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What are your thoughts on paid mods?

Zed Clampet

Zed Clampet

Community Contributor
Ark Survival Ascended has paid mods, some of them have been bought millions of times. The highest one was 11.1 million times for a $5 mod. The highest number of downloads overall was over 20 million for a free mod, but there were a number of paid mods with over a million downloads.

Needless to say, modding can be very profitable, which ties into a current PCG article:

www.pcgamer.com

HipHopGamer says GTA 6's user-generated content 'will produce millionaires'

HHG also teased "a small exclusive" about a GTA 6 side mission.
www.pcgamer.com www.pcgamer.com


Thoughts?
 
Mixed.

Plus: people on average will work a lot harder on a mod if they are going to get paid for it. You could even get companies that work exclusively on modding games!

Minus: people are going to be far less willing to share. Using somebody else's paid mod in your paid mod is going to mean payment agreements, contracts, and so on. It can even mean lawsuits over who stole who's code. (Spoiler: they both got it from a third person via AI training data.)

Minus: you want to use Star Wars ships in your free mod, fine, have fun. In your paid mod? Hell no. Cough up the cash. (Could this splash over into IP owners blocking even free mods just to make things clearer for lawyers' cases?)

??: deals may or may not show up between modders and developers to allow exclusive access to some modding capabilities. I don't even know which side would be paying the other, but I would guess the bigger studio would get paid by the smaller.

??: games can be pretty bad when it comes to access for people with various disabilities. Even something as small as red/green colorblindness can block people. Devs often don't know how to deal with that stuff and don't know if they will lose money taking the extra time to allow for it. A modding company specializing in that sort of thing would, though. They could open access to a lot of games for a lot of people - but it will cost the people wanting to play the game to do so. (Translations will fit in here, too.)
 
Zloth said:
??: games can be pretty bad when it comes to access for people with various disabilities. Even something as small as red/green colorblindness can block people. Devs often don't know how to deal with that stuff and don't know if they will lose money taking the extra time to allow for it. A modding company specializing in that sort of thing would, though. They could open access to a lot of games for a lot of people - but it will cost the people wanting to play the game to do so. (Translations will fit in here, too.)
Click to expand...
I would say making people with disabilities pay extra for accessibility features would go over very poorly.

One of my biggest concerns is that many mods don't stay updated. If you are charging someone for a mod, you better be willing to keep it up-to-date.

With Ark, most mods are still free, so that's good.
 
It's already rare for me to use free mods or official DLC, so I don't see myself ever using a paid mod.

I have some very strong doubts on whether paid mods would actually deliver a better quality product than a free mod. I suspect a lot of paid mods will be made by people trying to make a quick buck with AI-assisted coding.

However, I'm not against the idea in principle, there are a lot of mod developers who have put crazy amounts of time and effort into their mods and I wouldn't fault them for asking for compensation for their work. I'm just worried how it'll affect the incentives for making mods.
 
You might get more people working on mods. But then you might get a ton of rubbish, low priced mods. Trying to separate the good from the bad? That's hard enough just with the flood of games on steam. This is just going to make it worse.

However the people that make really good mods, that stand out from the crowd are going to be able to fund themselves through this model.
 
Frindis said:
I'm against paid mods
Click to expand...
Future are happy to hear that lol. They are as well. 😀

back on topic.... never paid for a mod, I would only do so if I really liked the game and the mod added more life to it... like most of the free ones I used on Torchlight 2. They added more to everything to make game more interesting after playing it for many years.
I may buy DLC if it adds more to game than just a few items. Grim Dawn expansions generally add enough to warrant payment.
 
Hello to you all .. @Zed Clampet said .... One of my biggest concerns is that many mods don't stay updated. If you are charging someone for a mod, you better be willing to keep it up-to-date.

The main problem is that a game gets updated which causes the mods you have to do all sorts of bad things and you cant blame the mod makers because they probably wont even know the main game has been updated but by that time its too late new game update plus outdated mods equells disaster...

Take my go to game SATISFACTORY ... in my first playthrough i used 100 plus milestones and when update 6 arrived it killed everything i had done with the mod so started a fresh playtthrough , some user say its possible to stop an updated satisfactory killing your mods but they will never tell you how to do it.

On the satisfactory Q & A page if you say ... can i get a mod to do xyz then somebody will help you , BUT , if you say a mod has killed your game they say tough cookie your choice , your problem. DONT even thing of asking for mod help on their steam pages cos they are 2 faced. Talk about mods and they will abuse you and then later on the very same people can be seen disgussing mods ??
 
