The Illegality Of Paid Minecraft Mods. 

[IMPORTANT] Jetstar isnt the only one doing this and this video isnt targeted towards him. Join the discord: discord.gg/cygnusmc

My preferred way would be 1. Provide mod for free 2. Open a patreon or kofi for those who want to provide a "tip" for the mod 3. Different tiers would allow buyers to access early builds of the new mod and potentially add ideas into consideration

technically most of minecraft players are kids with no money so i feel like using ads on sites IS a much better solution

Jetstarfish is a culprit of this. He straight made a shitty video about Minecraft’s progression issues and makes some extremely bullshit points just to sell his mod that basically has 5 or so features.

This does not only happen to Mods, but also to texturepacks and maps which is very lame in my opinion

Paid mods is a slippery slope that I don't think people understand. When you think of paid mods, you think of the massive sprawling modpacks with custom maps and custom crafting and custom blah blah blah. 15 bucks for all that? Sounds great! But what about when people begin selling their mods individually? JEI for 2 bucks. Complimentary shades for a buck 50. Farmers delight? Another t bucks. Create? Well, that'd really hard to make, may as well sell it for 10! We'll be looking at modpacks costing the same amount as the base game, all because modders are beginning to treat Minecraft as a way to make money rather than a fun Gane they want to expand on, which is ironically exactly what the 2023 EULA aimed to fix

Mojang: No, you can't monetize your mods ! Also Mojang: Haha, marketplace go brrr !

I was shocked when I saw a mod dev do this. As someone currently trying to get a fresh grad job, having a mod will be great for my resume. If I move on in life and don't maintain a mod, I'd open a Patreon so ppl can donate me and "motivate" me to maintain it again. But, I prefer putting my stuff open source so anyone can take over my work. I do hope many more devs will fork some of the most used mods in not ported versions.

I love the open nature of java modding, but I also can't stand the hypocrisy of mojang saying we can't monetize our java mods only to charge absurd prices on the bedrock marketplace

The only bad part for me is that most of the paid mods are also closed source, so you cannot really know what you are dealing with and no option for another developer to implement or fork the project for example to make modpacks

as a mod developer I absolutely hate seeing paywalled mods, especially if the mod wasn't coded by the person selling it (I'm looking at you JetStarfish). Pay modders to work for you if they're cool with that but never charge for it to be played because at the end of the day Minecraft isn't your product. I think this should be a general rule for all of game modding. I also keep seeing people go "well Mojang has the marketplace, why is this wrong?" the difference is that the marketplace is official and legal

If we look at current paid mod services, like the minecraft marketplace or the premum mods in ark survival ascended, we can see how monetisation kills creativity and exspacally small mods are getting killed of.

Problem for me with pay-walling mods is that it would turn into an incentive for a lot of people. Of course mod devs deserve compensation, and pay what you want or non-intrusive ads would be good solution in my mind. It's sad to hear that some mod devs went homeless, and they deserve all the support they can get.

mods should allays be free to download as modding wouldn't be possible without the many volunteers that first developed platforms like fabric and forge. However, mods can (and in my opinion, should) have donation links and maybe even a paywall for early access versions of mods. I was actually thinking about that "pay what you want" model when downloading a model, i think its the best model for free projects.

My stance is: shouldn't cost anything, but donations should be allowed. Also official collaborations with mod and fan game devs should be more common in the gaming space in general, the Fazbear Fan Initiative is a good example (even if as a whole it's gone not so great). Officially making mods or fan games purchasable is really good, because it provides a legal way to sell that stuff, both the dev and game creator(s)/company get paid, and everyone is happy. The Bedrock Marketplace would be perfect, if there was primary high quality stuff on there, but it feels like there isn't as much quality assurance as would be perfect for it, and it's only on Bedrock, so it kinda doesn't work for a significant chunk of the community. But that's my stance on it. Also technically speaking breaking the EULA isn't a crime, can't land you in jail or anything, but Mojang can sue you over it. So READ IT IF YOU DO ANYTHING IN RELATION TO IT

In the Sims community, modders are allowed to monetized their work using esrly access, like you have it on patreon behind a paywall for a few months, but then you have to release for free. I think if EA of all people are okay with that model, it can work in Minecraft. (It kinda feels like watching a movie on theaters vs waiting for it to stream)

A pay what you want system in my opinion is a good idea. If I had the ability to (financially) I would love to be able to throw my favorite mod developers some compensation. Great video!

