It seems pretty standard in terms of trajectory: hobby project blew up and became a thing people relied on, founder grew up over the years as well and can't sustain it. Company steps in to provide the "right resources", but inevitably doesn't emphasize too much the changes that will be needed to make it "sustainable".
> Running a service like SteamDB is not easy. I wouldn't be able to live with myself by either just letting the site run as-is and letting it wither, or completely shut it down. In January, I started looking for a worthy partner that could continue the legacy that I had built.
> This is where Nexus Mods comes in.
And Chosen's CEO:
> Our job isn't to change what makes SteamDB special. It's to give it the resources, team and long-term stability it deserves, while building a sustainable foundation that allows us to keep investing in and improving it for many years to come.
So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.
> So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.
I think that's answered pretty well by the 5 ads that open when I visit the announcement page on nexusmods.com link in the OP vs the speedy and clean UI that on the steamdb.info version (for now).
They claim no ads on steamdb, but they also claim "show what games have a thriving modding community" or something like that. Which implies linking to modding hubs, which implies linking to nexusmods, which I'd 100% deem as being ads.
Just because it's ads for another site within the corporate umbrella doesn't make it any less of an ad. I also expect that to be just the start of the enshittification. I fully expect them to remove features, then add "new" features that are basically the same as the old ones, but that time behind paywalls. So that they can claim that they technically aren't making free features paid.
i don't know. the whole operation was kind of obnoxious. valve could provide all this information for free in an afternoon, but chooses not to. of course, by information, i mean: historical, per-user purchasing histories, which are 1,000,000% the most valuable piece of data. but since the guy who ran steamdb doesn't make games, he didn't comprehend what it was that was valuable, and instead, focused on CSGO "leaks."
This uses a load of private Steam API endpoints to work, and I think Valve has just allowed that because it's a loved community project.
Maybe they'll change their minds when NM tries to monetize it. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they just create their own first-party version, then nuke this one.
That's a shame. Nexus Mods has been a sore to modding that I wish would go away so we can have smaller per-game community-run infrastructure again that doesn't want to make you create an account just to download something.
Does Nexus also get control of the SteamDB browser extension? While I was willing to trust xPaw for the convenience it provides I don't want to extend that trust to Nexus Mods.
I hear people say this from time to time and yet to me it feels fine. Could be better, but it's free, everything is reasonably well organized and in one place.
Meanwhile when I have occasionally ventured into per-game modding communities I've found the quality always pretty low and at times even feeling potentially scammy. So I don't think that "per game community run infrastructure" is an automatically good thing, as you seem to be implying. Probably the contrary, in fact.
Even aside from the scammy feeling I got (it was years ago, GTA V mods maybe is what comes to mind), running a community is whole project in itself that most games simply won't drum up the interest for, so modding for all but very popular games would suffer.
Especially with their leftist politics.
Want to make all the characters of a game LGBTQ+++? Sure thing, here's a bunch of mods for that. Want to make your characters more feminine or remove forced lienral agendas in a game? Nope, all those mods have been banned.
It's already been behind Cloudflare for a while so maybe it would be more sensible to ask Pavel to make a dump of the historical data available somewhere.
Okay, so go ahead and replace it. Even if we ignore the whole historical data aspect of SteamDB, you may find that accurately tracking and storing as much data as possible for hundreds of thousands of apps on Steam may not be as easy as it sounds, especially when you're doing it for free.
SteamDB is (was) one guy's passion project, that's the only way a site like this can work, and passion projects in tech are a thing of the past. There's no way to monetize it without making it borderline unusable. I am confident that, when SteamDB inevitably becomes a cesspit of intrusive ads and/or starts locking features behind a paywall (that no one will pay for, because paying a monthly subscription to see metadata for Steam games is insane, which will lead to more desperate measures and possibly an eventual shutdown of the site), no suitable replacement will be made.
Damn, good for him, I guess, but what a bummer, I wonder how they'll enshittify the site. Also a reminder for everyone to disable or at least keep an eye out for updates on the extension. They say in the FAQ they won't change it, but i've been burned before by such promises
The fundamental function of the site can now be vibecoded in a day, so now has no value. The daily visitors are the only unused item of value remaining.