Colif said:
I may buy DLC if it adds more to game than just a few items. Grim Dawn expansions generally add enough to warrant payment.
Click to expand...
Over 3.4K people are playing Grim Dawn on Steam right now. Then add that with GOG and Xbox players, I'd say the game is very good for its age.
mjs warlord said:
Hello to you all .. @Zed Clampet said .... One of my biggest concerns is that many mods don't stay updated. If you are charging someone for a mod, you better be willing to keep it up-to-date.
Click to expand...
Good point!
 
mjs warlord said:
Hello to you all .. @Zed Clampet said .... One of my biggest concerns is that many mods don't stay updated. If you are charging someone for a mod, you better be willing to keep it up-to-date.

The main problem is that a game gets updated which causes the mods you have to do all sorts of bad things and you cant blame the mod makers because they probably wont even know the main game has been updated but by that time its too late new game update plus outdated mods equells disaster...

Take my go to game SATISFACTORY ... in my first playthrough i used 100 plus milestones and when update 6 arrived it killed everything i had done with the mod so started a fresh playtthrough , some user say its possible to stop an updated satisfactory killing your mods but they will never tell you how to do it.

On the satisfactory Q & A page if you say ... can i get a mod to do xyz then somebody will help you , BUT , if you say a mod has killed your game they say tough cookie your choice , your problem. DONT even thing of asking for mod help on their steam pages cos they are 2 faced. Talk about mods and they will abuse you and then later on the very same people can be seen disgussing mods ??
Click to expand...
Mods are always used at the player's own risk. There are about 1400 mods for Satisfactory. That would be impossible for the dev team to take charge of, so it's up to the modders to keep everything updated and working. For playing how you play (one start game played forever), adding mods is a huge risk. For how I play (start a new game frequently), it's not really a big deal. For you, even without mods, I'd have many extra copies of old save files just in case something bad happens.
 
TLDR: it depends on the following for me:

- What is the content
- Quality of content
- How much i'm being charged
- ongoing support etc.




its a very slippery slope and one that i rarely engage with. Whilst i agree that Modders should, in theory, be entitled to some reward for their work, its questionable how much and whether the work they provided are justifiably worth charging for.

A good example of this was Final Doom, as a free mod it was shaping up to be quite good but when they decided to sell it, it did leave a nasty taste in everybody's mouth. i play a lot of Doom wads and i love them, but would i have the same opinion if i had to pay to play them? Probably not. i would probably take a much harsher tone even for some of the cacoaward winning ones.

what about personal radio stations or music? i can get behind that for some reason. But QOL mods and additional map packs probably less so. But Total conversions like selaco, smoking aces or supplice? HUGE mods like Fallout london? i might be convinced with the right price...

part of the problem is that its more wildwest when it comes to quality control and commitment. Its like the Steam greenlight situation, sell a promising yet half baked mod and there's no guarantee they will fix/complete it.

The other problem? abuse. Someone could quite easily take a passion project, combine it with someone else's or their own and sell it. Legally speaking it gets messy. We call it plagiarism, but what if you made your mod open source and free to play and then someone takes the same tools and locks their version of it? What if i make a free version of that under mining that person's mod? We would have modding wars and communities torn asunder.

The whole thing with the bethesda studio is a prime example of the mess when it happens and corporations get involved as well. i think the most reasonable thing is donations. Some token reward for a passion project, but those who want to make a living doing something they love might not like it.
 
Zed Clampet said:
Mods are always used at the player's own risk. There are about 1400 mods for Satisfactory. That would be impossible for the dev team to take charge of, so it's up to the modders to keep everything updated and working. For playing how you play (one start game played forever), adding mods is a huge risk. For how I play (start a new game frequently), it's not really a big deal. For you, even without mods, I'd have many extra copies of old save files just in case something bad happens.
Click to expand...
Hi Zed ... i make regular back up copies of the satisfactory factorygame folder and i dont use cloud saves anymore because a few well respected players on satisfactory Q & A say the saves can get corrupted more than your none cloud saves. No mods for me but it would be good if they bought the 100+ milestones mod and fitted it into the main game as its huge. ..... btw i cracked a new target , i made my 700th drone port
 
Johnway said:
The other problem? abuse. Someone could quite easily take a passion project, combine it with someone else's or their own and sell it. Legally speaking it gets messy. We call it plagiarism, but what if you made your mod open source and free to play and then someone takes the same tools and locks their version of it? What if i make a free version of that under mining that person's mod? We would have modding wars and communities torn asunder.
Click to expand...

