Problem with paid mods.

Eh true.

 

I like this idea.

I'm not a fan of making laws about it, because that can become messy, bureaucratic very quickly. But what about a quality label? Like what they do with food like "fairtrade" Where there is a committee that forms, and they make a guide of standards to meet, if you submit your mod and you do you're allowed to use the "Fair Pay Mod" label or something. One thing though, I don't think any modders can be on the committee because that would be a conflict of interest, (or at least if you're on the committee you can't get a label.) But they can advice with making the standards.

Then maybe either by collaborating with the forum, or just by community policing, you enforce against the misuse of the label (people using it without premission)

I do think the standards should have as little to do with the actual subject of the mod, but more with determining if the pricing is fair with what's delivered. The committee should commit to not being too being fair but humane, not unreasonably tight. And people can appeal any time by making changes to their mod.

Just some quick ideas from the top of my head.

 

One implementation i've been thinking about is requiring a first time "sample product". If someone wants to start putting up paid resources, they first have to put up one other resource of the same type, for free.
This way, by the time an uploader gets approved to upload paid resources, they will have reached a few milestones of credibility:

-If the uploader is malicious, and slips the first resource past the moderators, and it's made with ripped assets without permission, or outright stolen and reuploaded (e.g. from a private discord), or generally doesn't reflect the quality suggested on its repository page, other users will leave negative reviews or report it in relatively short order, allowing the moderators to retroactively take it down.

-If the uploader is well meaning but inexperienced, and their first resource is just poorly made, or has a few bugs, or they accidentally break something in an early patch, this is an opportunity for them to learn QA, potentially get advice from more experienced modders, and learn how to handle criticism (constructive and unjustified) before having the added stress/liability of "you broke the thing I paid for!"

-This system causes less workload for moderators, and less setup for payment processes than a one-and-done approval system, the prerequisite of modders needing to already have a completed resource would dramatically reduce the number of people asking for approval to upload paid resources.

-Once the uploader is approved to release paid resources, and they release a few, a prospective buyer can try out their older free resource to see if the quality is acceptable to them.

-This also prevents the repository from getting to the point where every single decent mod is behind a paywall. I think this is the underlying concern a lot of people have about paid mods, but if every new mod creator has at least one free resource available, that keeps the modding community alive and is more hospitable to new players.


I would suggest that approval for paid resources applies separately for different resource categories, but the moderators could always give case-by-case approval at their discretion.
That way, there aren't people getting approval to release paid map mods because they put a vehicle skin pack together, and people aren't uploading their shitpost 2026 carfag remake to get approval for making proper vehicle addons, but trusted long-time modders can still be given approval based on existing resources.
I also suggest that there should be a way for forum mods to be used for this appraisal, e.g. for cases where someone has previously only made real branded carsfor forum upload, and now wants to make a lore friendly car for the repository and make it paid.

 

ik it's been 51 days, whatever
imo it should be that the mods are free but paid version has idk maybe faster updates and earlier access to the mod (let's say it's released jan 1st on gumroad and released feb 28th on repo) or a interact-able navi/dash screen or more configs version (additonal trims or tuning options) i dunno something that may be something interesting with the link being in the start of repo description

 

I often watch BlazerNG's funny "paid mods experience" videos and I find it ridiculous that people make money off of viruses, meshlaps and broken textures. That's just the internet in 2026 though