm. You know, those who missed out on all that DP when it wasn't even a thing yet.
To think I have 2.8 million unique users. Not even a translation mod. I will be hiding all my mods. What an insult to those who have paved the way for modding.
Also why can't we see the download count? Sounds sus "it no longer correlates"
So many people use my mod in collections and now that doesn't "pay me", yet these same collection curators are getting paid - up to $2000 - for some curators. Yes 2k. Check some of their patreons, and how they funnel people to their discords and spam for money.
They literally take people away from the Nexus and away from mod pages, which drive down manual interaction and you punish THE MODDERS?!?!
REALLLY?@?@??!!!?!?!
Yet I am not allowed to ask them to remove my mod from collections, to drive people back to my mod manually.
Screw you seriously. You are absolutely disgusting.
I asked for people to remove my mod from the collection and you said "NO"
- Nexus gave zero f*cks. Now I don't even get rewarded for people USING
my mod through collections like before.
I wanted my mod removed from collections that sexualized Skyrim since it goes against my personal beliefs. Yet you guys are now even punishing me financially.
You are removing the rights from modders and our will to ever come back for new generations of games. No wonder almost every author of every top mod has either left, retired or removed their mods.
CAN YOU NOT SEE THIS INSANITY?
1. I have no rights over where my mod is displayed or used. I can't remove my mod from collections to drive manual downloads like before.
2. I am now punished because my mod has "little interaction" even though its a heavily used mod through collections. People don't need to even see this mod page, as it's all automated and downloaded via collections.
3. I can't remove my mod from anyones collections because it's against the rules.
4. Mods used via collections no longer generate DP.
5. Older mods get less DP, even though they are still being used.
If this isn't resolved I will be deleting RLO permanently.
Collections + laziness has destroyed modding.
Literally curators make more than the modders they are stealing from basically. Just putting a list of mods and acting like they made the whole thing. They then funnel everyone to their toxic discords that keep asking for donations and patrons to "keep the collection alive" and have patreons that are earning 10-50 times what modders do. Some of these discord servers have thousands of people in them.
Imagine, I have 2.8 million unique users over the life time of this mod. All that to make a few hundred a year during its best days and now $9, despite tens of thousands of people using my mod every month.
Just more and more leeches living off the back of our hard work.
I have been thinking and given the refusal that you comment, I came up with what I think could be a possible solution although I do not know anything about the program that installs the collections.
If you compress the mod twice or use Winrar to split it into two compressed files before compressing and uploading.
Does anyone know if the program is able to decompress the file using any of these methods to be able to install it?
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I can understand a lot of the arguments on this subject, but being anti-collections isn't one I get, it's a win for the users, and authors in the end.
If the same person downloads updates or other of your mods, for you still counts as 1.
It seems that this user has lost some of the control over his work and does not like that his mods are included in the sexualized collections and prefers that the downloads are done manually.
Do you think that you as an app developer could recommend him some solution for this particular case?
THANK YOU (^◡^)
EDIT: The author seems to be that he no longer cares about increasing his downloads given the new events with his mods to the point of commenting that if things continue like this he will remove them, it would be very good to give him a solution.
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Deleting one mod can cause inconvenience for many people, starting from the user.
But further, if a modder has made a mod based on the deleted one, his work is lost.
If a modlist included that mod, it will fail, forcing modlist author to make an extra work or making that list unusable.
Nexus already paid for that mod; then if author removes it that would mean no more money to him, but also no detriment for the rest.
And at the same time, given the new "mechanics" I would be in favor of a modder doesn't allow his mod on a modlist.
Modlists almost never give endorsement or interactions, which is what nexus seem to be looking for...
Once you release the mod to the public, it starts being everyone's property in a way. Same goes to music, films, and every other art. We tend to preserve. People complain about Nintendo suing emulators and roms of games 30 and 40 years old, but when it comes to their stuff: "no, I just delete it and you all go f*k yourselves" I'm exaggerating but to put the issue clearly onto the table. It's a bit selfish attitude.
None in human history has solved this succesfully. For now, old art of 50 or more years become released of private property in the terms of diffusion and usage of its content to make another stuff. But here we could say that, through Nexus management, all the people are paying for it. Then it should be counted as "community property" since the moment of release. There's a right for the author to change and create whatever they want, and the right of the user to have all created versions available and protected to preserve the art.
All this is important because here we're talking about how many of the money (that Nexus makes, thanks to everyone in here) is to be distributed to each creator.
1st - The right for the author to not be in certain modlist.
2nd - Implement tier list of revenue for modlist size. (the less mods, the more revenue)
This will encourage modders to make bigger mods and/or modpack collection (several mods counting as one).
Modlist authors will be encouraged to cherry picking, reducing the modlists (we all know the less mods, the smoother runs the game) and saving download rate, server and user disk space, thus improving user experience (the most important thing).
But everyone should be paid for their work, including the modlist authors. And as I said before, including small payment to user reviews depending on how useful and trustworthy they are.
This is a matter of micromanagement. IMO Nexus is trying to macromanage it, which is resulting on several casualties. So let the people micromanage it, that's my whole point. You put fair rules and be sure they're accomplished, that's the government role.
Over all collections and wabbajack are a net win for mod authors because new mods are found by the collections authors, promoted, and encouraged for the community to adopt.
Modlist and collections has no regulation. And when we mix no regulation with money earning, that's all we need to create a black hole.
So, don't you think some of those modlists would be better with halved mods?
If Nexus implement a top number of mods per modlist to retain full revenue, wouldn't that be a win for all?
More players will hear about the quality of the wabbajack and collections, as well as mods will be more focused on doing a great big work and putting it on a sole file.
Would also be a challenge, to say if the 100% revenue comes at 100 mods, the modlist would be more thematic including only essential mods to make the experience more unique and cleaner.
They are incentivized to separate the mods...
You're right if those would use FOMOD, but why invest time onto something that's exactly the opposite that makes them earn more money?
That is not solved by not paying translators, more reason if we think those modlist are usually english only.
Ironically we need less mods. Not in total, but at the same time. Even if you're running in a NASA computer, the software is not optimized and the skeleton of the game can resist up to a limit. Will also encourage to raise the quality in general, dissuading creation of multiple mods only to appear on the front page, and with the new review system, encouraged to polish and add more detail and deepness to the creations.
To smaller creators, there's an incentive to make group with other similar creators and make a mod with parts of each of them, dividing the % of the final mod, that way it will include several thematic mods into only one merged and tested, achieving the quality needed to be included on a popular modlist.
Let's compete within ourselves. Let's make it better for us!
Curators:
-I'll make the best modlist with only 100 mods!
-I'll make a different modlist than you, more unique. You'll see!
Modders:
-I'll make an awesome mod to be included in more modlists!
-I'll make a QoL mod everybody will want!
Users:
-OMG this modlist is so cool! I gotta tell my friends about it.