Legally it isn't too bad: if you make a mod you own the copyright, so someone else can't just sell it even if it's open source. If someone does try to, the copyright holder can send a DMCA notice to have it taken down.
 
Zed Clampet said:
I would say making people with disabilities pay extra for accessibility features would go over very poorly.
Click to expand...
Me, too - but it isn't like it's working now.
Zed Clampet said:
One of my biggest concerns is that many mods don't stay updated. If you are charging someone for a mod, you better be willing to keep it up-to-date.
Click to expand...
Oh yeah - jeez, that opens up a big can of worms with late updates.

Say you've got a game that has a bunch of paid mods. It has been out for a couple of years now and hasn't been updated in one year. Then it gets an update, which breaks some of those paid mods. Unless these mods are subscription based, they have already been paid, and game sales at this point are very unlikely to result in enough sales to justify working on this old mod vs. making new mods for new games. Though, as I think Zed is implying, they DO have a reputation to think of, so maybe they will feel pressure to do some fixes vs. just telling people to roll back the game to a compatible version?

Let's add another wrinkle, though: one of those mod authors is having a dispute with the developers in some other game. Naturally, the mod author thinks it's all about them and starts screaming about the patch being retaliation. And maybe the author is right - why are the devs releasing the patch so late!? Much drama ensues. Drama that never would have happened if money wasn't involved.

What if a game comes out with a bug - or possibly a 'design flaw' (meaning the devs meant to do it that way but then found out they should have done it differently). Somebody puts a paid mod out and makes some good money fixing the devs' issue. Then the devs fix it. Mr. Somebody's mod is now worthless at best - and is possibly going to cause problems if it isn't removed. Mr. Somebody sues, claiming the developers stole his work - especially if the issue is in the design flaw category and the developers used Somebody's new design. Did the devs just flat-out copy Somebody's idea? Did they already have this idea but hadn't gotten it out yet? Does it even matter - is it OK for the devs to copy modder's fixes? Lawsuits ensue.

Hey, I'm trying to make some mods for this game, but I can't do mods as well as that one other modder because that other modder is dating one of the developers! Insider information! Unfair competition! I'm suing!!

The more I think about it, the less I like it. When money comes in, people start caring WAY too much. Given that the modders are extremely dependent on the whims of the game developer, it's going to be a situation where abuse is going to be inevitable. It might be possible to hammer out some contracts to make it happen, but it will be an ugly process just to get up to the normal level of ugly that normally goes on between businesses.
 
Zloth said:
What if a game comes out with a bug - or possibly a 'design flaw' (meaning the devs meant to do it that way but then found out they should have done it differently). Somebody puts a paid mod out and makes some good money fixing the devs' issue. Then the devs fix it. Mr. Somebody's mod is now worthless at best - and is possibly going to cause problems if it isn't removed. Mr. Somebody sues, claiming the developers stole his work - especially if the issue is in the design flaw category and the developers used Somebody's new design. Did the devs just flat-out copy Somebody's idea? Did they already have this idea but hadn't gotten it out yet? Does it even matter - is it OK for the devs to copy modder's fixes? Lawsuits ensue.
Click to expand...
Pretty much agree with everything, but I don't think this one is a problem. I would be stunned if you could claim ownership over a fix of someone else's product.
 
I like the way Larian Studios approaches modding in Baldur's Gate 3. They got a in-game mod manager where you can easily find and install mods and play. No cost, no worries, just pick one and see how it works out for your gameplay. They also opened up for people to use their modding toolkit, making it even easier to make mods.

Zloth said:
What if a game comes out with a bug - or possibly a 'design flaw' (meaning the devs meant to do it that way but then found out they should have done it differently). Somebody puts a paid mod out and makes some good money fixing the devs' issue. Then the devs fix it. Mr. Somebody's mod is now worthless at best - and is possibly going to cause problems if it isn't removed. Mr. Somebody sues, claiming the developers stole his work - especially if the issue is in the design flaw category and the developers used Somebody's new design. Did the devs just flat-out copy Somebody's idea? Did they already have this idea but hadn't gotten it out yet? Does it even matter - is it OK for the devs to copy modder's fixes? Lawsuits ensue.
Click to expand...
Zed Clampet said:
Pretty much agree with everything, but I don't think this one is a problem. I would be stunned if you could claim ownership over a fix of someone else's product.
Click to expand...
I guess it would depend on what is explicitly said in End User License Agreement, and or for the person modding, depending on whether the paid mod is like a Bethesda paid mod or just from a random site.
 
Frindis said:
I like the way Larian Studios approaches modding in Baldur's Gate 3. They got a in-game mod manager where you can easily find and install mods and play. No cost, no worries, just pick one and see how it works out for your gameplay. They also opened up for people to use their modding toolkit, making it even easier to make mods.



