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Comment by pnt12 | Hacker News Reader

They provide a platform with fine support for mods. That's some extra work and cost in the development of the platform which allows modders to spend less time and money to finish their mod.

I agree the percentage is ludicrous, but I don't find a small fee unreasonable at all. Developing a customizable system is hard. We may argue that they may sell extra copies based on that feature, but we'd never have objective data to back up or refute that claim.

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But they already provided the platform and didn't require a cut before. That's the whole point, that this would be a net negative change from what was before. If we lived in a world where there wasn't a previous modding community and mods weren't a thing, and this was a new option to allow fans to make "non-official DLC" and sell it, then it may be more acceptable.

But given the state of the existing mod communities, doing these things for free or donations and usually out of a love of the game, normalizing an environment where Bethesda gets money for doing no additional work is going to be understandably resisted.

This is like the John Deere article posted about last week. Bethesda must see the game as "rented" from them rather than purchased.

Example:

  If you rent a house and you have a party and make a meal, you are allowed to use the house to your fullest extent and eat as many meals as possible etc but the house is still owned by the landlord.

  If you purchase a house and you have a party and make a meal, you have complete freedom and own the house outright.

Your meal is your mod and your house is Skyrim. They built the house and apparently think that they're just renting it to you even though you flat out purchased it from them.

Bethesda already get financial returns in the form of increased sales due to modability.

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