So, looks like SteamDB is gonna get a billion features behind paywall. Probably gonna rate limit how many depots you can look up for free within the hour lol
Are you speaking purely out of principle, or do you truly believe it makes sense in this particular case?
Personally, I just can't imagine anyone paying a monthly fee just to access metadata for Steam games and nothing else. At least with Nexus Mods, you're paying for (easier) access to actual content for your games.
I do believe it makes sense in this particular case. xPaw made it clear in his other half of the announcement that he's been burnt out for years, and a big portion of burnout is being asked to do things, whether you love them or not, for free.
Probably speaking as someone who has used nexusmods in the past decade. Their monetization stuff is on the "lolwhat, that's kinda excessive" side of things.
I'm so thankful that Minecraft has developed it's own ecosystem for modding (I don't like CurseForge but it's MILES ahead of NM, and modrinth is great) and did not rely on NexusMods. Try to install a big modpack in TES, Fallout or Cyberpunk without actually paying for the API access, it's borderline insane.
"Why should the community trust Nexus Mods with SteamDB?"
You shouldn't have to take our word for it, so here are the commitments, in writing, that you can hold us to:
SteamDB stays free.
Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall.
We don't sell your personal data.
SteamDB keeps its own identity, site and community.
The extension stays free and keeps working.
none of that is legally enforceable so none of that matters, we had million stories of companies going back on their word, it isn't worth the rust it is written on
Please dont get enshittified
Please dont get enshittified
It has been a constant good source for TitleIDs (for the steam compat folder when modding on linux), for Steam frame Hopium (when they updated FEX or Lepton or the Stick driver again) and looking at the patch history of games.
I haven't seen what was banned. But I know that Steam publishes a lot of porn games, both in Japan and the UK, and that what's legal in Japan would likely be illegal in the UK.
Does that mean SteamDB, if re-hosted in the UK under Nexus Mods ownership, would stop admitting that Steam's Japanese porn games even exist? "This game exists on Steam but we refuse to show you it. Try some nice wholesome UK porn games with big-chested anime waifus instead."
What also concerns me is what the UK government intends to use the OSA for, and I feel Nexus Mods will kow-tow to it immediately.
For example, the UK government is concerned about people committing suicide. Ofcom is using the OSA to go after a US-hosted forum that encourages suicide. The lawyer for the site told Ofcom that they geo-blocked the UK from the site, and beyond that they can just fuck off, because it's legal speech in the US, and UK laws don't apply in the US.
Can we expect that every game on Steam that features suicide - including some very thought provoking and shocking games, intended for adults only - will be disappeared from SteamDB under Nexus Mods ownership?
Do you know of any good alternatives to Nexus Mods? A peer-to-peer system would be really cool. Mod hosting over something like Reticulum, with mod manager integration, sounds like a dream.
And there's an example of one of the contradictions of modern PC gaming, for as much as it'll get hyped as a mostly open platform with a lot of freedom (in comparison to consoles), there's an awful lot that has coalesced on a small number of services over the years where an awful lot of value can vanish instantly if someone makes a decision you don't agree with or a service gets disrupted/closed.
We still have the ability to use a different platform though. It's entirely up to the users to choose which services and programs to use to accomplish their goal. With consoles, you just get what you get, and have the privilege of paying a monthly subscription just to play multiplayer. When the demand for an alternative gets high enough, one will appear, because we have that ability.
> Ah yes, Nexus Mods, where they'll ban you for making mods that change "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" back to "Male" and "Female", or remove mandatory pronoun selection.
Oh, no. If this is the most severe issue that the company has then we are fine.
Be specific, use your big-person words like an adult. What specifically is the broader issue?
> You don't get what @amiga386 was implying
I think most of us get exactly what they're implying - they don't agree with the politics of the people running nexus (seems like they're scared of pronouns to me) - and don't really have anything concrete beyond that, so they're waving their hands and complaining about nexus abiding by the law.
