Several things to bear in mind.

Critics ARE paid reviewers - they would not have necessarily paid for the game with their own money (be surprised if they had to for the review) - so they arguably are biased to start off with (two scored the game 100 - ludicrous)- all the reviews ive seem say pretty much the same thing - very little negativity in any review which is kind of hard to believe.

Other thing is the mix of user scores
Positive: 262 out of 818
Mixed: 76 out of 818
Negative: 480

That's for the PC. Cant be just the consolefied UI & bugs that makes people dislike the game.

I wouldn't be surprised but I think not for this game, they have to implement a close to perfect milking method ...

And why do you consider it nonsense? I haven't heard any good arguments against modders getting paid. Only that some people want everything for free, some want the modders to get the majority of the money (understandable) or through donations only (honorable mention), and the others are delusional and felt that no modder ever deserves to get paid because all previous modders didn't and therefore all mods should always be free (it's not even an argument. just bad logic).

I've found that they all fit into one of these 3 categories. People still *can* release free mods, but given the opportunity to profit why would they? Some would but in general of course not. That's where people pretend it's a matter of ethics. But I can only see it as a positive when the legal barriers preventing them from having made money before are broken down. An art degree would become unnecessary and you wouldn't need crap like Full Sail to "get you in the door" and handicapping you for life. You just..create content. Simple.

They do need to fix how they implement it but paid mods is a good thing. Especially when people learn how to mod for themselves to avoid paying for them. That will be a great benefit instead of relying on the old turds to fix everything. "Someone else will do it" is a sentiment that needs to die out.

Yes but Fallout NV has been around for 5 years or so and Fallout 4 only 2-3 days...comparing ratings with such time differences is not the proper way to do these kind of comparisons; the things you compare need to have the same time-frame. In 5 years' time you can compare the rating for Fallout 4 with that of 96 % for NV, which is what NV had after 5 years.

I fully agree, there are mods out there that significantly transform the games, in some cases they even lead to completely new content....some of it crap, some of it really impressive. Some kind of payment or donation system is not irrational.

In my favorite genre for example, the rFactor modders have produced high-quality stuff that many paid developers could not or would not find the time to do; new tracks, new cars, various effects and so on.
They literally added most of the content in the game, not unlike Project Cars to use a more recent example.
I donated money to these modders to show my appreciation of their work, to show respect.

Maybe optional donations is a better path.
Yep most of the complaints are the usual stuff:
a) ... its a bad console port
b) ... the graphics are horrible
c) ... its an FPS and not an RPG anymore
d) ... its too different from the previous games
e) ... its too similar to the previous games

Yes, I don't think anyone would argue that modding shouldn't be able to make money. There are contribution avenues via Moddb and such like to help support the modders, and even better, provide some time to help, or test the mod. There is no problem with this. However if it becomes a paid model which we are talking about, the likes of Bethseda will have the most to gain. The mods which come out will be quick, crap, mostly reskins to make a fast buck and Bethseda will not care as it is a new revenue stream. As we can tell from their use of DRM, this modding nonsense, and their general lack of any effort in their games, they have no concern for customers at all, its just about getting the money in.

On another point on this, if mods become paid, are they then going to have the full suite of paid for products - refund system, help desk, testing etc. Commonly mods are done by one or two people in their spare time and contain game breaking bugs, or complicated installs etc. Are they then going to get a team together to support the product? The answer is no.

So effectively you are pro-starting a store which benefits the publisher and to a lesser degree the actual creator (although that is debatable once the taxman catches up with them), which will in turn push out real modding, and bring in the £5 new shiny sword mod scenario.

Both getting the game for free AND buying the game yourself are causes of bias. Mirror images of each other.

For person A getting something for free is reason to discount it as less valuable. For person B it's a reason to love it as more valuable. Easy to find people treating mods per both these models.

For person C paying for something is reason to despise it a bit, as if money was impure somehow. For person D it's a reason to commit to it more - a la sunken cost fallacy.

All these approaches are subjective and therefore biased. The trick is to be able to objectively assess which bias is at play with each critique / review / assessment / measurement of something.

The current rejection of objectivity zeitgeist is a problem, in that it both affirms subjectivity as a standard (instead of an unavoidable reality / obstacle / leverage) while rejecting the analysis of the subject performing / reviewing / creating - it's a sort of self contradictory "death of the author" extremism.

So the gap in scores objectively tells you one thing - professional reviewers and folks that buy a game on release seem to be divided. Reasons for that, and biases causing it can be very varied.

The aspect of reviewers getting the game for free is one hypothesis. The fact "fanboys" are the ones likely overrepresented scoring the game on metacritic so fast is another. What does it actually mean? Well I guess folks offering scores have written words about the score... might be interesting to analyze them and get at the why of their opinions.

Food for thought...

Well, apart from the whole "ethics" mess (with which I'm not completely okay. I think some good mods could be paid for. But then, I'm one of those people who don't think DLC are a bad idea, so I guess I'm in the minority here), there are some legal and technical problems to paid Mods.

- Mods reusing or copying assets from other games and media are generally not a problem, since they're free, amateur stuff. HBO and GRR Martin probably won't shoot you down because you made some obscure "Games of Throne" mod for Crusader Kings 2. But if you start making money on their licensed material, they will (and should) take notice, and act.

- Some mods use other mods and build upon them. How do you manage who gets how much money? Especially if some of those mods are free, and other are paid? That could create some real tensions in the modding community, real quick.

- I've got no problem with mods that don't work properly on my computer. I mean, they made it for fun and were cool enough to give it to me for free, so I fully understand they didn't put a professional care into the product, and didn't test it on every configuration. Just like I won't criticize the cooking of a friend who just invited me for dinner. That would be uncool.
But if they make me pay for it? My QA expectations will be MUCH higher. Which means they will have to WORK on those mod's compatibility with systems, the way they interact with other mods and DLC, their support for the main game's updates... the "finish" of their product (because it will be a professional, paid for product, and not some amateur freebie anymore).
They won't be able to simply create content, release it "as is", and then do something else.

So basically, paid mods become DLC for all intent and purpose, legally and in a quality expectation sense. I don't think most modders are ready to jump into that piranha pool.

Guessing this is the OP or his friend. Posted around the same time and a similarly baffling lack of understanding of the Season pass concept

http://steamcommunity.com/app/377160/discussions/0/496881136900496414/

Exactly. Just to add, some mods are particularly specialised, am thinking ENB for instance. That could involve all kinds of licenses, issues. In fact hacked exes or dll's as well.

I really hope it's not the "S.P.E.C.I.A.L." part that provoked this thread, because I will lose any faith in humanity I had actually left...

don't loose faith... you are S.P.E.C.I.A.L.

He didn't say special, he said S.P.E.C.I.A.L.. Note the difference ;)

No, you are S.P.E.C.I.A.L.
.
.
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And with that I imply you can be bought... cheaply!