Fallout Show Caused Spike in Interest, Making Game Mods More Expensive
The show was a massive success for Amazon and Bethesda, earning rave reviews and setting records on Amazon Prime. It also renewed interest in the Fallout games, which meant a spike in players using mods. Unfortunately, the popular platform Nexus Mods responded to this and other factors by raising its premium subscription fees starting June 17.
The spike that followed the Fallout show isn’t the only reason Nexus gave for raising its price. The platform has seen increased operating costs, and inflation also plays a role. The website says it processes about 1 billion requests a day, and all those servers are not cheap. However, the show-induced spike in users seems to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“During our most recent peak following the release of the Fallout series, we moved more than 2.5PB in 24 hours at an average speed of around 225Gb/sec,” said Nexus, “and this would have been even higher if we weren’t maxing out every 10G network port that we had available!”
A Nexus Mods premium subscription will now cost $6.50 a month, or $65 for one year. Users do not need a premium subscription to download content from Nexus mods. However, free members have their download speed capped at 3 megabytes per second.
As for where the money is going, Nexus has multiplied its server capabilities several times over the last three years. It plans to purchase another 30 16-terabyte drives and further increase network speed to keep up with demand. Nexus also notes the millions the platform invests to help mod authors realize their creative vision.
Meanwhile, Nexus Mods’s staff has grown to 30 people, including the team developing its new open-source mod manager. The platform is also actively recruiting new community team members.
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