-I'll be playing many mods and make an awesome review on each, people will like my reviews for sure!
* Every city door texture was a separate download, for 6 cities, that's 6 mods
* Every animal animation overhaul was a separate download, that's about 5 extra mods
* Different combinations of textures are best for each part of the game, so you'll need textures for: armor, jewelry, food, potions, artifacts, weapons, clutter, barrels, boxes, straw, signs, orc encampments, trees, plants, animals, mountains, paths, forging equipment, money, crafting materials, spells, effects, dungons, dragons, monsters (maybe a mod for each monster), and the list goes on and on.
* About 100 mods are required just to fix Skyrim to get it in the proper state to mod. You have SkyUI, SKSE, all the ui fixes, and all the compatability patches for those for any other mods you install.
* Now you need to look at the models, for all the above that you overhauled with textures.
* Now add in some animation mods and make sure you have compatability patches for those
* Now you overhaul the cities, each of those need compatability patches
* And now the NPCS, and compatability patches
* And only now can you start to get into added content, like Perk overhauls, spell overauls, and all the patches that work with those
* Standing stone and race overhauls.
Now perhaps you can start to see why a lot of Wabbajack lists are at least 500 downloads, many in the 1500 range. The whole modding community is so large, but also so fragmented. And mods often require other mods to patch them, creating a combinatorial explosion of required mods. And my hat goes off to anyone who decides to add LOTD, because that then suddenly doubles the amount of mods you need after you patch it for everything else.
So no...I don't think 800 mods too much, I'd argue it's a good starting spot. And the way files overlay it's not like 800 includes wasted content, If you simply wanted to overhaul every aspect of the game, and not add *any* content, you'd be looking at 500 mods as a minimum.
To start off. If you're gonna use always the same 100 mods to start a modlist, and most likely those mods are not gonna get an update, then make a pack with all those mods to count as 1. Call it "Skyrim basics" (Something bethesda should've done years ago, instead of breaking the game with "next gen").
Okay I know that's crazy, skyui and SKSE are not gonna be included into one single mod, are they? But maybe smaller modders would make the effort to be included on a modlist. And not only for modlists, that would improve the user experience not having to download 20 mod parts but only 1.
Anyways this is not to revolve all that has been done, it is to put a limit to the craziness that is a modlist today, encouraging curators to make smaller modlist and encourage modders to make bigger mods or get theirs' already existing together.
But to continue, yes Skyrim has a number between 500 and 2000. Not true with Fallout 4, which would be good with 200 up to 500 mods.
Each game must be evaluated on itself.
It seems logical that if the problem is too many mods automatically downloaded, to reduce such number. Given that 500 mods is 100% revenue and 2000+ is 10% is a good measure, future modlists will be created with that in mind. Maybe associated with modders to make modpacks.
You still allow huge modlists, only thing would happen is somebody downloading 2000 modlist will count as 0.1 download per mod. And if they download a 800 mod list those mods will get 0.7 per mod.
This is why a modder should have the right to decide their mods cannot be used on other than 100% revenue modlists or allowing whatever.
We should take care about fair rules. To every creator of each game the rules will be the same, if someone manages to make awesome modlists for Skyrim with only 500 mods that's to be remarked that other creators didn't take the time to make it but with 1500, compromising the integrity of the game.
It is too easy to say: "You know what, put them all, I don't care". And easier if there's not a review system to tell the user if a modlist is worth it.
New algorithm doesn't change the things in a desirable way, they are making people start to think on going out... if that's not corrected accordingly, probably the exodus from Nexus would really start...
And that's the people talking. There's a lot of muted creators just watching what's gonna happen to make a final decision.
I had asked politely if he could remove my mod, and he called me mentally ill. I was just talking normally, but he absolutely pissed me off and we had an ugly argument with choice words. They put me in a "special" discord tier and mocked me, and refused to take my mod down.
I went to Nexus for help and NONE OF THEM helped me. I was actually ridiculed. In fact my posts were deleted too. So you have your example.
I could easily get my mod removed legally from any website or any collection, because my creative rights have been broken. None of the collections are even transformative in nature. They just take the mod and profit off it. If they are making money from making collections, then a portion of those earnings should come to the modders also. It's only fair.
Also yes, it was $2000 a month on his patreon.
Not to mention my argument that ended up on asmongold when I called out puredark (this is unrelated to Skyrim) where that guy was earning $40,000 behind paywalled mods. He said I deserved to be of ill health and poor.
So yes, I am pretty vocal when people are taking advantage of others. I care about the community and I care about modders. I did it in an era where we did it for free. I have been modding here since 2011. I have mods that go back to 2003 with Sports Interactive, EA and Football Manager/Championship Manager and more.
I didn't want my mod to be on a collection that sexualized Skyrim. I am a family guy, my kids and their friends use my mod and they saw my mod in that collection. Kids talk you know, they ask "why is your dad in a boob collection".
Anyway,
Please explain to me why my DP has tanked so hard. This time last year I was getting over $100 AUD a month. Now it's $9.
You guys clearly stated that INTERACTIONS with mods is what gets people paid. Most of my downloads now come through collections because most people use my lighting mod or parts of it - mixed and matched with other mods, because my mod is modular for a reason. I did that so people could enjoy multiple lighting and weather mods at once. I did this to promote many authors. My mod also contains lots and lots of lighting fixes and I had help from arthmoor back in the day.
Sure, if my mod is used in collections that I AGREE to is fine. I should also get 1 DP for every download through collections but clearly this isn't the case.
Something has changed. I also understand you guys are adding more and more games, and fallout tv show boosted fallout mods. I get that also. However to drop to $9 after 12 months is insane. I lost HALF my income with the new system and I have no way of knowing why.
However one can deduce that it's due to collection not weighing as much. One can deduce older mods getting less DP. I came to this conclusion from comments made to me by the Nexus staff, from comments stated and from purely reading the numbers.
Your new algorithm is not fair.
At this point I don't care about the $9 or $85. I care about all these people getting duped. Where the hell is the money going exactly? Do you guys take into account how long a mod took to make? My mod took 3000 hours. YES THREE THOUSAND. Dozens of great modders came and went to work on this. Even if I did the majority of the work, it's still one of the most beautiful community projects on the Skyrim Nexus.
So again, why can't we control where our mods are displayed? Why can't we be told WHY our mods have dropped. I know you want it to be a blackbox so people don't take advantage of it, but quite frankly, we are being taken advantage of.
The exaggerated reduction of DP that suffered also has no explanation just like giving 0 DP to the 10 most popular mods out of the 20 that a game has is a shame even if they were only downloaded by 165 users and the game is not trending.
You should explain your kids how the world works, tell them people should be free to use the mods at their will, given you are being paid for it.
And you should be proud of your work; it is so good even sexualized modlists want it in. It has became an essential part of the game to the point Bethesda should include it on the game itself... that's a real win and few people could say that.