The broader issue is people who publish on Nexus Mods appear to face more political restrictions than game developers publishing on Steam. I wonder if Nexus Mods will abuse their acquired control of SteamDB to censor it to their tastes, meaning it stops accurately reflecting Steam.
You can't just ignore network effects when you dismiss issues like this. The market share of Nexus is such that if a mod isn't on there then, for many games, it is effectively invisible to most gamers. We should hold platforms with that kind of reach to higher standards.
Your victim complex is ridiculous, and unwarranted. You are demanding that a private company host content that they don’t agree with just because YOU feel aggrieved.
Sounds like they were getting overly upset by things that don't effect them and also...checks notes a website following the law of the country they're based in.
Really weird things to be getting upset over if you ask me.
Regardless of the stupidity of the law (which don't get me wrong, the Online "Safety" Act in the UK is incredibly dumb) you still have to follow it until its struck down or replaced.
Y’all cowards always implying. Say the thing you think. Just say it. I’ll start: I think getting upset by a pronouns dropdown is literal homophobia, in that y’all are so scared, worried, and bothered by thinking about gay shit that you’re installing software about it.
Inserting the operators politics into what kind of mods are allowed is pretty much antithetical to the very idea of modding. So yes, this is a serious issue.
Knowing Nexus, I do expect some manner of censorship, though the exact form this censorship will take remains to be seen.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they started taking payments from game publishers to hide historical player count data for certain games that aren't doing very well.
Allow the vocal snowflakes who can’t accept a video game featuring a tiny bit of non binary gender identity, and sooner than later you face the nazi bar problem[0].
It didn’t take long for x.com, previously known as twitter.
I don't really see why this has to be a problem. If people are breaking the rules, you can just remove them. If you have the authority to remove the first person, then what does it matter if he brings his friends? Just remove them if they start causing problems. This just sounds like a post-hoc justification for removing someone simply because you don't like them. You are allowed to do that, of course, if it's your own platform. The problem is when people are appointed authority with the expectation that they will act without bias, in which case I believe that the threat of a potential nazi bar problem is an insufficient explanation for removing someone.
Yep. I remember Nexus mods removing mods that turns gay characters straight while allowing mods that turn straight characters gay (Cyberpunk). It's super obvious this platform is politically motivated and not motivated to let the user decide which mods they want to use.
Because originally there were mods to enhance romance options in games or whatever (what you describe as making characters gay), and some people were very very upset and _decided to make a point_ by creating straight conversion mods. _Those_ mods are designed to make people upset, to get a raise out of them, and to make fun of the initial mods. They are not sincere.
This ad hominem is unnecessary when we are talking about quality of life mods. Of course quality of life mods are going to address what people are complaining about. That's the whole point of them.
>the nazi bar problem
Nexus Mods doesn't ban mods adding the trans flag to the game. Does this mean they are going to have the trans bar problem? You can make this same argument about everything.
Can't imagine any reason why anyone who wants trans people to feel welcome would also want nazis and their friends to feel unwelcome... couldn't have anything to do with the fact that nazis systematically rounded up trans people, executed them, and erased their culture, could it? /s
More directly, are you really using a false equivalence to counter an "ad hominem"?
"Quality of life", that's a euphemism for queer erasure I haven't heard before... and here I was thinking a quality of life mod was one that fixed a janky UI or smoothed out a grind, that kind of thing.
You certainly could complain about a "trans bar problem" if you like, and you could even go make your own nazi bar if not having one bothers you enough -- though it's pretty clear what that would say about your values.
I think you missed the point in that they are both communities of people that others do not want to be around that try and push an ideology.
If you are not familiar with the term "Quality of Life" it refers to small changes that make the gameplay better. It smooths out the rough edges of the game. Annoying aspects of a game that people don't like get removed. Random bugs that the developer did not have time to fix get fixed. Removing political propaganda that got injected into a game is a better experience for the average gamer.
Personally, I'd prefer the platform to remain neutral and let people ignore mods they don't like.
> they are both communities of people that others do not want to be around
Speak for yourself. Only one of those communities is one I don't want to be around, and there are plenty of people who agree, apparently including the operators of Nexus.
> Removing political propaganda that got injected into a game is a better experience for the average gamer.