Oh there is a mod that was free for a long time which was Jurassiccraft but in may 2020 the owner made every update since then paid and the mod went down in quality to. A lot of people in dinosaurs mc modding community calls the mod a scam now a days

Why not just have all the mods be free, but allow donations for the developer to be able to continue developing the mod? Like, it wouldn't go against EULA, since the mod is free for anyone to take. But considering it's time, and resource consuming, a developer can ask for donations to speedup or even continue refining the mod. Those who don't have money, aren't forced to pay to get the full mod. They can just download and enjoy it. But those who also feel sympathetic towards the effort of the mod creator, could donate to help them out in their development.

This is so common, and done by popular and well respected people, it actually pisses me off

as a bedrock player i hate that java gets all the coop mods while bedrock gets micro transactions shoved down their throat and it sucks more that not only is java only on pc, but its also a little expensive it sucks

Mods should NEVER be paid. unless its a optional donation to support the devs to who have spare money laying around

Paywalling for *fully complete* mods I disagree with, but for mods that aren’t ready for public use and are acting as a “sneak peek” or “early development access” build, I can get behind that

i have nothing to say that hasntalready been said, so... donation buttons are fine, paywalls are not!

The main issue is, regardless of what the discussion turns into, nothing changes that at some point mods WERE free. I think people wouldnt have as much of a problem of if when mods first flourished, Mojang integrated a paid system and embraced the community, especially if they used old youtubers like yogscast etc in branding with certain mods.

the minecraft eula is not legally binding. it is not illegal to break the eula (provided you aren't breaking other laws while breaking the eula). if you make a paid mod, mojang can take away your minecraft account, but it is a lie to say that is illegal.

Tldr: Paywalling bad, donations good You should not ever put a mod behind a paywall as it kills the whole idea of modding. It always been a thing that people do from passion and want to share their takes and ideas on the original games instead making it a living on it as a first thing. Sure it is great that nowadays some people can earn a livable wage from modding certain games, Minecraft being a prime example, through ad revenue and donations, but just because of that, it doesnt mean people are obliged to pay for your time spent cuz you decided to base your entire financial well being on something so fluent and unstable as modding. Another thing is that Minecraft made whole companies be created that solely focus on making mods or hosting servers for it, but again, their costs and business decisions are not responsibility of the players. If I find your mod cool and I want to help you via donating I will, but if you forcing me to with some half assed arguments like oooo I spent so much time on it therefore I demand $$$, then f*ck off Ill be first to pirate it or skip the entry all together instead funding career of someone like that.

paid mods are a ridiculous concept to me because minecraft mods are not used in a vacuum. that's why orespawn lost its audience, after all. paid mods can absolutely result in $500 modpacks, if standardized. mojang itself needs to support the developers who make minecraft fun or accessible for a much wider audience, it's contributing directly to their revenue after all.

paying for mods and resource packs is a relatively recent and cancerous growth upon the game, turning java into bedrock isnt particularly appealing, so i totally support piracy of them. want money? start a patreon or get a job

If Modrinth adds a popup screen that the mod developer can turn on, every time someone downloads the mod, they will be asked to donate to the mod developer. That would be a good middle ground between paywalls and just making it freely available.

In my eyes as someone who makes Add-Ons for Bedrock edition, it's not needed to pay for our work. Yes, we want to earn some money for the work we put in, but for most hobbyists, as we call them, the goal is just money, and if they don't earn what they expected, they simply abandon their projects, and I can understand a part of that. I have a pretty large and awesome community, and I get asked so many times if they can support me with money or if there is a version of my work that's paid, and I respond with "no" because for me, personally, I don't need their money to keep doing what I love. I've hard some arguments about this but it's mainly that I want to make something "good" that's free, and that I won't be controlled by money. There are a selected amount of people who disagree with me, and I get that. We have the Marketplace, but it's only for partners, which at this time are companies and studios. We as hobbyists upload our projects to MCPEDL, which is owned by CurseForge, so we use CFs reward program to generate revenue. It's great for creators that're big, but not for the ones who's starting out and it kinda demotivates them. MCPEDL had a wave of creators using ad sites like Linkvertise and Boostellar, but people moved away from them since the reward program with MCPEDL x CurseForge. It's always nice to have a Ko-Fi and let your fans know that they can support you that way, instead of locking a good mod behind money, because every mod developer has a fanbase that wants to support them and help out, and that's awesome!