Now, the thing becomes twisted when we come to speak about money, and I should agree in everything on that matter with you. The new conditions are unacceptable, a mockery and they hunt flies with a cannonball. The "secretive" aspect of the new algorithm is more than suspicious. And as conditions are changed I'd swear legally the previous contract is broken.
Nexus put that there and the creators has to say yes or go out, no influence over decision, no voting or asking community in any way, they decided this is the best for everyone as if they were all-knowing gods that cannot make mistakes? I bet no, I bet they knew this was gonna hurt the community but didn't had a better idea. I prefer to think incompetence rather than evilness... or maybe none, just trying to figure out how this disaster had happened in a first place to a HUGE company as Nexus is.
As Picky says, UDLs no longer correlate to Donation Points. You can compare them, but it would be meaningless.
But I can't help but feel that Nexus has to put more of their own money into the DP system and that of course has it's limits. So I can totally understand that Nexus wants to keep an eye on what they spend on this DP system and tweak the amount spend on this system.
Then again, people need to be able to compare, people need to see what they get for what they offer, to see if things are still fair, how things are presented to the public.
Just like your shareholders would want to know what their dividend yield is based on.
So please run that by us again ?
thank you
-=DD=-
We know that between 320~350 unique downloads the old system offered us 1000 DP, that meant that without taking into account the amount of visits of a Nexus mods page we already thought that it generated enough in ads to offer that donation for that amount of downloads.
So knowing how many unique downloads our mods have generated these last three months will tell us perfectly how much they are valued now and will give us a context to know what decisions some of those mods will take if they no longer generate DP, although the fact that they no longer generate DP with the new algorithm does not mean that they do not generate visits.
Even though I have it quite clear if a mod no longer generates DP is that it is no longer profitable for Nexus and is no longer necessary, also according to their new algorithm even if they don't generate DP they are generating interactions because they are downloaded and that will subtract me from other mods.
My data are as follows: 204 of my mods for the 12 unpopular games I have have received 0 DP in August having generated an average of between 8000~10000 TDL, that surely the algorithm counts it as interactions and surely it is subtracting me from other mods.
EDIT: By the way the Monthly Report tab where before you could sort the mods by Most Popular, Least Popular, Most Reward Amount and Least Reward Amount does not work and only sorts alphabetically for the last three months, they could fix it since they do not want to share UDLs.
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So indeed the "algorithm" was a bs pretext to cut by half at least the dp "rewards"
Point is any descent lawyer will have no trouble to prove that objectively serious modders are working for NexusMods and therefore could be objectively considered as employees and this dp "rewards" legally a remuneration system.
And to summarize they work as independents without any legal contract, providing the content product you are selling / the very heart of your business model and you think you get to cut their paycheck by half when it please you to do so ?
If you don't get a lawsuit anyway an army of whitehat will rain .
You also masterfully proved the point that the bigger a company the more crappy it get
All modders who have a page, should also be told how much income Nexus gets from the traffic generated by said mods.
On top of DP, Donations, Patreon, etc modders should get a minimum 50/50 ad revenure split.
In addition to this, older big single mods, should retroactively be paid for DP lost prior to the implementation of the system. Nexus profited off these mods and thus modders should still be compensated.
I have 2.8 million downloads, my mod is basically dead/supersceeded by better mods - still I have 7 million downloads. The majority of them came before the DP system. Had it been out during those days, I would be making $1000 a month like other modders.
People have linked their DP in here, some are making $1000 a month by just making mods in bulk. Yet they probably took the same time or less than big bulky marathon mods like lighting, followers, dlc size maps and more.
Nexus says "don't make smaller mods" but from the screenshots here, those are the people raking in 500k downloads.
Go look at any Youtuber, any collection, parts of my mod are always in collections, due to its modular nature. Does Nexus punish me because only 1 component is used from 10-15 esps in my mod? We just don't know how it works.
It's clear something happened with my mod, that I have gone from $85 a month the same time this year to $9 this month. I lost half my income from the old method to the new algorithm and no way of knowing why.
Lets not forget a few years ago we were told that Nexus was struggling financially and many of us bought premium life time subs. Then months later it was revealed they had made 6 million dollars and were financially secure while pretending they were in hard times. I was going through a hard time, and helped the site. Naive I know. It's hard to believe anything anyone on this website say.
What is true is modders made a lot of people wealthy.
It is time we are told or it's just time to leave this site. I really think modders need to create a union and demand our rights and just compensation.
Is it worth the effort? I would say no.
That was mentioned that kind of mods would recieve a decrease.
I have mods in multiple gamesof all varieties, and i do not see any change in the amount of DPs, of course the UD are hidden, but they are usually pretty regular each month, excludng Falllout tv show.
Not only do we deal with the fact that, obviously, we will never get the downloads that a mod has, but our effort is reduced insultingly to nothing.
And our work is used by dozens of users (there are many languages) who do not reach English for whatever reason.
Well, nothing, we will have to do reshade mods, character presets and body-armor conversions massively to come up with something.
Fantastic way of looking at things.
Well, by the same token, you shouldn't be earning that much anyway for making “patches” to make mods work together. All you've done is take two mods and put them together.
Edit: I guess you don't answer because you can't... mmmmm, i see.
I don't have a single translation - only mods.
Although I don't think that mod translations should be rated lower.
About translations: does Nexus need subscribers, visitors and users of games in different languages?
Nobody here is "getting paid".
Modders do not have a salary, and if you want to make a living off of modding, you can try.
However you should invest your time and effort into creating your own content, maybe write quests for games, or create models, armors, and content that is generally popular. Anything you do should depend entirely on your own content and effort.
And even then money will not be guaranteed, as the DP system is not meant to be a payment for a service. it's a gift, hence the name donation.
It's like when an individual user sends you a donation through nexus. Just this time it'sthe nexus staff that wants to donate money to the creators, in the way and shape they see fit, and deem fair.
I think that if you believe it's not reaching the desired outcome of the nexus team, you should probably contaact them through the feedback part of the website, and pose your concerns there, of course politely.
I would like to clarify that this is not something that was ever said by anyone at Nexus Mods. It may have been part of the speculation around the changes though.
Translations may generate less DP due to how mods are weighted in the new algorithm. We'll be monitoring the outcomes and may tweak things if we feel it is needed.
A translation is IMPOSSIBLE to gain more DP than an original mod. We cannot pay for sinners either.
A translation job can take days of work to be done properly. In my case I have 700k unique downloads ONLY in translations, with translated mods of hundreds of lines, scripts and configuration menus. I even have translations including dubbed voices. And all translations are up to date with respect to the original mod, which is not garbage piling up space.
So, YES, there are people who download translations.
Now they are worth less than character presets and armor conversions.
Does that seem fair?
Turns out it wasn't a joke I guess.
Since DP were brought into the picture the site saw a lot of patches uploaded and put into a collection, SPLIT mods, aka episodic releases, (not that gaming companies arent ddoing this too btw), and in general low effort content.