Let's be clear: the "political propaganda" you're referring to is more accurately described as "gender-neutral language". If you're going to assert that "the average gamer" will have a better experience playing games without gender neutral language, maybe you can back that up with some citations -- unless, perhaps, your idea of the "average gamer" is merely based on the anecdotal experience of yourself and your peers?
I'm fully aware of what a quality of life mod is, by the way. Just now I was playing a game with "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" character creation, in fact, and have no inclination to change that (even if it did bother me, it was there for about 5 seconds at the beginning of the game, never to be shown again... so what?). Just last night, though, I made my own quality of life mod to address an inventory management quirk that was frustrating me. I'm very familiar with the term, which is exactly why I found the idea of it including "removal of gender neutral language" absurd enough to comment on.
> Personally, I'd prefer the platform to remain neutral and let people ignore mods they don't like.
And you have the right to have that preference! Just as Nexus has the right to operate their site in line with their preferences. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. You could even put your money where your mouth is and start your own "neutral" site. If that's what the "average gamer" wants, perhaps it'll be wildly successful! Although it seems more likely to me that it will attract a certain crowd while repelling everyone else, you are free to prove me wrong :)
> Ah yes, Nexus Mods, where they'll ban you for making mods that change "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" back to "Male" and "Female", or remove mandatory pronoun selection.
Better link about the background here is on SteamDB's blog: https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
It seems pretty standard in terms of trajectory: hobby project blew up and became a thing people relied on, founder grew up over the years as well and can't sustain it. Company steps in to provide the "right resources", but inevitably doesn't emphasize too much the changes that will be needed to make it "sustainable".
> Running a service like SteamDB is not easy. I wouldn't be able to live with myself by either just letting the site run as-is and letting it wither, or completely shut it down. In January, I started looking for a worthy partner that could continue the legacy that I had built.
> This is where Nexus Mods comes in.
And Chosen's CEO:
> Our job isn't to change what makes SteamDB special. It's to give it the resources, team and long-term stability it deserves, while building a sustainable foundation that allows us to keep investing in and improving it for many years to come.
So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.
> So the real news here is what "sustainable foundation" means.
I think that's answered pretty well by the 5 ads that open when I visit the announcement page on nexusmods.com link in the OP vs the speedy and clean UI that on the steamdb.info version (for now).
Nexus also sells a subscription service.
Running a website of this magnitude costs money and I don't expect people to keep paying out of pocket forever. It is nice as long as it lasts.
I think this one particularly interesting and it really explains to me how a caring and passionate person would do such a move.
> After COVID and with the rise of AI, the internet we once loved is gone, and with it my passion.
And I really have to say that it's very relatable.
> https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
Someone posted that before I see (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491) so perhaps post can be merged to there
They claim no ads on steamdb, but they also claim "show what games have a thriving modding community" or something like that. Which implies linking to modding hubs, which implies linking to nexusmods, which I'd 100% deem as being ads.
Just because it's ads for another site within the corporate umbrella doesn't make it any less of an ad. I also expect that to be just the start of the enshittification. I fully expect them to remove features, then add "new" features that are basically the same as the old ones, but that time behind paywalls. So that they can claim that they technically aren't making free features paid.
i don't know. the whole operation was kind of obnoxious. valve could provide all this information for free in an afternoon, but chooses not to. of course, by information, i mean: historical, per-user purchasing histories, which are 1,000,000% the most valuable piece of data. but since the guy who ran steamdb doesn't make games, he didn't comprehend what it was that was valuable, and instead, focused on CSGO "leaks."
This uses a load of private Steam API endpoints to work, and I think Valve has just allowed that because it's a loved community project.
Maybe they'll change their minds when NM tries to monetize it. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if they just create their own first-party version, then nuke this one.
Well it's dead now. The demise of NM has been very public
what happened? I just use NM once every few years to download the same handful of mods
That's a shame. Nexus Mods has been a sore to modding that I wish would go away so we can have smaller per-game community-run infrastructure again that doesn't want to make you create an account just to download something.
