Orud
Scholar
- Joined
- May 2, 2021
- Messages
- 1,115
Nexus will never change the policy to require mods to be public domain - because it makes users life too easy and makes Nexus pointless. If mods are public domain or open source - they can be hosted on GitHub or GitLab. Free fast downloads, no need to create account, no ads, stable API that works with various tools, ability to fork at will, hack-proof, keeps backups of every version forever - and Nexus looks like warez site from 90s in comparison.
I do not understand how someone can still act like file hosting is the only service that Nexus provides. It's been stated many times already that the Nexus provides a search engine, free publicity and tooling on top of its file-hosting services. In addition the Nexus has become the standard for people to go to look for mods. Other mod resources don't see anywhere near the traffic, while your stuff gets free exposure to the Nexus's traffic.
Stating that the nexus is scared of people starting to host their own stuff on their own little corner of the internet is, frankly, ludicrous. There are many, many, great projects out there that you don't know about, yet are hosted somewhere on the internet. You need publicity for your work, else no one will give a damn about your project because they don't know about it. It's not enough that they know that you and your other projects exist, no, they need to become aware that your new projects also exist.
The ad industry has become gigantic for a reason, and the large impact that even a small marketing budget has on tiny projects is well documented. I strongly suggest you look up these source, since I'm not going to do the basic legwork for you. Being on Google's search engine isn't a marketing strategy, because most of the time people use search engines to look for things they already know of and the small traffic you generate isn't going to help you getting propped up on these lists. I've worked for customers who's plan was like that, their online businesses are all gone now. I've also been part of the modding community for 20 years, as both a creator and user, and I've seen all little mod hideouts that I know off perish and evaporate.
So please, stop stating that creators can just cut ties with Nexus, that just any other file storage can replicate it, or postulate that content creators are, in actuality, doing the Nexus a big favor without getting anything in return. Because you should then rightfully be called out as a liar.
So now we have latest Nexus policy that means that some mod last updated 10 years ago, incompatible with official / unofficial patches will be kept up forever. Even if mod author himself recommends better supported, more compatible alternatives and would like to see his first attempt at modding gone, because it is written so badly that it is not fixable.
It'll be available for people that still use those old game versions or collaborative mod efforts that haven't had the time to upgrade to your latest version that might lead to incompatibilities. If people want your latest version, they can just grab it. It would be odd that the Nexus would not promote the latest stable version of your project, instead opting to promote the initial release at all times.
This versioning stuff is all pretty much standard IT stuff these days. You're acting like the sky is falling, but for the past few decades the professional world (of which I've been part of these past 8 years) has used package managers (tied to library repositories) to specify specific versions in different projects with so much success that it's become not just the standard, but the only standard.
Finally it's weird how in the first part you describe several git service providers, but in the second part you seem to completely forget how git is used by modern day developers.
Sorry for the long rant.
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