In my opinion, I think it wouldn't hurt to support the creator of the mod we enjoy It's fine for them to put a donation link as a button in the game. But putting mods behind a paywall is probably something I'm against and probably everyone else too

You should make a video about the current Replay Mod situation, where Replay Mod hasn't updated to 1.21 except for betas, but you need to pay for access to these betas and a lot of people are stuck on 1.20 because there isn't a viable alternative and they reasonably don't want to pay.

6:12 that's because the "paid" license can be easily obtained for free from Moulberry if you ask him in Discord or somewhere else. So actually this is just a recommendation to buy the commercial licence.

The situation with 2b2t is kinda weird. Running servers costs money (and not just "my time is money"; actual infrastructure money), and a priority queue for members is as tame as it gets, because the server capacity is limited by those same infra costs and the fact that only "corpo" servers like Hypixel can afford custom server software that helps them scale beyond the terribly optimized vanilla server. According to the EULA, however, Hypixel's actually gameplay altering microtransactions seem to be fine because they fall in a grey area, even though they are predatory for children, even moreso than a donation button for a mod. Also, selling cosmetics is fine: Essentials is in the clear, as much as everyone hates microtx, and truth is Essentials also has infra costs (they use TURN servers, so they do not have to execute a dedicated server but every packet is still tunneled through their proxies), but then OptiFine and old school Mekanism are not, since the cosmetics they offer(ed) are capes, which are an exception to the clause. There is also this thing where you cannot charge different regional prices, even though forbidding such a thing is against the same spirit of the rule. So, I get why people dislike microtx, but Minecraft mod donations are kind of a meme in the modding community because no one ever donates. It kinda sucks for all parties involved.

paid mods should not exist for anything. the entire point of modding is that people do it for the love of the game/fun of it, and the last time people tried paid mods it did not work at all and got quickly reversed. Monetization also stifles creativity since people just copy/paste the same trends to make a quick buck (hell, look at FTB's badrock marketplace account vs. the stuff they make on java). i think part of the unspoken agreement between modders and players is that it's a hobby or side project, and as such can be abandoned at any time. Mod devs should open-source it or whatever if they do abandon it, but at the same time we can't expect them to keep going forever. i got into the game through mods (wouldn't play it at all without them), and if everything was paywalled i'd have never gotten into minecraft and made my modpacks. My packs are still pretty niche, but i take a while to make them just because i like doing it. Updates are pretty slow due to that, but since they're niche i haven't had anyone asking for updates or ports or whatever the hell. but i've made like $30 off of the CF ads over the near-decade i've made modpacks. It's obviously not that much, but it's still pretty cool that i got some free pocket change off of something i made for the hell of it. if devs wanna set up a patreon or ko-fi or whatever that's fine (hell, i have one for my modpacks lol) - but charging for mods goes against the entire point of modding. If you wanna make a career out of your ability to code, just become a game dev or get a programming job.

hell no we shouldn't pay for mods. encourage people to support the mod creator? sure. gotta support the devs. but putting up a mod behind a paywall? hell naw.