Does Nexus also get control of the SteamDB browser extension? While I was willing to trust xPaw for the convenience it provides I don't want to extend that trust to Nexus Mods.
I hear people say this from time to time and yet to me it feels fine. Could be better, but it's free, everything is reasonably well organized and in one place.
Meanwhile when I have occasionally ventured into per-game modding communities I've found the quality always pretty low and at times even feeling potentially scammy. So I don't think that "per game community run infrastructure" is an automatically good thing, as you seem to be implying. Probably the contrary, in fact.
Even aside from the scammy feeling I got (it was years ago, GTA V mods maybe is what comes to mind), running a community is whole project in itself that most games simply won't drum up the interest for, so modding for all but very popular games would suffer.
Especially with their leftist politics. Want to make all the characters of a game LGBTQ+++? Sure thing, here's a bunch of mods for that. Want to make your characters more feminine or remove forced lienral agendas in a game? Nope, all those mods have been banned.
And the company behind Nexus:
>We acquire. We amplify. We conquer.
https://www.wearechosen.io/
lmao good luck.
Love how the guy was running the site alone becaue he couldn’t “trust anyone else” and ended up selling to a company like this.
Though SteamDB is not irreplacebale at all, it’s running on the Steam Web API so not something super secret stuff.
> Though SteamDB is not irreplacebale at all, it’s running on the Steam Web API so not something super secret stuff.
Is it possible to use Steam API to collect all the data that SteamDB collected over the years again?
Alternatively, maybe someone needs to to scrape SteamDB asap before they lock it down?
It's already been behind Cloudflare for a while so maybe it would be more sensible to ask Pavel to make a dump of the historical data available somewhere.
Okay, so go ahead and replace it. Even if we ignore the whole historical data aspect of SteamDB, you may find that accurately tracking and storing as much data as possible for hundreds of thousands of apps on Steam may not be as easy as it sounds, especially when you're doing it for free.
SteamDB is (was) one guy's passion project, that's the only way a site like this can work, and passion projects in tech are a thing of the past. There's no way to monetize it without making it borderline unusable. I am confident that, when SteamDB inevitably becomes a cesspit of intrusive ads and/or starts locking features behind a paywall (that no one will pay for, because paying a monthly subscription to see metadata for Steam games is insane, which will lead to more desperate measures and possibly an eventual shutdown of the site), no suitable replacement will be made.
The most valuable data is the per user purchase histories from before the time those were hidden by default.
Why is that "valuable"?
they basically map out the paying audience for your game on Steam
So we know how many hentai games you've bought
Damn, good for him, I guess, but what a bummer, I wonder how they'll enshittify the site. Also a reminder for everyone to disable or at least keep an eye out for updates on the extension. They say in the FAQ they won't change it, but i've been burned before by such promises
Nexus was sold to those new owners a bit over a year ago.
Nothing changed for the worse since that time. So don't expect any immediate changes.
The part that's hard to replace is the historical data.
The fundamental function of the site can now be vibecoded in a day, so now has no value. The daily visitors are the only unused item of value remaining.
I await your repo tomorrow, then! I'd be happy to use an alternative with all backfilled playercount data and sales history that hasn't been sold out.
SteamDB is itself a massive collection of data - on pricing, game usage, etc. Scraped over years, in a way that Valve tolerate.
It could not be vibecoded in a day unless you want to hallucinate the data, which makes the site useless.
In fact, if the techbros actually tried, they'd force Valve into putting up anti-scraping countermeasures on all their APIs within hours.
The fundamental function is already on GitHub: https://github.com/steamre/steamkit
That only leaves the remaining 99.9% of work. Good luck.
that's optimistic
Go ahead and do it just to prove a point.
The value is in the contributed art.
R.I.P. it was a good site and couldn't fall into much worse hands
Title has an extra d after Steam.
Crapd. Can't edit anymore. But like I suggested elsewhere, perhaps comments can be moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49534491, they were first
you can send an email to dang to get it fixed
So, looks like SteamDB is gonna get a billion features behind paywall. Probably gonna rate limit how many depots you can look up for free within the hour lol
I think that's perfectly reasonable if it means a more sustainable future
Are you speaking purely out of principle, or do you truly believe it makes sense in this particular case?
