Last updated on December 17th, 2023 at 12:40 am
To start off with, I generally have nothing against the upcoming collections feature which can be quite handy when you make a fresh start. That the Nexus is holding a gun to authors’ heads is the only thing that bothers me. If the mod authors don’t comply with the recent changes of Nexus rules they have a grace period to remove all their files using a certain form. After 5 August, it’s no longer possible for mod authors to delete the mods by themselves and the files are archived instead. According to the claims of Nexus staff the archiving process is necessary to make the collections feature work: when a listed mod is gone, the collection is broken altogether. Deleting mods could also cause confusion on their database and erode it on the long run.
So it’s a technical problem. But this is not an excuse for their current policy which disadvantages mod authors a lot. They even denied the possibility to opt out of the collection system fearing that it would be doomed to fail then.
Many authors left Nexus Mods due to this ultimatum and the drama that followed. Some of them stopped modding, other’s are unsure what to do next or reuploaded their stuff elsewhere. I thought about jumping on the bandwagon, the “mass exodus”, as well but I came to my senses. I simply don’t want to make it too complicated for the people who want to play my mods. And I also didn’t have the heart to delete over 10 years of my personal modding history. So I decided to keep my files on the Nexus and publish new mods on my website. Uploading these mods on the Nexus later is considered on a case-by-case basis.
Making and using mods is supposed to be fun. Seeing the drama around the collections and the increasing toxicity towards mod authors in the whole community I sometimes wonder why I’m still doing this. Nevertheless, I know that my passion to create new stuff will continue to burn deep inside my heart and making mods is not the only one art form to express myself.
Edit (2022):
A rectification regarding the deletion of mods:
Mod authors can still delete mods as a whole but they cannot delete individual files from a mod (the files in the “Files” section of each mod). The files in the Files section are archived instead.
