Here’s a few criticisms on his stance with no forethought:
- Modders cannot build a viable career out of the deal they have right now. 25% is far too low a margin and the restriction of only receiving your payout when you earn $100 is restrictive.
- It’s not much of a choice. For modders who want to sell their work they have no alternative but to sign up to Steam Workshop. It has no competition and there’s no other avenues they can go down to accept payment without Bethesda cease-and-desisting their asses. Even the legality of accepting donations is questionable.
- He criticises the greediness of the people demanding too much but assumes that this is a problem that will go away. There’s no reason that it will for as long as there’s no alternative revenue streams for modders.
- Finally, the argument that paid mods = more good mods made is an oversimplification. Many critics have pointed out that the likelihood here is that we’ll see more mods, but in the form of smaller, low effort mods designed to maximize the mod-makers’ income for as little work as possible.