Like i said if yo do not feel like it's fair, or having the intended effect, there's an awesoem feedback forum, and lots of ways to express concerns.
But i don't think it's fair or productive to just accuse and point fingers over a change that is trying to balance things out.
That's only going to generate more chaos and discontent, and it's never a good thing.
************
And yes, anything i got out of reading the article is merely a speculation.
I interpret what's being said and try to make sense of it, applying it in practice.
************
@beowulfmax
Just sayign that when it takes me a week to make a mod, i end up calling it a low effort project, so we may have different perception on mods in general. But still even in projects that took me years I never thought I deserved a higher payout, even if the "earnings" from those long haul mods are the same as those that took me a week or two.
So i can see why people whould lean more for making tons of fast mods, over working on complex passion projecs that would end up just being like all the others, so technicall in your mind it's wasted time.
But fear not they mention in the article that the system is gonna get tweaked if needed, and its closely being monitored.
And nexus pays not donations - but payments for downloads unique ie for attracting users to the site, downloading mods and showing adverts. Including from the pages of patches and translations. And if the translation downloaded 30 000 people, and the mod 100, it is stupid to pay for the mod 1 000 and for the translation 100 DP. Especially since in some countries DP can only be spent on the nexus itself.
We translators don't make a fortune from this, but, like the creators, we find it comforting to get something in return for our efforts, even if some people in the conversation think that translating is blasphemy and that the Earth would still be better off with only one language, which, by the way, would not be english, it would be adamic.
If you decide to use AI to make s#*! translations, just because your earning's fluctuating due to staff trying to balance things out, here's a better advice for you: QUIT. It saves your effort and reduces potential garbage contents on the platform, easy win-win situation.
I get a decrease on earning in the recent 3 months as well but I feel completely fine, because it's that one mod getting crazy downloads for reasons I cannot perceive earning the most in Apr and May, and I see DP as a reward, not income. So, earning more or less isn't affecting nothing to me, but I guess it hurts for you who use them to buy internet or game keys. In this case, you should have known it might happen when you enable your mods for donations and read that article about it. Funny seeing the tantrum prevailing in the comment section lol
I only hope that they will reconsider the DP accrual for the transfer as written above
DP are supposed to give a feedback about how helpful you are to other players, aren't they?
You upload mods of any kind because you love doing it, not craving more points which is exactly the type of mindset this new algorithm tries to defeat.
@Slimer91
@laredson
With this precedent we could tell nexus is gonna be empty of translators and other modders will be discouraged to continue share their awesome stuff with nexus community.
I advocate the nexus mods to be the #1 modders site but that would happen in a fair community, not a biased one.
The translation work also requires a lot of time and effort. Not more than the original mod, obviously, but obviously we don't get as many downloads, endorse or 'thanks' as the mod does.
I see people misidentifying DP so I think it's about time Nexus made an official statement to clarify that again.
As I stated before, no matter how much you earn, it's a reward, and you could have earned nothing if DP wasn't there.
As for your case:
Lastly, if you feel exhausted or your worthy time's wasted by taking other user's requests, don't take them. This is not a job (even you managed to turn a hobby into routine), and you owe no one a thing just the same way as Nexus staff doesn't owe to you.
Hope that makes you feel fair?
Good luck begging with the epic logic of yours! :)
When injustice happens to others and you do nothing... nobody will be left to defend you when it's your time.
I've translated Warden of the Coast, Wyrmstooth, Vigilant, Glenmoril and Unslaad into Russian, some of my translations are hosted on NM, some not. I can't say this work is no-effort, it took me few months to hand-process WotC with xTranslator. Hell, I didn't spend this much time on any of my "real" mods!
Блин, что это я)) Проф деформация)
Увы, но тем для кого английский родной, не понять, что такое труд переводчика и насколько он важен игровому сообществу.. зачастую люди могут поставить без перевода мод на оружие или броню, но ставить большой квестовый мод без перевода они не будут. Так что это банальный шовинизм. Как не понять что тот же русский намного богаче и переводя приходится по меньшей мере дорабатывать зачастую. не совсем понятно кто пролоббировал эту странную политику но то что это будет в убыток нексусу несомненно. Сюда шли с других площадок в том числе и потому, что были DP - мне нужно было 4 месяца чтоб накопить на игру (вывести же нереально).. счас надо 100. Конечно я лучше пойду на отечественную площадку где буду сразу выкладывать полный мод с ресурсами а то и вовсе на Бусти.
but frankly, i'm sorry, but while translation is valuable, i think it's perfectly reasonable to recognise that it isn't as extensive or time-consuming a job as the original. people throw around huge, lengthy translations and i'm sure some of them are really big pieces of work. but most aren't, and i've seen an increasing number of translation mods that are for incredibly lightweight mods - like dice mods in bg3. there will never be a translation that requires as much work as the original. if a mod has 10k lines, i mean how big is the mod gonna be? translating creative fiction and poetry is absolutely an art and time consuming - in that arena, the translator is a collaborating artist of the highest order - but in modding most of the creative work isn't linguistic, and where it is, it will be a smaller part of the whole package.
in many scenes it makes more sense to bundle the translation with the main mod. certainly in my mods, missing strings can cause issues beyond just missing text. but somehow people seem to think translation mods don't require permissions or a discussion with the original mod author. and there is absolutely a problem with low effort translations of tiny mods in what's obviously an attempt to DP farm.
listen, i'm not saying the work isn't valuable, but when i offer to help someone with mod testing, or offer advice on how to implement something, or spend an afternoon trying to debug a friend's issue? when i proof read a friend's new codex entries, or share some assets with someone? i don't do so with the expectation of any DP share - not unless we've discussed it and i made a really significant contribution to the guts of the mod. if you want to offer translation services in exchange for a DP share of the release, then great - offer that to devs and see if they accept.
i understand why you're upset if you're getting less money, the drop seems pretty steep, and perhaps they'll adjust the algorithm to be a little less harsh. but frankly, some of the amounts shown here, under the old system, are much higher than i have ever gotten. and i have some pretty popular mods in a mid-sized scene (mass effect), including a DP share in one of the unofficial bugfix patches. getting $50 - $60 a month is more than twice what i tend to get, and i've spend thousands of hours making new content and providing bugfixes (including a lot of painstaking localisation audio work - because yes, that really matters to me).
i'm not complaining about my level of reward. i'm just trying to make a comparative point. i think that perhaps it would help to get some perspective that you're still making more than a lot of the people whose work you translated. that's part of why i don't think the case you're making here is particularly sympathetic.
