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Petitions do not work:

133,007 supporters signed the petition
Total Skyrim units sold 23,270,000
For a grand total of .57%, not even a whole percent.

Skryim Sales By Platform
XBox 360 - 59 %
Playstation 3 - 27 %
PC - 14 % = 3,257,800 units
Only 4% of the people who play on PC.

Skryim development and marketing budget $85 Million
Total Skyrim sales revenue $1,390,000,000
133,007 people would only be about $7.9M.

Yeah... they would not lose a whole lot of money either. Even if TES was their only source of income.

Heck, you could not count the support of the console gamers, as they would be ecstatic, since those of the PC Master Race are always throwing "We get Mods" in their face.

I actually am glad the feature was brought down, but I am far from content to what all occured. The issue here is two sided, or in truth many sides as opposed to the "They or us" mentality. Valve and the developers are at fault, largely for poor understanding and planning. Some modders are at fault, not for being 'sell outs' but bc of a few they took advantage of a situation and clearly had the wrong mindset.. be that as it may they are still human, and many of good willed modders have taken the spite so wrongfully cast. Lastly many members in the communities are as too in fault, for the toxicity and unreasonable hatred and threats they brought about.

Take note in all three pairings, not all that shared said factions were as 'black & white' as wished. Not everyone at Valve or Beth who had some manner of a role are all that bad, in fact some actually had honest to good reasons(that's right, crucify me for this blasphemy) though to say whether they got altered, twisted, or just blinded in self belief down the road is another story. The believe that modders deserve some form of a reward for their labored work and hours, if not months spent for a single mod. The way they went about this 'experiment' was clearly doomed, but none the less they plan to create this new market, and the ways they can go about that can be for better or worst.

With the modders that chose to partake in the experiment, many even had doubts and concerns, with only a small subset caring only for their own advancement or a means to be ill oppurtunists Let's be frank, if you received an offer personally from a developer to do something that you loved and benefit from a previously voluntary role, even if you have long stopped modding, would you honestly turn down this once in a lifetime chance? This doesn't make them 'sellouts', this makes them human, bc frankly plenty of the folks ranting wouldn't pass up said once in a lifetime opportunity <_< For some of the modders, this gave motif to return to modding where previously their work may have been on permanent hiatus. Now to the few that clearly thought only for the income, not for the content or users, they are clearly had all the wrong reasons and to some degrees deserve just as much of the backlash as Valve/Beth(though the threats are inexcusable). If you wanted to boycott some of these modders so be it, it's your choice, but it largely misses the point if done under the wrong reason and against the wrong modders

As for the actual community, and to a larger degree the internet itself. Not everyone added to the toxicity, threats, and general vile nature. In fact, it serves more as a small subset than a majority, based on that the more vocal, active, and sometimes aggressive individuals draw more of the attention than the silent or well mannered majority. To those that didn't add to the extremes or vileness, may I say it doesn't matter what you supported, the fact that you kept things in moderate and more civil is what's important. As for those that added or escalated the threats, unreasonable behavior, and literal immature actions, is just shameful. It's no excuse to say "Well it's the internet, this is nothing new" doesn't make it any more excusable. Because of these few, some of honest to good modders are likely to never return, both from fear and the harsh treatment Is it really a good thing to lose such great people? People who actually contribute to the community and longevity of the game? And I say people, actual human beings, and not monsters or lowly pieces of [&@%!], but people like you and me. This whole event deeply disgusts me, and not bc of the attempt at creating paid mods

Lastly, I have spoken somewhat of this else where, and in truth I have largely tried to stay aware from the discussion. But I truly do believe modders deserve to be rewarded for their work just like in any other art form, though given the amateur nature many mods portray I do feel the system must cater to just rewards rather than solely rely on moderation. For starters, the market for mods should avoid creating direct profit, with all the borrowed content and license uses that risk legal action, do we really want many of these large companies taking a close look at the community? As soon as a large profit is apparent, ppl will be looking for ways to take cuts from the cash flow, even if it means really vague claims. Rather, I wished modders could earn other forms of benefits, with Valve and Beth only gaining a smaller portion thus relying more on the quantity that generates revenue and encourages promoting obviously good quality content with popularity and contributes to the community. Valve/Beth can very easily highlight certain modders, offering better rewards and thus acknowledging their hard work. This also creates incentive to release more materials and tools to help improve the overall quality, namely resources that normally would go unused as is. Now you could label said individuals as 'sell outs' but in truth we get better mods, likely quicker updates, and adds focus to some of the best of the best.. plus Valve probably wouldn't need permission to do this anyways, and it's unlikely for someone to refuse the aid and if publicity is the issue then there are many ways to go about that(some being a good opportunity to promote lesser known mods if you find yourself too humble). I've also talked of ad revenue being a good means to add benefits, with the views and downloads actually creating a net worth, and is really pre-existing however the modders would now gain a percentage. There is also the already present option to donate, something that should be promoted more and is really drawn to the generosity of the fans I did however see an idea that expands on that, while creating the market place. Modders could simply create an appropriate asking price that doesn't actually require payment, rather a pay what you wish(from less to even greater than the asking price) that can reach the minimum of free. This draws more from that generosity, but also grants the modder a better chance to benefit(ppl are more likely to pay a set amount than an unspecified amount). Obviously Valve/Beth would gain a percentage, and this still fits in with the paid mods model they wished for >_> granted bc it's a market, a refund should be expected after a grace period, and if originally free or less than later deemed, the user can easily donate what they feel fair for the entertainment later on directly to the modder(though this however cannot be refunded). This also still helps modders help cover the costs for voice actors, software/editing, and studio use, the whole process if you haven't noticed rewards modders for their work and a return with better content, a win-win scenario if I don't say so. Also, to those that found issue with some modders removing content only to add them behind a paywall, or only adding the updated or newer versions as so <_< ppl do understand the purpose of competition within a market. If the consumer could get the same product for free else where legally, why would you resort to the paywall? I'm not saying it's 100% right, but it makes perfect sense. Granted, removing all your content only to place them in a paywall is far from my favor, though I can somewhat understand setting newer versions thus creating the demand(while at the same time you could consider the older versions as a free demo). That's not to say I agree with it, but still, largely the way ppl went about this whole thing was poorly implemented, both internally and externally