Loved the video and I agree with most of your points but as a developer myself I'd honestly still be in favor of being able to sell mods/datapacks! A donation or pay-what-you-want model sounds amazing in theory, but the reality is: People generally only pay if they have to! To explain my opinion I'd like to shine a little light on this topic from the side of a developer instead of a consumer. I've been releasing free maps & datapacks for over 10 years now and all my projects combined have ~10 Million downloads. My projects are quite popular on other Minecraft channels too and a few years ago I counted the combined views other channels made with my datapacks. It was over 3.5 Billion views. So I've provided the community with YEARS of free entertainment, other RU-vidrs have made well over $10M directly using my work, while I constantly struggle to make ends meet because I've committed the crime of developing for Java instead of Bedrock. You would think that with these numbers and around 400k subscribers it'd be easy to live off of donations but I have not once received over 100$/month on my patreon, despite regularly plugging it. Jetstarfish sold his mod and immediately reached $1.300/month within a few weeks. So as annoying as a paywall is, it jjust works. I continue to release my datapacks for free, but I honestly wish I could sell them! Not out of greed, but if I don't make enough money to pay the bills I simpply have to find another job and consequently stop making the content that the community has enjoyed for a decade without having to pay a single dollar! Developers on Bedrock are allowed to make a living off their work, so why shouldn't Java Developers be allowed to do the same?

There's also the case of mods who put beta's as a reward for supporters A big example of this are the abnormal mods which are first in beta for patreons but do release later for the public I think this is fine way as well it doesn't leave it up as much on whether people being kind or not which can be a gamble as a developer but it also isn't having as much behind a paywall considering what is being paywalled is the beta, which is worse version of the final result (needs bug fixing and so on) and eventually everyone will be able to download the mod with 0 problem once it finally releases

I'm surprised you didn't give high resolution resource packs an honorable mention here. I've always wondered how those are considered fine, but people worry about people paywalling mods.

i personally hate having to pay for software in general, and its mostly because i don't have my own money, but when i do, i decide to spend it into something better instead of paying whatever paywall i encounter. as you said, money is very important, and i dont think paying for softwares, which is not even a physical thing, is worth it my money. HOWEVER, i think games are an exception. games are a work of art that i think it deserves it being consumed and purchased just like movies. and also, i already paid for minecraft, so why the heck i would pay for a mod? this ain't a DLC either

early access paywall then releasing for free is fine imo, dev gets support + bugtesters and less bugs in end product

I like working on mods as FOSS. In fact, I kinda think Minecraft's gotten to a stable enough state that it itself should probably be made FOSS and left open to the community for continued development, because recent changes have been kinda mid and definitely within the scope of mods. For me, the "compensation" I get from working on the mod I work on is having visible commits on my GitHub and a project I can talk about openly in job interviews without worrying about NDAs etc. But yeah, it would be nice to earn a living from modding as opposed to it _having_ to be a passion project, like most Open Source projects. Which is why we need to campaign for UBI to be a thing so developers can actually keep making the software that runs the world without having to worry about making enough to eat!

For me personally, I'm just sick of money being the center of the universe. I wish people didn't _need_ financial compensation just to survive, but its unfortunately the world we live it.

How have I not seen anyone mention that sure, we don't like paid mods on Java, but Bedrock's entire monetization model is by making paid mods/texture packs? Microsoft/Mojang's actual stance seems to be "You can't make money from your mods... unless we get a cut off the top." Which is way scummier when you realize that. I agree that it would be nice for all mods to be free with voluntary donations. But Mojang/Microsoft don't seem to agree with that- they want that juicy revenue from those kids that see bad bedrock ports of java mods for 500 minecoins and ask their mom to buy it for them to play for 20 minutes.

Paying for mods is just another form of microtransactions A.K.A one of the most cancerous things in modern gaming.

Mods should NEVER be paid. Simple as that.

Reminds me of that physics mod that paid drm on it and wouldn’t launch if it didn’t detect you had a subscription to their Patreon.

Obviously it is illegal reading for 15 seconds on the Minecraft Eula on the section of mods states: that you are not allowed to sell the mod or profit off said mod even if they try to justify it by claiming it is a patreon reward it still goes against trying to profit off said mod

I've never had an ad actually influence me to buy something

I feel like the best way would be to have betas of the updates of mods to be pay walled but when the update is finished it becomes free

Its kinds ironic, yes big mods do kinda feel so good you wouldn't mind sending a few bucks their way, hoever the underlying problem is then modding will end up like the MC Marketplace with a huge lack of quality control. Mods are made normally from passion, and unfortunately, when a scene gets monetized, that passion will get replaced by greed. Sure, passionate devs still exist, but my best comparison is the MC Maketplace and AAA gaming. There are so many issues not getting fixed or terrible at launch, yet you're expected to pay full price.