My point is that someone is making life easier or better to some other, that is reflected on download number mainly, less with endorse system as people don't use to lose their time endorsing each of their 400 mods, they play instead.
and also take less time, meaning a single translator can translate more mods than a modder can make. the argument goes both ways.
the fact people don't endorse 400 separate tiny mods is part of the issue nexus was actively trying to address because there often doesn't need to be 400 separate mods. how many of your translations would be more conveniently packaged alongside the mod you are translating? as part of a unified, localised download (if the modding scene in question supports that) or as an alternate download on that same page (if it doesn't)?
honestly, wherever possible, i think translations should be packaged alongside the original mod. it allows the original developer control over the translation of their content and how that's shipped and presented, it allows end users a more streamlined experience, and if you feel you have significantly contributed to the project, you can ask for a percentage of the donation points. but i do feel that translation work is more in line with a lot of other activity within the scene - asset creation, playtesting, bugfixing, proof reading, creating graphics. it's all extremely valuable. depending on the level and originality and effort any of the above may be good candidates for a DP split. none of them are less valuable than translation. yet somehow translations, because they can be packaged as standalone mods, keep getting packaged that way and treated differently.
- Translations do not get more downloads than the original mod. Correct!
- Translations don't generate more revenue than the original mod because they are intended for specific users. Correct!
I agree that there are mods that are only a few lines, but there are also mods that are thousands of lines. I, in my case, have been translating mods since 2014 and keeping them updated to each version of the original mod.
Some mods have been updated dozens of times, and that requires a commitment to the community. In fact, many of my mods have dubbed voices, do you know how much work that takes? It's not just hand-translating thousands of lines that can take days, it's supplementing it with extras in the target language that takes even more days, and that, my lord, should be valued, just like a mod, as a job, to which time, effort and desire have been devoted.
and, in fact, breaking apart sections of mods and uploading them separately was exactly what this algorithm was intended to discourage.
you're talking about the days and days you spend on a translation but how low the download numbers are. but you were earning more than twice what i earn in DP per month and i'm a well-established modder in a mid-sized scene. you talk about spending days and days on translations, but that's not much at all if you're comparing it broadly to mod development. my mods are often in development for several months. so the point about potential production rates as a counterpoint to lower downloads still stands.
if you don't want to do it anymore, that's fine. in fact, you shouldn't if it's just making you feel bitter and resentful. this is a hobby space and it shouldn't be a place of stress and anxiety. but honestly, maybe that means the people who will stick around and do translations will be more open to packaging them in a user-friendly way and bundle them with the original mods.
And any modder could earn more than you per month. So what???
That's your problem, that you still consider the job of translating to be F**CK** S#*!.
I will not allow you to degrade the amount of hours I have invested in publishing my work because you believe that translating is a F**CK** S#*!.
I wasn't going to comment on this DP changes because, honestly I don't care much for it. A free game once in a while is enough for me.
But, after looking at the reports posted here it kind of upset me the fact that people "leech" a mod with translations and don't have the decency to share even a small percentage of DP with the mod author. That kind of says a lot about the people complaining.
And just to be clear, if you do some work (mod/translation/...) you should be rewarded. That reward amount needs to be proporcional to the amount of work done, something that was not happening with the old method. The new algorithm is a good thing. Iam sure they will tweak it more going forward to fix any imbalances.
As a final note, remember that the DP reward pool has a fixed value. The DP you received means less DP for every one else including the great and influencial mod authors you like to "leech" from.
Have fun.
but if you want to go there, i think the numerical comparison and your attitude is very instructive.
i actually have slightly more than 19 projects because i get a DP cut for a few other co-developed mods, including a major bugfix mod. but yes, in the four years i've been modding, i've been able to make about 19 mods to a standard i consider high enough to be releasable. you've released more than that in the last three months. and about 230 over the same time period.
there's no way i could possibly keep up with that kind of output with the types of mod i make. which pretty much proves my point - translations are much quicker to produce, this offsets the lower download rates per mod, and so i don't agree with your assertion that the lower download rates themselves are a check on anything.
what i don't understand is why you took that as an insult so deep you needed to start swearing at me. or why i should be ashamed of a smaller catalogue of mods. or why you feel you're somehow better than me because you have published more. surely effort, originality, the quality of the content, should all matter as well?
i've also noticed you haven't offered a single argument about why translation work should be more valued than all the other really important jobs that get done in the scene without the ability to directly monetise them. like writing, 3d modelling, voice acting, graphics, playtesting, etc. i've raised it in every single comment and all you do is scream about how hard you work and how i don't care about translation.
i do. i've spent literally hundreds of hours on audio localisation for bugfix patches. i have sourced full text translations for nearly all my mods. as i said further up, i'm fluently bilingual and a big part of my dayjob is advocating for my colleagues' protected linguistic rights in regards to official documents. i know several professional translators. i've got a good grasp on it. i just don't think it's more valuable than any of those other ways of contributing to mods. and i don't think it's as valuable as the original mod in this specific context. you haven't offered up a single counterargument that i can see. "you don't care about how hard i work" isn't an argument when we're all working hard.
Do you know how many character creation mods and reshades make more profit than you and me in what we do? Why don't you point them out?
And by the way, I have not insulted you at all, make no mistake. You said that since you are a moderator and I am a translator, I should earn less than you. It is unfair for people like you to think that translators do not deserve merit in a global community because people like you do not use our work.
From a business point of view it is better to have 40% of complaints from users than 80% and also you confront each other leaving aside those responsible.
I would also like to remind you that many of the important Nexus staff only work Monday through Thursday and will not read any of this.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
i didn't say you deserved to earn less than me, specifically, i said that contributions to someone else's mod (and yes, i believe a translation is a contribution to someone else's mod) deserve to be rewarded at a lower rate than the main developer of that mod. which is why i do not ask for or expect DP compensation for the tutorials i write, the playtesting i do, the proofreading and writing i have done for other mod developers. because i am contributing to their mods, any reward is at their discretion. and i don't understand why translation work should be any different.
but, for the third time, you have elected not to answer that point.
not sure what you've got against character creation mods, they often involve a lot of new asset creation etc. unless you mean like, slider presets? but honestly, if there were a bunch of people yelling about how terribly unfair it was that their save file uploads or low effort reshade presets weren't making as much DP as they used to i probably would be here arguing with them. but they aren't. and you are.
Can you quote me the part where I directly insult you?
The only thing I exposed to you was that your problem with this is that you consider translations to be s#*! because you brought up the comment that a translator gets more DPs per month than you do. You expressed that reasoning, not me.
Seriously, dude, stop misrepresenting things.
Anyway, I don't think it's worth talking about this anymore.
Sorry to everyone for the inconvenience, folks. I'm just sad.
oh my god are you seriously gonna argue that screaming and swearing at me like this (when i was speaking civilly to you) is fine because it doesn't fit whatever your convenient definition of a "direct insult" is? you think i'm the one misrepresenting you, when you're the one who took "hey i think translation is valuable, but i'm not sure it deserves special treatment within the DP system when compared to a lot of other contributions people make" and somehow turned it into "YOU JUST HATE IT YOU THINK IT'S ALL F*** $H*T!!!!!"?
like...no, cool, that's not a misrepresentation at all. sure. though i guess it's easier than engaging with my actual position. which you've now ignored for the fifth time.
for the record, responding to someone trying to have a conversation by screaming abuse at them is always directly insulting. i hope you can find some space to cool down during your break from the conversation.