Even though they removed the feature the damage has been done. That's not to say that Valve or Bethesda are entirely responsible. I'd say the idiots attacking modmakers and threatening them did more damage to the community than this feature would have.

It'll take a long time for these wounds to heal.

Just putting my opinion here. I'm very glad the feature was removed for I think Valve/Bethesda approached this entirely wrong. The idea might sound good but the execution... oh boy the execution...

What about if you update your game and it breaks the mod you paid for? Or if the mod itself has issues, e.g. clashes with other mods (which they WILL do), corrupts save files, refuses to work? Again, you PAID for it. Can Valve ensure the continuous support for them when there's gazillion mods and mod authors there? (No they do not and will not). It's too easy to download mods from the Workshop while not really understanding what you are doing and there's no proper quality-control at all. Since the users would be actual paying customers, this would cause huge issues. Furthermore...
What about mod piracy which ALREADY happened btw? What about copyright issues? What about mods that are a requirement for other mods? What about the modding community? Who the heck would even offer any advice/tutorials/etc anymore since all the other modders become competitors? What about large mods created by several people working together? They are all going to split that 25%? Really encourages large scale multi-person team mods, doesn't it?

There's so many things about this which are just plain wrong and the only ones making real profit were Valve/Bethesda. I didn't believe for a second they started this in order to support modders or add more high quality mods. If they actually did, it surely didn't seem like it. To me, it seemed pretty freaking clear they were just in it for the money since they know mods are a huge part of the PC community and one of the major reasons why Skyrim remains popular. They were for this because they saw it as an opportunity to gain more benefits from the vivid and large modding community. Free advertising and community building? "Pffft, whatever. Let's come up with a system which makes these players directly give us more money!" 75% for Valve/Bethesda and 25% for modder already tells you more than enough AND do not forget that the modders would have only received their money once their profits total $100. Genius! Also, some people listed their 24hr refund option as a good thing. Well yes, EXCEPT that the only refund they accept goes to Steam wallet. Valve wins anyways while the modders might lose their payment and the customers their cash. Not to mention that 24hrs is very little time to test whether the mod will glitch out or not.

One should also think about the long term consequences. Other developers will follow if [&@%!] like this proves profitable enough. They could try to restrict mods for their own exclusive systems/sites (which of course come with their own rules) while trying to shut down any sites out of their control. Like, too bad if you purchased this game from GOG or some other system, these mods only work on Steam. Too bad if you want to make lewd or satirical mods. Not allowed. Also, if a PC exclusive game, why should they even bother with some of their own extra content or small scale DLC when they can just sit back, wait for modders to create this stuff and then grab the money? Of course the modder then gets all the crap and has to carry all the responsibility if the mod doesn't work as intended.

I am NOT against rewarding modders. There’s many of them who do deserve compensation. It was modders who allowed me to properly play my copy of Dark Souls which has a notoriously bad PC port. (In Skyrim Workshop case though, they would expect me to reward Beth/Valve for crap they didn’t bother to fix themselves while giving the actual modder a dime. Screw that!) I'm all for an easy to use system where you could SUPPORT mod makers you like but putting mods behind a pay-wall like this doesn't work. Mods are basically FANworks and they were trying to transform them to 3rd party DLC (with tons of problems). Gamers and modders were both being ripped off.

Lastly, I don't hold ill feelings or blame the modders who jumped at this system (though some made questionable decisions like putting ad pop-ups in the free versions). Frankly, if I had a popular mod, I would be lying if I said I wouldn't be tempted/considering it. Especially if Valve/Bethesda directly contacted me which was the case with some modders. Though the shady 75/25 model with no proper quality-control or support and the fact that the downloaders would become actual paying customers (which changes the entire system)... that could drive me to ditch the idea.
Some of the people behaved downright appalling towards the modders, calling them ill names and giving threats, having absolutely no concept of their point of view. No wonder some of them wanted to leave the whole modding community. The cause for this might be gone (for) now but the damage is done.