New Skyrim mod feature pulling the mod community apart

polygon.com:

On Tuesday, Bethesda published a surprise patch for The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Special Edition that combined free mods and paid mods under a single Creations banner. It also eliminated the previous Creation Club section for Special Edition and The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim Anniversary Edition players. Players are able to upload free mods to Creations, but there’s also a new program called the Bethesda Game Studios Verified Creator Program.

Modders must apply to join the program, and if they’re approved, they’ll be able to get royalties from the sale of their mods — the only way to “officially” make money from mods. (Bethesda doesn’t otherwise let modders sell their creations, but there are ways around that for modders, like using Patreon or tip jars.) This is different from Skyrim’s Creation Club program, where previous paid mods were housed, as those modders were hired and paid by Bethesda as contractors. “Now, Verified Creators can be professionals who earn royalties directly from the sale of their Creations, with an easier path to releasing their work,” Bethesda said in its FAQ.

Bethesda says this new paid program is a way for creators and modders to have more flexibility, but the whole community doesn’t agree. Paid mods have long been a pain point in the community, going back to a Skyrim paid mod system set up with Valve on Steam in 2015. At the time, the community revolted: The majority did not want paid mods added to an already thriving, established community. Bethesda and Valve ended up pulling the program just days after it was announced. “We understand our own game’s communities pretty well, but stepping into an established, years old modding community in Skyrim was probably not the right place to start