If nexus is intelligent it will take this conversations into account for the algorithm adjustments. That doesn't depend on us anymore.
Lets hope they do things well for their own good.
At last, if nexus stop being a reference for modders, somewhere else should appear and all modders will be moving to the healthy system instead.
You came in bragging:
So why don't you talk about the reshades and character preset mods that earn more than you and me combined? Also has the same effort as creating your asset mods? Noooo, your problem is translations.
No one here has argued that a mod takes longer than a translation so I say again:
this seems like an absolutely wild double standard.
you also still haven't answered my question. you put the words "creating assets" into your answer this time but i genuinely don't understand what you're trying to say with that sentence. are you saying reshades are the same effort? are you saying translation is the same level of effort? i can't tell. and i still haven't seen any answer to the question of why translations, uniquely, should be shipped alone, as the standard practice.
it's just more "why do you hate translation omgs insert expletive!"
so again, i don't. if i did, why would i have spent so long doing audio localisation wherever possible for my own mods, and actively soliciting help with text translation. it matters a lot to me. for clarity i will repeat again, that i don't have an issue if nexus chooses to address the amount of DP translators are getting. the whole point is that they want to achieve a balanced outcome.
but i do have a problem with the attitude on display here in this thread. this belief that you can scream at people who disagree with you. that you can misrepresent every good faith question about whether translation was valued above equivalent contributions under the old system as a personal insult.
there is a person in this thread who unironically posted a poem about the victims of the holocaust as a comparison to how much nexus scrip they get for translating mods. that is an absolutely insane comparison.
i have no problem with people being a bit disappointed, and maybe asking nexus to reconsider? i'm also honestly willing to listen to any perspective on why translations should be viewed as standalone mods, not part of the wider problem of breaking mods into bits and pieces. but like, you gotta stop screaming abuse at me and meet me in the conversation in good faith. you aren't going to convince anyone by acting like this is literal persecution. it just makes you guys look insane.
Argue all you want, a guy who points out to me that I should earn less than him for my work already tells me what kind of person he is.
This. Very, very much this.
I think, rather than yelling "racism" or making shameful comparisons to genocide, you should ask yourself *why* the new algorithm seems to disfavour translations. The obvious answer, based on what the staff has disclosed about the algorithm, is diminishing returns.
With the old distribution system, if you made 100 different mods (or translations) that were downloaded by the same 1000 people, you would get DP as if your mods had been downloaded by 100,000 people. You could farm the same 1000 people over and over again for bigger and bigger rewards, without actually bringing more people to the website. The old system was grossly unfair in this regard.
With the new system, there is a limit to how much DP you can get from the same person. Now if you make 100 different mods that are downlodaded by the same 1000 people, it's not counted as 100,000 people anymore. It might be counted as more like 10,000 people (or maybe 20,000 or 5000 or 50,000; the exact numbers are not disclosed). This has a particularly big impact on translators, since translations by their nature target a very specific group of people. If you've made many translations for the same game into the same language, it is *very* likely that the same people have downloaded many of them. Thus, your reward will be lower than in the old system.
And I think this new principle is fair. The system rewards you for the number of people who use your mods, not for the number of mods you make. Is the new algorithm flawless? Probably not, but just addressing the issues of the old one is a big improvement in itself. I'm sure the staff will continue to tweak and improve it as necessary.
When the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.
Thanks @jg1 for bringing this line I didn't reach to read myself.
Just to make sure, I didn't post it to compare nexus with hitler at all, but for teaching that unpolite man some lesson.
All I'm doing here is not complain but pointing the unfairness to others, not that much to myself, but an unfair system is bad even for those who are benefited from it.
Intelligence is useful sometimes: A flawed system is going down, maybe the last affected by its fall are the now more benefited from it, but even they will be sunken like the rest.
That guy is the violinist of the Titanic, playing his song pointlessly, trying to not see the debacle approaching...
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
what does this even mean? are you saying you are the wise man, the moon is the concept of injustice (currently applied to the loss of your nexus scrip) and your finger is genocide? and i'm the one who's foolishly missing the big picture by focusing on the fact you just used genocide to make a point about a voluntary rewards system on a site where we hack video games for fun...?
eh. anyone still reading this thread is going to have made up their minds. if they think i'm the one who's batshit for thinking that comparison undermines any point you were trying to make i'll just live with it.
When someone is determined to believe a lie, nobody has the right to disturb his deception.
Actually I knew that proverb from years ago, it was after uploading the pic that I read the subtitle saying that about nazism.
That "poem" as you call it, is true whether you refer it to whatever. In your family if your father loses his job, that's bad for you in the long term. We tend to care about everyone in the community, that's why communities exist and have progressed. The better for everyone, the better for you. This is egoism at its best, that way the impulse to help others and make things good for everyone is a selfish act. The hypocrisy is believe you do well to others and that's not gonna impact in you as well.
We're all in the same boat, for bad and for good. Care about fairness is not a luxury, IT IS A MUST.
Well, okay, you don't need translators. How many people have translated into Asian languages, Spanish, Russian, do you think this is an unworthy job? If someone thinks that it's easy to translate and convey the meaning / slang/joke into another language, while preserving what the author intended, well, then he's a fool. I agree that the translation of small mods may not get the full%, but the translation of large mods is a serious job for several weeks and then many more edits.
It cannot be considered that the previous amount was "fair" and the new amount is a punishment. You could just as well see it as the new amount being "fair" and the previous amount a huge error that was in your benefit, and just be grateful for it.
In the end, there is no way to determine what would be the "fair" amount. It's not even obvious to me that translations should earn anything independently since (as beccatoria noted) they are part of another mod even if they can be published separately (unlike a lot of other important and time consuming contributions, playtesting, asset creation, etc), and in most cases it would be better for the users if those translations were simply integrated with the original mod. They're also riding on the popularity of the original mod (when you create a new original mod, you can put a lot of effort not knowing if it's going to be popular or immediately forgotten - that's not true for translations). Even among translations, people who translate to more widespread languages like spanish earn more than people who put in the exact same amount of work translating into idk, dutch. That's never going to be fair.
But there was one aspect of the previous system that was widely unfair, easily abused, and not beneficial to the community: at equivalent effort/popularity, putting out a lot of small mods earned A LOT more DP than focusing the effort on a small number of bigger mods. The new system (while necessarily imperfect) aims to correct that. And yeh, 283 translations pumped out at a speed of 5/week certainly fall into the category that needed correction. You're not being punished, you just were given too much previously.