Personally, I just can't imagine anyone paying a monthly fee just to access metadata for Steam games and nothing else. At least with Nexus Mods, you're paying for (easier) access to actual content for your games.
I do believe it makes sense in this particular case. xPaw made it clear in his other half of the announcement that he's been burnt out for years, and a big portion of burnout is being asked to do things, whether you love them or not, for free.
https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
Probably speaking as someone who has used nexusmods in the past decade. Their monetization stuff is on the "lolwhat, that's kinda excessive" side of things.
I'm so thankful that Minecraft has developed it's own ecosystem for modding (I don't like CurseForge but it's MILES ahead of NM, and modrinth is great) and did not rely on NexusMods. Try to install a big modpack in TES, Fallout or Cyberpunk without actually paying for the API access, it's borderline insane.
Is it for a sustainable future, or just extracting maximum value from the user?
Probably have ads because idk who would pay to lift those limits.
apparently it was sustainable just fine before
you should read the other half of the announcement in which the founder talked about the burnout he was experiencing
https://steamdb.info/blog/steamdb-nexus-mods/
I disagree. The project dying would at least leave room for a successor, which an enshittified version might prevent.
FAQ by SteamDB: https://steamdb.info/faq/?guildid=215154001799413770#why-sho...
"Why should the community trust Nexus Mods with SteamDB?"
You shouldn't have to take our word for it, so here are the commitments, in writing, that you can hold us to:
none of that is legally enforceable so none of that matters, we had million stories of companies going back on their word, it isn't worth the rust it is written on
I realy wished we had a way to have Companies make Legally enforcable claims.
I remember reading something like that when Oculus Rift was acquired by Meta.
> SteamDB stays free
So they'll add a ton of ads.
> Nothing currently free goes behind a paywall.
Technically true for Nexus Mods as well but they sure make access cumbersome for non-paying users.
> We don't sell your personal data
So they'll sell (barely) "anonymized" data.
> The extension stays free and keeps working
Yeah that's not the main concern people should have with an extension that gets free reign on the Steam store.
Lmfao
Yea, the steamdb extension gets uninstalled now.
Please dont get enshittified Please dont get enshittified
It has been a constant good source for TitleIDs (for the steam compat folder when modding on linux), for Steam frame Hopium (when they updated FEX or Lepton or the Stick driver again) and looking at the patch history of games.
Honestly why couldn't steam itself operate this? It seems like a great additional resource to steam
I don't love this. Wish Valve itself would have supported SteamDB.
[flagged]
[flagged]
Try quoting the full line, not just the part that scares you:
> Uploading content deemed illegal by English law (indecent depictions of minors)
I haven't seen what was banned. But I know that Steam publishes a lot of porn games, both in Japan and the UK, and that what's legal in Japan would likely be illegal in the UK.
Does that mean SteamDB, if re-hosted in the UK under Nexus Mods ownership, would stop admitting that Steam's Japanese porn games even exist? "This game exists on Steam but we refuse to show you it. Try some nice wholesome UK porn games with big-chested anime waifus instead."
What also concerns me is what the UK government intends to use the OSA for, and I feel Nexus Mods will kow-tow to it immediately.
For example, the UK government is concerned about people committing suicide. Ofcom is using the OSA to go after a US-hosted forum that encourages suicide. The lawyer for the site told Ofcom that they geo-blocked the UK from the site, and beyond that they can just fuck off, because it's legal speech in the US, and UK laws don't apply in the US.
Can we expect that every game on Steam that features suicide - including some very thought provoking and shocking games, intended for adults only - will be disappeared from SteamDB under Nexus Mods ownership?
Do you know of any good alternatives to Nexus Mods? A peer-to-peer system would be really cool. Mod hosting over something like Reticulum, with mod manager integration, sounds like a dream.
And there's an example of one of the contradictions of modern PC gaming, for as much as it'll get hyped as a mostly open platform with a lot of freedom (in comparison to consoles), there's an awful lot that has coalesced on a small number of services over the years where an awful lot of value can vanish instantly if someone makes a decision you don't agree with or a service gets disrupted/closed.