I guess it would depend on what is explicitly said in End User License Agreement, and or for the person modding, depending on whether the paid mod is like a Bethesda paid mod or just from a random site.
Click to expand...
According to my AI research, modders can't really claim ownership of anything they do to someone else's game.

A developer cannot infringe a modder’s copyright by fixing their own game.

This is one of those areas where copyright law is extremely lopsided in favor of the original creator.
Let’s break it down cleanly and precisely.

🎯 The core rule
The developer owns the entire underlying codebase.
A modder owns only the new code they wrote.
So even if the developer’s fix ends up being:
- identical in logic
- identical in structure
- identical in behavior
- or even identical line‑for‑line
…it is still not copyright infringement.
Why?
Because you cannot infringe someone’s copyright by writing or rewriting your own code.

🧠 Why identical code is still allowed
Copyright protects expression, not ideas.
The modder’s “expression” is the specific patch code they wrote.
But the developer’s “expression” is the entire original game code — including the part the modder patched.
So if the developer:
- fixes the same bug
- in the same place
- using the same logic
- because that’s the only logical fix
…it’s still their own codebase.
They are not copying the modder’s work — they are repairing their own.
Even if the developer did look at the modder’s patch, that still wouldn’t create liability, because:
- The developer is the original copyright holder
- The modder’s patch is a derivative work
- You cannot infringe a derivative work of your own copyrighted material
This is why studios can legally incorporate mod ideas, bug fixes, or balance changes without issue.

🧩 So how different does the code need to be?
Legally: it doesn’t need to be different at all.
There is no threshold, no percentage, no “change 30% of the lines,” nothing like that.
The developer can:
- use the same variable names
- use the same conditional logic
- use the same algorithm
- fix the same bug in the same way
…and it is still 100% legally safe.

🛠️ The only thing the developer cannot do
They cannot take the modder’s actual code file and drop it into the game’s source tree.
That would technically be copying someone else’s copyrighted expression.
But:
- Rewriting the same logic
- Even if it ends up identical
- Even if inspired by the mod
…is completely allowed.
And in practice, studios don’t need to copy the modder’s file anyway — they can just implement the same fix in their own code.
 
Zed Clampet said:
According to my AI research, modders can't really claim ownership of anything they do to someone else's game.

A developer cannot infringe a modder’s copyright by fixing their own game.

This is one of those areas where copyright law is extremely lopsided in favor of the original creator.
Let’s break it down cleanly and precisely.

🎯 The core rule
The developer owns the entire underlying codebase.
A modder owns only the new code they wrote.
So even if the developer’s fix ends up being:
- identical in logic
- identical in structure
- identical in behavior
- or even identical line‑for‑line
…it is still not copyright infringement.
Why?
Because you cannot infringe someone’s copyright by writing or rewriting your own code.

🧠 Why identical code is still allowed
Copyright protects expression, not ideas.
The modder’s “expression” is the specific patch code they wrote.
But the developer’s “expression” is the entire original game code — including the part the modder patched.
So if the developer:
- fixes the same bug
- in the same place
- using the same logic
- because that’s the only logical fix
…it’s still their own codebase.
They are not copying the modder’s work — they are repairing their own.
Even if the developer did look at the modder’s patch, that still wouldn’t create liability, because:
- The developer is the original copyright holder
- The modder’s patch is a derivative work
- You cannot infringe a derivative work of your own copyrighted material
This is why studios can legally incorporate mod ideas, bug fixes, or balance changes without issue.

🧩 So how different does the code need to be?
Legally: it doesn’t need to be different at all.
There is no threshold, no percentage, no “change 30% of the lines,” nothing like that.
The developer can:
- use the same variable names
- use the same conditional logic
- use the same algorithm
- fix the same bug in the same way
…and it is still 100% legally safe.

🛠️ The only thing the developer cannot do
They cannot take the modder’s actual code file and drop it into the game’s source tree.
That would technically be copying someone else’s copyrighted expression.
But:
- Rewriting the same logic
- Even if it ends up identical
- Even if inspired by the mod
…is completely allowed.
And in practice, studios don’t need to copy the modder’s file anyway — they can just implement the same fix in their own code.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure most of this is either entirely untrue or in a grey area legally.
 
I'm presuming grey area. Something new comes around, people sue each other over it, judges try to figure out what to do according to existing law, lawmakers adjust laws if the judges aren't ruling the way they want, people sue each other more, repeat a few times until "settled law."
 
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