Nexus Mods has been sold to new owners, causing many concerns and confusions within the PC modding community.
@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
4114d

They’ll probably implement a daily/hourly download limit like MEGA does. So, for example, you can download 1000000000 small mods of some kbs, but the limit is 5 GB, so the mod bundle for big games is virtually limited to premium users.

They’ll probably try to change the lifetime subscription(the biggest sin in capitalism, how do you make infinite money without doing nothing if people can buy subscription once?), making it useless compared to the premium premium subscription.

Paid mods I think are unlikely, why bother to make a change so unpopular? Milk this shit for a decade and press this button only when shit hits the fan.

Is a enshification process not so painful so the vast majority will not bother to look for alternatives.

In other words: We’re doomed.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
7
edit-2
14d

Paid mods I think are unlikely, why bother to make a change so unpopular? Milk this shit for a decade and press this button only when shit hits the fan.

Unfortunately, I think this will be likely because Nexus has almost entirely cornered the market on mods. It is the place people get their mods from if not the Steam Workshop.

People would have to actually abandon the convenience and go back to scrolling a bunch of games specific forums for their mods. I don’t see that happening unfortunately and I’m pretty sure the executives at the new company know this. It’s a common marketing tactic to exploit the sunk cost fallacy.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
9
edit-2
14d

Nah there’s some games that still only have stuff on moddb, thunderstore is the main place for v rising and a few other popular titles, and for Minecraft there’s curseforge and modrinth, and GOG is adding mods now too. The community is more fragmented than you’d think

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
214d

People make mods to be played surely, why bother using a platform if no one can play your mod from it.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
3
edit-2
14d

? Same reason people use shit platforms? I can’t barely watch Twitch with 3 ads in a row every 30min and they still are the biggest streaming platform even when is shitty to the users and streamers. It’s a community based platform unless the community move to other place they still be big because people is there.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-113d

I was going to ask if twitch was still relevant but then realised I genuinely don’t give a shit.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1814d

Ooof. We need a new place now.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1114d

A new website will suffer the same fate eventually. The best solution I’ve seen is CKAN for kerbal space program mods. Each mod just hosts its own releases for free on github or wherever they like, and the whole mod index is just another github repo.

https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN?tab=readme-ov-file#whats-the-ckan

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1014d

The problem with that it’s not “wherever they like”, it is github 99% of the time. It is easier to fix when github enshitifies completely, but it will still require fixing

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
514d

If it works with any git platform, you have several alternatives + self hosting.

The chokepoint is the index, but if the mod repo is up and you have the url by some other way, it should work

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
114d

It does but it does so far as someone updates indices. It’s easier with git, but someone still needs to do all of it.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
113d

In the case of KSP, mod authors themselves submit Pull Requests to update the index when they release a new mod or a new version of it.

Steve Dice
link
fedilink
English
613d

Friendly reminder this is the average “stop banning mods” commenter.

1000031577

Jolteon
link
fedilink
English
112d

Stop banning mods except the ones I disagree with.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
13
edit-2
14d

Wait, was it confirmed sold? The news post on Nexus fron this morning indicated that the existing head admin and CEO (of 24 years) was just stepping back (and not even away entirely), and had already put the year+ in of identifying two successors from his existing team.

I didn’t see anything regarding a sale, and the existing admin said quite a bit about taking this seriously from a standpoint of what’s best for mod makers and users and not best for business profits.

Edit: I’m not seeing any company name given because as far as I can tell, it wasn’t sold. It’s the same company, same employees, the person at the tip top is just shifting.

And since when is “comicbook dot com” a source for game modding news? Unless someone can show me something from a more direct or reputable source, I think this is just someone running with the most click bait interpretation of the nexusmods post.

Edit x2: Dormedas’s resetera link has some convincing investigation that the two people named as taking over the reigns may work for a company that provides esports training, and also consulting services for user generated content focused companies.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1114d

Best I’ve got for you is this

Post in thread ‘Nexus Mods site has been sold’ https://www.resetera.com/threads/nexus-mods-site-has-been-sold.1219452/page-2#post-141554013

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
514d

Thanks! That’s damn good for “best effort”! A convincing lead on what company it may be.

Personally, I still don’t think it’s time for immediate red alert, but I’ll have to keep an eye on things. Hopefully we’ll see some competitors like GameBanana step up to the challenge.

Tony Bark
creator
link
fedilink
English
1114d

They say ownership has changed hands but that it isn’t a corporate “exit”. The whole announcement is extremely vague on the details with the only names given are two people.

HarkMahlberg
link
fedilink
12114d

GOG’s move into mod support seems pretty prescient now.