I'm fine with people like Vazkii who have a Patreon for their mods that allows people to have access to beta files of various mods, as well as cosmetics in the live branch. Putting early access (often alongside official server access) behind a Patreon should never be an issue in my eyes, since what you're paying for is access to a potentially worse version of the mod, as well as a private server. By keeping Patreon beta and public release groups completely separate, they should be allowed to keep it as is since there's no situation where a Patreon supporter would be playing with regular players and have any difference in experience aside from goofy cosmetics like Botania's flowerheads that have no impact on the game's balance.

paywalling mods for java would is absurd and terrible for the space, if you were looking to get paid the bedrock marketplace is literally right there, and you will just make more money out of it simply because the version is availiable everywere outside of pcs, a paywalled mod in pc is never a good idea, first off you literally wont get nearly as many people using it, cause we all know, we pc people are cheapskates that get everything on sale, you should have know what space you were signing in for whent you started learning java modding.

No. Mods should NEVER be paid, they should be free for all

if its high quality i dont care if they want payment for it

"Mojang doesn't like paid mods!" MC Bedrock Add-Ons: 😎😘🥳🤪

The only mod I would pay for is the physics mod, It just has so much effort put into it but Paywalls ruins stuff, and drain creativity. But on the other hand I do want people to make money off stuff and survive, so its tough.

I feel like you shouldn’t have to pay for mods since nobody is forcing you to make these and before you bring up Minecraft Marketplace the bedrock marketplace completely allows it paid content from an official Microsoft service that’s why it doesn’t go against the EULA it would be different if it was on patreon or another third party website

Instructions unclear, I am now a convicted felon

big respect for the balanced and chill take! nice video

I'm glad the Aether team has Patreon as optional. All subscribing to the Patreon does is give you a few additional skins, the mod itself is still free

Minecraft mod dev here: I like the idea of allowing donations, MAYBE even the donators are able to beta test mods that are in-work, but finished versions should be free. So if I’m working on v1.0.1, I could post the beta of this to donators for testing/bug discovery, and when it’s done post the official v1.0.1 for free. Those who donate are typically even the ones most excited about testing new versions, anyhow

This & mods locked behind discord need to be eradicated. Its extremely problematic.

minecraft marketplace sucks ass, and i don't want ANYTHING near that on java!

My stance on this is I don't think it should be 'illegal' for mods to be paid, but I also don't want Java turning into bedrock where every single third party modification to the game is behind some form of paywall. Good example of this is physics mod pro. This mod would be so cool to have except it's behind a paywall :/, however however this guy gotta make money some how. I think the best way to go about it its like sodium where they have a 'Buy me a coffee' link or ko-fi or whatever it may be. Donations is the best way to tackle this dilemma in my opinion.

I am more than happy for mod (and modpack) developers to be compensated financially. I have to admit that the mods I am willing to install are far more likely to have an open source license and a reasonably well run project to back them up.

the entire video i was like ITCH, ITCH WOULD FIX THIS SO WELL and then you mentioned it. the way itch does its pay what you want ON THE DOWNLOADS PAGE i think would make more people donate than having to go to a completely different website

Okay so The Sims also had this recently, and honestly I think the same approach would work for Minecraft. 1. If a creator want to have ko-fi/patreon/etc exclusively as a tip jar, perfectly fine, no further inquires needed 2. Creators that want to use a patreon as an early access, also fine, as long as it is a reasonable length (ie- "get it one month early on patreon!" is fine; but "pay for patreon or get it free in 2032 lol" is not) Like i's not perfect, not even sure if it has been enforced, but I think it's fine

Marketplace be like:

your creativity never ceases to amaze, what a great watch!

An in-between I've never seen been used but I think would work really well is: Paid for production. You get paid to make the mod, but once the mod is mod, you release it to everyone for free. That ensures the developper's work never goes unrewarded, but from everyone other than the client''s point of view, it pretty much equivalent to someone else making a donation. Hard to argue a mod is paywalled if said mod either doesn't exist, or is availaible for free.