In fact let's not talk about translations. A small mod as a patch that grants compatibility among two other mods will have less download than original mods as well. But guess what, the players that want to play both mods at the time will be thankful to that modder. He served others, maybe took 5 minutes to make but saved 5 minutes per download. That guy is saving time loss and making others' life better. He earned that downloads and not only that, he helped indirectly the other two mods: people previously playing only one of them now are applicable to play the other one as well, resulting in more total downloads to the original mods.
This apply to the translations too. There's many people that won't play a mod without translation. Those are "regained" to the original mods in the form of more downloads which wouldn't have otherwise.
Making lots of small mods is a bad practice? If there's market, that's okay. If people DEMAND small mods, they got served.
We should argue here bigger mods are underpaid instead. Nexus should be encouraging people to make better, bigger, more detailed mods instead of detriment small mods that people clearly like too.
And no. That's not the matter anyways. The whole thing is about some "smarties" that have associated to make a lot of nonsensical mods and put them all together in several modlists, next to other good mods that are the real deal. That way they are breaking the system artificially increasing downloads on mods that wouldn't ever had that many downloads in other scenario.
I think this should be easy to spot, making a work of search and find popular modlists and slightly reduce income for those mods included there. Or make it publicly. Say: Automated downloads will get less DP. That way manual downloads from the page will remain untouched; while modlist will still be useful to save time for the user but reducing incentive of overcrowding modlists making user lose disk space, nexus lose download rate and even make them lose less time by not inventing pointless mods.
Another way to aboard this issue is having a limit to the revenue on certain mod amount on the modlists (i.e. modlist with 100 or less mods will get full revenue, the more mods in a modlist the less revenue on those mods) incentivizing smaller modlists.
Modlist size | DP gained
100 100%
200 80%
300 60%
And besides that, putting a ceiling. A top quantity that can be earned per mod and modder. There's a finite amount of money to distribute, and as some modders are very popular (not doubting they earned it) those are only a few, they are earning a lot already and won't complain for more money, while new modders will see his wallet go up thus will keep the good work. They will know if their mods get really famous there's a limit in their wages, but at that point they'll be a precious asset to the community.
This is a spiky theme... there's certainly some modders who has millions of downloads and cutting that might not be fair for them either.
My approach to this is grant a high amount to the ones that work really hard, but not in percentage of the total amount, but in number.
i.e.(this is an exaggerated example) if a modder has 1 million downloads on a month where total downloads are 10 million, they wouldn't be receiving 10% of lets say $400k (would receive $40k) to a max of for example $10k. That could be considered a high revenue, assuming this is not a job but a community that does things because they like to.
I've found "huge mods" that seemed to be great and ended in an awful experience.
Au contraire, a mod that is simple (probably game dev should have done) that adds a QoL feature will be very valuable regardless they took 1% of the time a "big mod" takes to be done.
On the other hand we have a lot of good, well worked, big mods, that have lots of downloads and are an excellent experiences. Those already have lots of downloads and will continue to be downloaded in the future with small (but vital) updates.
Market resolves itself while the game rules are well set and there's a security body that guarantees it.
Exactly not. Because mods are free.
The benefit you bring to people is not measured by the number of downloads, that is easily demonstrated by a situation where you publish either two separate mods, or a single one with two optional modules. The benefit to users is essentially the same (maybe the second option makes things a bit easier), but the former option would yield twice as much DP in the old system.
Capitalism balance comes from things NOT being free. People might buy a small indie game at $4.99 but not at $69.99. If mods were priced, the bigger mods would be priced higher. People might be willing to buy the huge overhaul mod for $10 (but if gets split in two it wouldbe $5 and $5, not $10 and $10). People might accept to pay $0.5 more for the translation. But not $10 more (and if they did, someone else would see the opportunity for easy money and make an independent translation and price it lower... until capitalism finds its balance, maybe at $0.5, definitely much lower than $10).
With video games, capitalism found its balance... and what is the result? People pay $69.99 for the videogame in english, and then $69.99 extra for the translate-to-my-language DLC? Is that how it works? Would it seems fair? Because that's the exact equivalent of what the old DP system was doing. And it is clearly absurd.
Linking fair revenue to number of downloads is like saying that you should make more money than Apple because you sold more potatoes than they sold iPhones. There is no possibility of an absolutely fair evaluation of the revenue or DP ratio corresponding to a mod, because mods are free, so there is no way to evaluate the value of a mod.
I think it's time for all of you to start posting savegames, icon packs, ad replacements, nude pictures, reshade, avatar configurations, preset changes, UE Console Variables, ini file edits, etc... will be rewarded more for it.
I can confirm this because I created four registry edit one every month since June in popular games, in comparison to my mods and these fast mods won 1~3 DP more in compared to my real mods.
This is another piece of data that I offer that is completely irrefutable.
Nexusmods may be getting their money from the number of pages visited, but they have a very serious commercial advantage in providing quality content with a user-friendly experience. Some websites try to maximize their revenue by putting a ton of ads and forcing people to load as many pages as possible, but those are crappy websites that people try to avoid as much as possible.
Ultimately, I may be childish and profane. But Nexusmods is doing their business the way they want it. And I would assume that they know their own business better than you do. If they thought that the best way to run their business was to give incentive to authors to split their mods as much as possible to maximize the number of pages that the users have to visit.... then they would do just that, wouldn't they? Except that they're not.
So depending on a hidden criterion some authors are allowed and others are not, the “Mod Splitting” rule is a bit malleable and is not for everyone, keep it in mind.
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Reduce the DP in that way may be useful to get rid of some scammers allied who makes fake downloads for the money, but in the way they're taking away a huge part of the community.
Translators are not going out alone, they'll be taking part of the tissue with them.
As well as other modders who may be gone to other platforms or simply quit.
Small management is required here, to avoid fraud and make the downloads a trustful number.
Then "capitalism" will work with downloads in place of payment.
Also the endorsement system is not very good atm. Users has no stimulus to go back and rate a mod sincerely. Maybe a user program that grants them some small value for explained and well based reviews of the mods, regarding how many people do benefit from it.
In my case I would be thankful to it, as many mods I tested were awful, would have saved me time and would reflect in that horrific mod a 1/5 score due to several bugs and/or diversion on description that promise an awesome adventure and you end finding 2 hours of pointless mess.
Something like steam reviews would fit well, adding a small DP to most liked reviews to give a good reason to the user for investing their time on testing and rating the mods.
As many friends know i make location overhauls,new locations/lands etc...
I literally spend 100s to 1000s of hours on a single mod and being that these arent simple mods compared to a retexture or clothing that anyone would download
i obviously get less downloads...
I was barely making 10-15$ a month for over 60 mods and now to see that drop to 2-3$ was a slap in the face...
All my mods are originals and not updates etc.....
It may not seem like a lot of money to many but it my case you could say it helps pay for the power i use to run the PC that many hours...
One would think that mods that take a long time to create and have a lot of work involved would get something in return...as opposed to mods that take 30mins ...