We still have the ability to use a different platform though. It's entirely up to the users to choose which services and programs to use to accomplish their goal. With consoles, you just get what you get, and have the privilege of paying a monthly subscription just to play multiplayer. When the demand for an alternative gets high enough, one will appear, because we have that ability.
The best experience I had has been with smaller game-specific sites where the scale can be managed by a small number of enthusiasts.
[dead]
Just Web 2.0 and it’s consequences.
> Ah yes, Nexus Mods, where they'll ban you for making mods that change "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" back to "Male" and "Female", or remove mandatory pronoun selection.
Oh, no. If this is the most severe issue that the company has then we are fine.
It's an example of broader issue.
You don't get what @amiga386 was implying
> It's an example of broader issue.
Be specific, use your big-person words like an adult. What specifically is the broader issue?
> You don't get what @amiga386 was implying
I think most of us get exactly what they're implying - they don't agree with the politics of the people running nexus (seems like they're scared of pronouns to me) - and don't really have anything concrete beyond that, so they're waving their hands and complaining about nexus abiding by the law.
The broader issue is people who publish on Nexus Mods appear to face more political restrictions than game developers publishing on Steam. I wonder if Nexus Mods will abuse their acquired control of SteamDB to censor it to their tastes, meaning it stops accurately reflecting Steam.
Scared of pronouns.
Bwahaha.
Ok
[flagged]
[flagged]
Nobody is “pushing an ideology” on you, indy.
Nexus mods is allowed to choose what they want to host. If you want to share a mod they don’t accept, host it somewhere else.
You can't just ignore network effects when you dismiss issues like this. The market share of Nexus is such that if a mod isn't on there then, for many games, it is effectively invisible to most gamers. We should hold platforms with that kind of reach to higher standards.
[flagged]
Your victim complex is ridiculous, and unwarranted. You are demanding that a private company host content that they don’t agree with just because YOU feel aggrieved.
Sounds like they were getting overly upset by things that don't effect them and also...checks notes a website following the law of the country they're based in.
Really weird things to be getting upset over if you ask me.
Regardless of the stupidity of the law (which don't get me wrong, the Online "Safety" Act in the UK is incredibly dumb) you still have to follow it until its struck down or replaced.
You can also host websites in not the UK and thus not be bound by the OSA.
I don't think SteamDB is currently hosted in the UK, and I think it would be a mistake to move it there.
Y’all cowards always implying. Say the thing you think. Just say it. I’ll start: I think getting upset by a pronouns dropdown is literal homophobia, in that y’all are so scared, worried, and bothered by thinking about gay shit that you’re installing software about it.
It’s weak. Y’all are weak.
God forbid you install a mod that modifies a game.
Good news! You're still allowed to install whatever mods you want.
Expecting Nexus to host mods they don't want to host is idiotic.
Hiding the whole complaint behind an implication is cowardice.
Hope that helps.
[flagged]
Why are you so cryptic? Just say what you mean plainly.
Then why choose the most inconsequential example (IMO) I can imagine?
And what's the broader issue? That it's moderated?
Inserting the operators politics into what kind of mods are allowed is pretty much antithetical to the very idea of modding. So yes, this is a serious issue.
Knowing Nexus, I do expect some manner of censorship, though the exact form this censorship will take remains to be seen.
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they started taking payments from game publishers to hide historical player count data for certain games that aren't doing very well.
sounds a bit... snowflakey of you
Nexus Mods will ban you for making mods that reject the politics of the site moderators. That is not a neutral action.
Steam, as far as I understand, lets you publish anything that's legal in the countries you sell it. You don't have to conform to GabeN's politics.
SteamDB should be a faithful record of what's published to Steam. I hope it stays that way.
Allow the vocal snowflakes who can’t accept a video game featuring a tiny bit of non binary gender identity, and sooner than later you face the nazi bar problem[0].
It didn’t take long for x.com, previously known as twitter.
