In the not too distant time of just about last month, Valve drew a lot of criticism for introducing paid mods into Skyrim after years of allowing free mods to run rampant, but if people listen to the co-creator of iconic video game franchises Doom and Quake, John Romero, then free mods will be a thing of the past.
Romero had a huge hand in the creation and eventual success of those two different franchises, but it appears as though he was more than open to allowing members of the modding community to come help make the game better even in exchange for money, according to Gamespot.
Romero doesn't just believe that modders should be compensated for what they do, he also said the company behind Quake, id Software, even tried to implement a paid modding system for the game more than a decade ago.
"In 1995, while we were making Quake, we had the idea to start a company called id Net. This company would be the portal that players would connect to and play other mod maker's creations," said Romero. Of course, the plans never panned out for either Romero or id Software and a paid mod remained elusive.
The main reason the plan was scrapped was because members of the team who were currently working on the game back then already had enough to handle in terms of just finishing it. They could not be asked to work on creating the paid mod portal as well, according to PC Gamer.
It's anyone's guess whether paid mods will ever be integral parts of the video game industry, but what happened with Valve and Skyrim could certainly be a telling tale. For their part, Bethesda, Skyrim's publisher defended their decision to go with paid mods for a while stating that part of it was trying to preserve the integrity of the game they had designed, according to Gameranx.
Paid mods may be out for now, but they could still make a comeback.
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