There are barely any authors doing locations/overhauls/settlements anymore....which is content that many users seek to enrich their game and keep them interested......and to see this happen is totally unfair...
I seriously hope you reconsider certain changes.....to this system that has left many people feeling betrayed by a site that they have supported for years and did not leave when others were closing their accounts and dumping the site.....
This is what i saw when i looked at my wallet and lost all hope ...
Being that i cant see my Downloads im guessing that you cut about 60 to 70% of my DP points...Sorry but thats unacceptable ....
Super popular modern games (Fallout 4, Cyberpunk, Balder's Gate 3) are getting most of the DP, and less popular, older games got decreased (from where they were before).
I honestly expect to see this only encourage more low effort DP farming mods for those games than anything else.
I will share more irrefutable data to make this theory well understood, I will share a list of my 10 mods out of 20 existing mods of DRAGON BALL FighterZ, all of them are occupying the top positions of Popular (all time) since ever.
-Videl Ponytails
June - 41 TDL / 0 DP
July - 47 TDL / 208 DP
August - 25 TDL / 0 DP
-Goku SSJ3
June - 29 TDL / 136 DP
July - 52 TDL / 103 DP
August - 29 TDL / 0 DP
-Bardock SSJ
June - 33 TDL / 45 DP
July - 39 TDL / 0 DP
August - 30 TDL / 0 DP
-Broly DBS SSJ
June - 30 TDL / 46 DP
July - 29 TDL / 104 DP
August - 20 TDL / 0 DP
-Goku GT SSJ and SSJ3 (2 versions)
June - 24 TDL / 45 DP
July - 20 TDL / 0 DP
August - 16 TDL / 0 DP
-Gotenks Normal and SSJ (2 versions)
June - 16 TDL / 45 DP
July - 14 TDL / 0 DP
August - 13 TDL / 0 DP
-Gohan Adult SSJ
June - 17 TDL / 45 DP
July - 18 TDL / 103 DP
August - 8 TDL / 0 DP
-A21 Good or Cell (2 versions)
June - 14 TDL / 0 DP
July - 19 TDL / 0 DP
August - 10 TDL / 0 DP
-Piccolo Original Color
June - 10 TDL / 0 DP
July - 2 TDL / 0 DP
August - 7 TDL / 0 DP
-Gotenks Original Color
June - 3 TDL / 45 DP
July - 2 TDL / 0 DP
August - 7 TDL / 0 DP
This pattern is repeated in 6 of the less popular games that I modded, although for some of the mods that received more than 110 downloads in the month of August they were awarded between 47~140 DP, but in this case it is much more remarkable because they are mods that have always been in Hot Mods for DBZF.
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In August, my DP payout was almost the same as it was with the old system. My DP payout in August was 520 DP more than in February.
But that's not all, my most successful mod of all I have for Palworld with 1,265 Endorsements and 58,985 Unique DLs 100 Percent Pal Capture Rates (I know it's not much) I compare it to some unique quick mods I made for popular games.
Palworld
-August - 4.330 TDL / 1.884 DP = 0,43 DP per TDL
Black Myth: Wukong - High Priority in 3 Processes
-August - 4.415 TDL / 10.115 DP = 2,29 DP per TDL
Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut - High Priority in 3 Processes
-August - 312 TDL / 1.235 DP = 3,95 DP per TDL
I don't know what algorithm can justify despising a downloaded and user endorsements mod that ranks 28th out of 1932 in a game over two mods that have almost no downloads or endorsements.
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Oh well, just means now I don't have to think about it anymore as a subconscious thing. At this point they may as well just remove it (DP system) and save everyone all this hardache.
If this month of September these mods continue to get 0 DP I will hide them because surely the interactions they generate are taken into account by the algorithm and I subtract DP for my most popular mods, also I guess if they receive 0 is because they are no longer profitable and they are not interested in hosting them here.
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There is no conspiracy, those that complain loudest just happen to not be happy with the system. Personally, I love the change.
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To start, unique DLs are consistently 50% of total DL per month on my mods in general (on mods with one file).
Mod A:
May: 8k UDL / 19k DP
August: 8k UDL / 25k DP
Mod B:
May: 3k UDL / 6k DP
August: 8k UDL / 27k DP
Mod C:
May: 250 UDL / 600 DP
August: 400 UDL / 1500 DP
Seems like the rate has increased by a solid 30% in terms of DL/DP. Of course the new algo doesn't even look at downloads so not sure why but I'm not complaining either way.
Mod A:
May: 8k UDL / 38k DP
August: 8k UDL / 25k DP
August: 3.1 DP per DL
July: 3.8 DP per DL
June: 3.5 DP per DL
May: 2.4 DP per DL
April: 2.0 DP per DL
March: 3.0 DP per DL
February: 3.8 DP per DL
January: 2.9 DP per DL
Dec 2023: 2.5 DP per DL
Seems to be that it has always been fairly inconsistent. In this case I guess if we remove April/May then the new system is simply yielding the same average as before.
I understand that the data you shared from A is from one of your two mods you have for Skyrim most downloaded the others can't give you those numbers or they didn't exist.
I will make a very basic comparison, you have 14 mods for Skyrim and I have 11 for Kingdom Hearts 3.
Mod A Skyrim Mod B KH3
August: 3.1 DP per DL 1,25 DP per DL
July: 3.8 DP per DL 1,02 DP per DL
June: 3.5 DP per DL 0,72 DP per DL
May: 2.4 DP per DL 2,46 DP per DL
April: 2.0 DP per DL 2,00 DP per DL
March: 3.0 DP per DL 3,00 DP per DL
February: 3.8 DP per DL 3,81 DP per DL
January: 2.9 DP per DL 2,93 DP per DL
Dec 2023: 2.5 DP per DL 2,55 DP per DL
The data are irrefutable, the only difference between these two games is that one is in the top 20 and the other in the 106th.
Another remarkable fact is that A interacted with 70,460 users and B only with 982.
I guess they don't need mods for unpopular games as they do for translations.
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Translations (Only people downloading are from a smaller, select community - and they will want all translations available too)
"series" or similar types of mods - If people want or like one of them they will download all from a profile - thus heavily decreasing DP
Basically, before it was like
1,000 of the same users download 5 mods = 5,000 Unique DL = 10,000 DP (using 2.0 DP/DL as example)
Now it is
1,000 of the same users download 5 mods = Only 1,000 "interactions" = 2,000 DP (and even less, for older and less popular games)
I can confirm that this is the case indeed. If I compare january-february-march to june-july-august, my modding tools get about half of what they used to get.
It doesn't amount to much in the end since only modders download these (so we're not talking big numbers here), but in my opinion this is something you might want to look into as these take a lot of effort to make + the time it takes to support the modders so they can produce mods that work...
Plus the diminishing returns when the same users keep downloading your "mod" doesn't really make sense for modding tools as regular updates are provided to add more functionality... so people can make more mods...