Valve recently introduced paid mods, which started a bit of a shit storm and they were quickly rolled back. Since I was in the middle of my relaunch I haven't posted my opinion on this yet.

But others have already said what I think, so let me just quote. Garry Newman wrote a blog post outlining his thoughts, which I agree with. George Broussard summed the negative reaction up nicely:

Critics of paid mods seem to hide behind “the % was unfair” but the reality is “we want our free stuff free forever”. Sorry mod makers.

— George Broussard (@georgeb3dr) April 28, 2015

While Garry used somewhat stronger words:

Valve broke the modding community... by revealing that most of them are cunts.

— Garry Newman (@garrynewman) April 24, 2015

So my opinion in short:

• I'd appreciate if modders had the option to sell their mods.
• Of course they'd have to respect IP, a Star Wars mod for Skyrim should probably not be monetized.
• There are multiple technical problems with Skyrim's Steam Workshop integration; if you force people who want to sell their mods to use that instead of the Nexus, it needs to work at least as well first.
• Publishers making money from mods might lead to modding support in more games.
• Modders making money from mods might lead to more and better mods. Maybe not better on average, but more good mods.
• Having to pay for mods isn't all that different from paying for games. Support people doing things you like.
• Abuse is a problem but I believe the community can take care of moderation if you manage to distinguish between trustworthy and malicious users, e.g. by seeding the system with hand-selected "good" people and then comparing report patterns. This problem will need to be addressed anyway by the time the store is opened to everybody.

And the super short version: I support paid mods.

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