Hal-5700X
link
fedilink
English
4
edit-2
14d

So are they going to stop banning mods? Also we need more modding sites.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
7
edit-2
14d

There are plenty, they just aren’t as big or as well designed because they are just small forums, and most are usually game specific.

Nexus was unique in that it was a hub for the modding community, made specifically because people didn’t want to have to browse hundreds of different forums to get their mods that may or may not be compatible with each other. It was a nice convenience while it lasted.

ssillyssadass
cake
link
fedilink
English
1114d

Well, there’s still ModDB? (I don’t use ModDB so I dunno if it’s controversial or not)

Idk if it’s controversial, but I’ve always hated the layout of that site. It seemingly has not changed in decades, either, looking at it now.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1614d

To add to the conversation, one of the two new owners has replied to some questions: https://www.nexusmods.com/news/15301?comment_id=155643499

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1114d

Ouch. Even selling it to Fandom would have been better than this.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1914d

Can’t even view r*ddit links anymore because they hate VPNs…

AugustEast
link
fedilink
English
113d

Really? I onyl use VPN for reddit and don’t have an issue. But then again there is a lot of VPN’s out there, they would have to find each endpoint to block.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
26
edit-2
14d

Content of the Reddit post follows:

See the original post here. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/1lcyjl6/nexus_mods_was_acquired_by_chosen_a_company/

People on Restera did some digging: https://www.resetera.com/threads/nexus-mods-site-has-been-sold.1219452/post-141554013

Site of the company itself: https://wearechosen.io/

Here is a monetization “cheat sheet” that the CEO posted on LinkedIn which is linked on Chosen’s main page if you scroll down: https://i.imgur.com/ztjS4K7.jpeg

In the CEO’s LinkedIn profile it says this:

Working closely with teams at NexusMods and beyond to build meaningful, sustainable experiences

If I had to guess the acquisition details are under some sort of NDA right now

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
213d

That cheat sheet is weirdly coherent. Human, almost. Weird.

Coelacanth
link
fedilink
English
314d

Yeah that’s about what I expected. Fucking hell.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
314d

Welp, abandon ship.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1714d

Would it be possible to build a fediverse modding platform? What would that look like?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
3214d

I guess you still have the issue of someone needing to pay for the huge number of downloads, most of which are going to come from users who make no other contributions to the site. Maybe you could combine a fedi site with torrents or something?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
314d

Can things be fedirated and monetized so long as the monetization is put into maintenance & upkeep?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
514d

Nothing stopping you trying!

The_Decryptor
link
fedilink
English
1314d

Yeah this is a perfect use case for torrents, could go a step further and keep track of a downloader’s ratio to stop people leaching.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
214d

The Internet Archive. No need to reinvent the wheel. Have a discussion with them - set up a new project. Boom - everyone’s mods hosted in perpetuity by a free digital library.

@[email protected]
cake
link
fedilink
English
614d

Good luck hosting the terabytes of data that mods have.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
214d

Since mods are almost exclusively unable to be copyrighted nowadays, there is a very good chance the Internet Archive would be more than happy to host the mod data - as they have with many community projects.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1014d

Let me introduce you to torrenting and community distribution of data.

It could be implemented this way so that no one individual would need to fully shoulder the burden of hosting everything.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
314d

Federation would allow you to only host mods not hosted at other servers, with some level of redundancy.

Also, it could use a modding app with BitTorrent-like functionality, so that downloaders could share their copies as well.

@[email protected]
cake
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
14d

So…old mods or mods for uninteresting and obscure games would eventually die because of zero seeders.

I know there’s no easy answer for this question but this would happen. Just try looking on the p2P scene for an unpopular or extremely niche tv show. There’s usually zero or sometimes in a rare occasion less than 3 seeders

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
113d

I wonder if this could be solved on protocol level, i.e. automatically preserve objects with least redundancy, as known to the server.

Like if federated servers hold 50 copies of a file, it’s likely not worthy of saving, but if there is only 1 or 2, it must be stored.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1314d

What would you federate? Would you federate posts of each mod with a link back to the home instance. Would you federate the entire modfile.

I’m not sure activity pub is the right fit here. We would lose so many mods and it would make it much harder to find mods.

The_Decryptor
link
fedilink
English
014d

deleted by creator

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1
edit-2
14d

Could have been worse. My first initial on reading the title was that some enshitification factory like Fandom. com or Microsoft had bought it

edit: wait nevermind. Chosen apparently is a literal enshitification company

@[email protected]
cake
link
fedilink
English
27
edit-2
14d

It’s was a lateral move from one person inside Nexus to another moderator. It wasn’t sold to some faceless corporation

Edit: fuck me I was was wrong:

https://www.reddit.com/r/skyrimmods/comments/1lcyzxz/nexus_mods_was_acquired_by_chosen_a_company/

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
714d

Thank you for editing with corrected information when wrong!