I was thinking about being a mod dev but know with this Eula I am not sure

mmm let me buy my plugins that took 3 days to make, But this mod that took months to make hmmmm that should be free

Personally I don't use many mods that change gameplay or need to be on both server and client, but I tend to play a lot of anarchy. In the anarchy community, there's quite a few paid clients, but these tend to be higher quality than the free ones. These paid clients tend to be updated way more often, and in general just have better support. I know this does not really apply to mods in general, but this is just another example most people don't think of.

IMO, it should be up to the developer to decide whether or not a mod is available for free

As a shader dev I currently do this model: All updates are free and will forever be free for everyone. Tbose big updates happen every few months and in between that time I do beta versions my Patreons have access to. All features from the beta version will be for free in ghe next update. Having a Patreon as a creator is helpful as I get a few extra bucks from something I sepnd hours and hours working on for free otherwise

Wauw i didnt know paid mods are such a bad idea! Thank you for the informative video!

Not gonna say if they should be paid, but even if they where, the ones that are, are arguably overpriced and the ones where is most unnecessary to have a paywall. In my experience the creators I've seen pushing these paid mods probably make enought to pay for the developement and also some profit just with the videos (specially if they are sponsored videos) and these mods tend to be pretty small and simple changes, with the patreons at prices of almost 10$, meanwhile there are giant mods that add hundreds of models and objects or even entire mechanics to the game that are completley free. So even if it was legal or we where fine with mods being paid, I don't think they should cost more than 50 cents or a dollar, specially these smaller ones.

him: talks about how you shouldn’t buy Patreons. also him: Asks you to buy his Patreon

Have to say I was VERY worried when you posted that survey HOW this would turn out. BUT I love your takes and conclusion!

arguably i think the worse trend is modders selling paid for shader packs, and then saying "wElL aCtUaLlY iTs A rESoUrCe pAcK", like my brother in Christ what do you think "mod" stands for?

whimzee literally sells mod

This whole thing kinda reminds me of channels like Digital Dreams, who basically puts a reshade preset and a list of mods (something anyone could replicate given fifteen minutes) behind a paywall

The over monetization of minecraft's custom content community is sickening. in theory it should be fine, but this is money, its going to be exploited. So many things that used to just be free are now being charged for, Texture packs, maps, mods, shaders, ect... The problem is how its presented, its always ALWAYS a monthly subscription, and when every single one of these subscriptions cost 10-15$ it gets VERY expensive to try out all the new content. On average, its probably 140-300$ per month for the bare minimum of popular texture packs maps and shaders, you aren't even guaranteed monthly updates as its to the whim of the content creator not the customer. Its being treated as a service but you are being given a good. There are obvious exceptions, Patrix is the best example of it done well, only 1$ a month with frequent updates. But then you go to PlanetMinecraft and every other post is monetized to a 15$ patreon its just gross. Minecraft isnt the only offender, Skyirm, GTAV, and so so many more games that used to be about free community content is now overly monetized.

But aren't many popular plugins paid, is that also against the eula or not?

1:15 "Why would mojang care?" Simple, microsoft doesnt want us spending money on mods so people who are willing to spend money go to buy it from them in the bedrock marketplace.

Better yet, why doesn't mojang do something like auditioning for eligibility? Maybe if Mojang gives certain creators the go ahead, a symbol saying "we trust you to do the right thing" some people can actually start making money off their mods

I love how JetStarfish’s video got so popular yet so many people hated it.

Didn't expect to see "HER" in the youtube scroll in the beginning

I think a big issue could be money incentivising people into the wrong directions.

What about the market place? Why is it ok there

"... culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it" ~~ Hakita, Developer of ultrakill

Damn right passion isn’t edible.

i see a lot of youtube creators creating cool minecraft mods that i’d love to try out, but they’re always hidden behind their patreon which i don’t want to subscribe one month to just for a mod.

Idea for the next video: WorldEdit have abandoned Forge due to some issues with the recent updates. I've noticed more mods doing the same. Pixelmon is having some issues with NBT with Forge as well. What is happening with Forge?

They should make a mod subscription :3

1:22 Correction: there should be “else” before “anyone” and “using”

would the same apply for shaders and texture packs?

something i worry with any creators paywalling mods is one of the biggest issues in the sims 4 mod community currently -- people keeping outdated and broken mods behind a paywall for years without even ~trying~ to fix them