[0]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Nazi_bar
I don't really see why this has to be a problem. If people are breaking the rules, you can just remove them. If you have the authority to remove the first person, then what does it matter if he brings his friends? Just remove them if they start causing problems. This just sounds like a post-hoc justification for removing someone simply because you don't like them. You are allowed to do that, of course, if it's your own platform. The problem is when people are appointed authority with the expectation that they will act without bias, in which case I believe that the threat of a potential nazi bar problem is an insufficient explanation for removing someone.
Well, of course it’s about removing people because you don’t like them. Because of what they bring and who they are.
And yes everyone has bias.
Yep. I remember Nexus mods removing mods that turns gay characters straight while allowing mods that turn straight characters gay (Cyberpunk). It's super obvious this platform is politically motivated and not motivated to let the user decide which mods they want to use.
Because originally there were mods to enhance romance options in games or whatever (what you describe as making characters gay), and some people were very very upset and _decided to make a point_ by creating straight conversion mods. _Those_ mods are designed to make people upset, to get a raise out of them, and to make fun of the initial mods. They are not sincere.
>vocal snowflakes
This ad hominem is unnecessary when we are talking about quality of life mods. Of course quality of life mods are going to address what people are complaining about. That's the whole point of them.
>the nazi bar problem
Nexus Mods doesn't ban mods adding the trans flag to the game. Does this mean they are going to have the trans bar problem? You can make this same argument about everything.
A trans bar isn't a problem, by the way.
How many million people have trans people killed?
Can't imagine any reason why anyone who wants trans people to feel welcome would also want nazis and their friends to feel unwelcome... couldn't have anything to do with the fact that nazis systematically rounded up trans people, executed them, and erased their culture, could it? /s
More directly, are you really using a false equivalence to counter an "ad hominem"?
"Quality of life", that's a euphemism for queer erasure I haven't heard before... and here I was thinking a quality of life mod was one that fixed a janky UI or smoothed out a grind, that kind of thing.
You certainly could complain about a "trans bar problem" if you like, and you could even go make your own nazi bar if not having one bothers you enough -- though it's pretty clear what that would say about your values.
I think you missed the point in that they are both communities of people that others do not want to be around that try and push an ideology.
If you are not familiar with the term "Quality of Life" it refers to small changes that make the gameplay better. It smooths out the rough edges of the game. Annoying aspects of a game that people don't like get removed. Random bugs that the developer did not have time to fix get fixed. Removing political propaganda that got injected into a game is a better experience for the average gamer.
Personally, I'd prefer the platform to remain neutral and let people ignore mods they don't like.
> they are both communities of people that others do not want to be around
Speak for yourself. Only one of those communities is one I don't want to be around, and there are plenty of people who agree, apparently including the operators of Nexus.
> Removing political propaganda that got injected into a game is a better experience for the average gamer.
Let's be clear: the "political propaganda" you're referring to is more accurately described as "gender-neutral language". If you're going to assert that "the average gamer" will have a better experience playing games without gender neutral language, maybe you can back that up with some citations -- unless, perhaps, your idea of the "average gamer" is merely based on the anecdotal experience of yourself and your peers?
I'm fully aware of what a quality of life mod is, by the way. Just now I was playing a game with "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" character creation, in fact, and have no inclination to change that (even if it did bother me, it was there for about 5 seconds at the beginning of the game, never to be shown again... so what?). Just last night, though, I made my own quality of life mod to address an inventory management quirk that was frustrating me. I'm very familiar with the term, which is exactly why I found the idea of it including "removal of gender neutral language" absurd enough to comment on.
> Personally, I'd prefer the platform to remain neutral and let people ignore mods they don't like.
And you have the right to have that preference! Just as Nexus has the right to operate their site in line with their preferences. If you don't like it, you don't have to use it. You could even put your money where your mouth is and start your own "neutral" site. If that's what the "average gamer" wants, perhaps it'll be wildly successful! Although it seems more likely to me that it will attract a certain crowd while repelling everyone else, you are free to prove me wrong :)
> Ah yes, Nexus Mods, where they'll ban you for making mods that change "Body Type A" and "Body Type B" back to "Male" and "Female", or remove mandatory pronoun selection.
Oh my god please get a life