Todd Howard keep trying to make paid mods a thing. This section has a long history so buckle up because he's been fucking us since 2003 and he's been doing it so slowly and secretively that some of you haven't even noticed you had his dick in your ass and think you actually enjoy it!

Back in the days of Morrowind Bethesda would create small plugins to advertise the game's Construction Set in Magazines. Some of these Magazines would host community made mods before internet download speeds were up to snuff. All of these plugins were released for free on Bethesda's website (Except the Xbox exclusive but we'll get back to that) and are looked fondly on by the TES community. Many Morrowind devs would release their own mods to various sites for free and the modding community for Morrowind continues to be one of the most active modding communities around! However the cracks started to show here and things would only get worse from this point onward.

When Oblivion came around some of the devs through together a small plugin to allow the player to buy armor for their horse. They wanted to release it for free on the website alongside the Xbox 360 store but Microsoft advised them to charge money for the addon. This would open pandora's box for Bethesda's greed and Horse Armor would go on to sell more than all other DLCs for Oblivion while being remembered by fans as a garbage heap that wasn't worth the money. Bethesda themselves would respond to the criticism with several joke “sales” up-charging on Horse Armor while putting the rest of the addons on sale. Other companies would follow this model and now the AAA gaming industry will charge you $5 for a playerskin in your favorite game.

Come Skyrim Todd kept dropping hints that he wanted to add a way to monetize the community mods. Now from Todds perspective he loves his modding community, plays various community mods (He really like Inigo and HDT boob physics if you were wondering) and wants to create a system where Bethesda and modders can help each other make more money. He integrated the Steam Workshop into the PC release of the game and would collaborate with Valve to create an entirely exclusive PC addon to bring the Portal Space Core to Skyrim! Initially it seemed like Todd was just waffling in these interviews with the release of Hearthfire it seemed like Bethesda would continue to pump out small DLCs that the industry had become accustomed to over the last decade, then 2015 happened…

Bethesda used the Steam Workshop to announce the Paid Mods program and released a bunch of addons made by the community of various degrees of quality all being charged for insane amounts! $99 Horse Balls would make it on the program before it's swift cancellation. Some mods that were previously free now cost money such as SkyUI and Midas Magic. The community was outraged and would go on to harass Bethesda, Steam, and the Mod Authors who went along with this non-sense! It seemed like a bleak vision of what would become of one of gaming's purest subcultures. Thankfully, one old man would put a stop to the foolishness!

Fore, the author of the FNIS animation framework noticed that the Paid Fishing Mod required his framework and threatened to sue Bethesda and Steam! The program was quickly discontinued and many of the old Paid Mods were rereleased for free on the Skyrim Nexus. Nature could heal and the Skyrim modding community had taken a firm stance against the Cyberpunk dystopia Bethesda was offering modders! Paid Mods would be a punchline for years to come! Then Bethesda tried it again…

Skyrim was released again with a 64 bit engine and some light graphical touchups. This version would lack Steam Workshop support though modders never much minded since that platform was buggy and broken anyways. Now you and console players could download mods in game using the Bethesda.net system but PC players never really cared. A year later in 2017 Bethesda would try their hands at Paid Mods again, now specifically contracting modders for a system known as Creation Club: All unique plugins that would be developed in house with Bethesda supervision to assure vanilla game quality levels! They would even cost Bethesda's new bullshit fake money you had to buy with real money! Occasionally Bethesda would even release these addons for free. Community reaction to the system was initially very negative, this was paid mods again and the community already made it clear last time that they weren't going to pay for mods! But without the legal risks the system carried on. April Fools Day jokes from the past like the Dwarven Mudcrab were released for real world money. Thanks to console players not knowing better the Dystopian nightmare of Paid Mods seemed to be here whether or not people bought in right away. Once the Creation Club started releasing mods that weren't properly covered by free mods the tone started to shift. Reddit and the Nexus began outright endorsing the Creation Club and even some people on 4chan started to encourage people to pirate the plugins that had decent content. Modders started expanding on Creation Club content adding it to leveled lists and giving them proper voice acting and questlines. By the end of the program what had started as a loud defiance from the community had turned into a quiet and bitter no. With the Anniversary Edition including every single plugin and a number of new plugins only costing $20 many people even said the plugins were worth the money.

Now in the present Bethesda has created the “Verified Creators” program which allows modders to charge for their own curated mods. They're even allowed to have voice acting and have generally proven to be of decent quality. Don't be fooled though, these aren't worth the money!

These were the mods that people tried to charge money for in 2015. Most of them were garbage ports of items from Valve games. If they're re-released and worth checking out you can find them in the other guides. If they're shit but exist still I've linked to them for the curious. If you want to try the others there are torrents out there!

Paid Mods sequel that some people liked I guess. If you want to pay for any of these you can get them in the Anniversary edition for $20 or even cheaper if you wait for a sale. I don't recommend using them all unless you hate yourself though. Only use the ones that link to expansions linked here. All others will link to alternatives that are free!

Bethesda's newest Paid Mods system. All will link to free alternatives unless a proper overhaul ever releases. This system is still new and people I've talked to say that it might lead to something worthwhile in the future. Still will never compete with the volume of great mods on the nexus!

And that's the end of the Skyrim Guide. I'll continue to keep things updated as much as I can and help the other writers of the pages flesh their sections out. Thank you to everyone who's helped with recommendations and given me their opinions Even when you're wrong! The follower pages will also need to be updated as more old links are uncovered! Overall though I am proud but very burnt out after overhauling these guides and I need a nap. Oblivion, Morrowind and Fallout pages coming eventually. There's a Daggerfall mod guide already in the works too! /tesg/ is dead FOREVER!

Lol everyone in this picture is ded

• Essentials
• Gameplay
• Creatures, NPCs and Players
• Immersion
• Quests and Lands
• Graphics
• Armor
• Armor Graphics
• Weapons
• Weapon Graphics
• Animations
• Fun Mods
• Unrecommended Mods
• Paid Mods