Tarhiel: 'Who is this 'everyone'?'

Every PC gamer, who´s interested in having their game modded, regardless of where they obtain the game.

What you´ve just used is an universalistic argument - you are saying that since every game is connected to digital distribution nowadays, if every digital distribution would implement mod support, then this would be the best model.

That premise falls apart in two places:

- every game is connected to digital distribution nowadays - You actually noticed this yourself by saying that old games would be left out of equation. Not only old games, but also physical copies of many games (regardless of whether it is possible to obtain them digitally or not) would. Not to mention this very site is based on foundation of giving old games back to circulation (meaning selling) - old games, which many of their right holders didn´t believe to be interesting anymore (either to them or players - take note of NightDive Studios´s struggle to obtain NOLF rights). These games wouldn´t be playable anymore and would be slowly lost in time (like tears in rain), if an avid community wouldn´t make unofficial patches/mods, which many time involved dubbing into "pirate" practices (reverse engineering, etc...) - so I wouldn´t condone pirates and their opinions so flatly.

- if every digital distribution would implement mod support - that´s the point, they won´t, because for many of them it´s not feasible (too expensive). There are many digital distributions - Steam, GOG, Humble Bundle, GreenMan Gaming, etc... if every single one of them had their own solution to mod support, modding would become scattered and hard to update (imagine you would want your mod be present on all the sites, where given game is being sold - again, that would lead to delays in updates of your mod and some distributions would be preferred before others - most probably Steam and GOG).

Now wouldn´t it be better if there would be place, where mods would be available for everyone, and not just for some users? I don´t know, places like moddb or Nexus?

Please note, that Bethesda DOES try to monetize their mods, which was predicted immediately after they announced they want their own mod place.
And since gamers went bonkers over this, and rightfully so, they said it´s not actually mods they´re paying for.
What´s gonna stop them from putting a small legal notice to their EULA next time of exclusivity for a certain time for mods hosted on their servers or banning outright putting it anywhere else, unless the creators wanna get paid?
Take note of that, because that´s the most probable path it will go, if everybody would like to have their own little place full of mods.

The mod community grew because it is free - and I would like it to stay that way.

tfishell: Is that GOG's fault or Beamdog's?

EndlessKnight: I too, loathe it when that happens, but that seems more the choice of the publisher and not very much under the control of GOG. At the end of the day, we still have some form of the game available DRM-free. It's not entirely what I would hope for, however.

I suspect that GOG is walking a tightrope with certain companies, trying to get them to accept the risk of no DRM on newer games and they may not wish to dictate too many terms to a publisher. It can't be easy for GOG, trying to please both their customers and publishers. This doesn't mean that it is something that we should accept without complaint, but it's probably good to keep in mind the situation that GOG is in. They do give away free games when they can and have often included upgraded versions of games for free, so we know they at least try.

zielonymlotek: Who won ? There are no winners announced yet ?