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1214d

That’s a good chunk of money for some internal moderator to have on hand. (Not that it was an all cash deal.)

@[email protected]
cake
link
fedilink
English
514d

Yep I was wrong. I edited

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1414d

I’ve seen too many services go through enshittification, which is why I’ve always made backups of the mods I installed.

That said, that obviously scales poorly if you download a lot of mods or really massive mods.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
4914d

No mention of who it is even being sold to, so bizarre.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
714d

A big corpo comes in and offer you a life changing amount of money. Very few people can say no to that, myself included.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
2914d

That’s a big red flag. Good news would say something like “we’re happy to announce a team of community ownership”.

Coelacanth
link
fedilink
English
14914d

God damnit we just can’t have nice things.

Tony Bark
creator
link
fedilink
English
18
edit-2
14d

And I literately just started using them for Daggerfall. Really frustrating.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
10514d

Guy worked on the site for 24 years. Think he deserves some nice things himself (like reclaiming his life)

Coelacanth
link
fedilink
English
15914d

He does deserve that, but I wish the single biggest modding hub on the internet and a load bearing pillar of an entire gaming culture wasn’t sold off to an unnamed party with no transparency and only vague reassurances that “nothing will change”.

What with the late stage capitalist society we’re living in, I’ve been conditioned to think that good things being sold off rarely amounts to good things.

Let’s hope this is one of the few exceptions.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-48
edit-2
14d

Narrator: It wasn’t.

At the very least the entity that bought it will not rely on donations and revenue from upgraded download speeds, so it will definitely enshittify further to some degree.

The problem is not capitalism, it’s really us expecting shit to be free and rewarding good development and maintenance effort with thoughts and prayers.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
1114d

Capitalism created this expectation. That’s how corpos operate. Capture the market then bleed it.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
5014d

The problem is capitalism, plain and simple.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
214d

How would this specific problem be better under another system?

Zoot
cake
link
fedilink
English
1914d

In a system where money is not a thing it would just be a creative passion project and run endlessly until it was no longer needed.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
-1514d

Great. Yes. Under some kind of egalitarian free-energy tech utopia such as you’re describing, websites like Nexus mods would be even better. Sadly there are no such systems already operating for us to move to, and we do not yet have the technology to try creating a new one.

So any other political systems that are more real-world?

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
514d

removed by mod

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
8214d

The problem is not capitalism […] it’s really us expecting shit to be free

No, “we” are not the problem. “We” donated and participated (by making mods) and “we” are responsible for giving the site what value it had. If it had no value, then it couldn’t have been sold.

Quit trying to blame the users for fuck’s sake.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
314d

Dude I’ve been premium for years. First sign of betrayal that will change though

Walican132
link
fedilink
English
213d

Yeah he could have reached out to the community to find someone to run it who would act ethically.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
013d

You make it sound like the site has been destroyed and enshitefied. Do we have any proof of such so far? Or can we put our trust in the guy who made it to hand it off to someone he trusts to do good by it? Everyone is freaking out about a possibility, which isn’t without cause since we’ve seen what can happen with other companies, but so far there is no need to pull out pitchforks.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
113d

Corporations and companies parasitically destroy everything human in the name of money. If it’s not a non-profit dedicated to the purpose of providing access to mods, it’s just a question of time. Best to just get a new thing started.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
113d

That is such a depressing way to look at things

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
112d

Unfortunately, it’s just the way it is.

Walican132
link
fedilink
English
113d

Oh I agree. I’m just bitching that it was all done secretly.

The fact that it’s secret implies to me the community won’t be happy. Idk.

@[email protected]
link
fedilink
English
213d

Yeah, the doing it in secret can definitely be worrying and flame rumors, I agree. I’m being optimistic that the new owner is someone close to them and they’re still working out details before announcing who they are

Create a post

Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.

Rules

1. Submissions have to be related to games

Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.

This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.

2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil

No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.

We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.

3. No excessive self-promotion

Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.

This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.

4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts

This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.

We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.

5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW

Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.

No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.

6. No linking to piracy

Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.

We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.

Authorized Regular Threads

Related communities

PM a mod to add your own

Video games

Generic

Help and suggestions

By platform
By type
By games
Language specific
  • 1 user online
  • 265 users / day
  • 861 users / week
  • 2.29K users / month
  • 6.54K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 6.58K Posts
  • 133K Comments
  • Modlog