id Software Wanted to Pay Quake Modders 20 Years Ago

id Software considered paying modders for their creations in 1996's Quake, industry veteran and longtime mod facilitator John Romero has told GamesIndustry. 

"I've always believed that mod makers should be able to make money from their creations," Romero noted. "In 1995, while we were making Quake, we had the idea to start a company called id Net. This company would be the portal that players would connect to and play other mod maker's creations.

"It was to be a curated site, levels and mods chosen by us at id, and if we put your content on our network we would pay you an amount equal to the traffic that your content drove to the site. The idea was that players would log in and be in a big level that felt like a castle with lots of doorway portals and signage that explained where you were going and what was there."

However, Romero said the developer didn't bring the concept to fruition because the studio's entire staff was needed just to ensure development of Quake was successfully completed.

Despite this, Romero continues to believe that modders should be financially compensated for their creations.  

"I still believe that creators should be rewarded for their hard work," Romero added. "That's what we do in our game companies, why would it be so different for outsiders?"

Last week, after less than a week, Valve pulled paid mods from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim due to a series of logistical issues and user feedback. While Valve admitted that it had not being fully aware of what might happen once paid mods went live, they insist it could be a "useful feature" elsewhere.  

Skyrim's publisher Bethesda defended paid mods shortly before they removed, commenting, "We completely understand the potential long-term implications allowing paid mods could mean. We think most of them are good. Some of them are not good. Some of them could hurt what we have spent so long building. We have just as much invested in it as our players."

Had id Software found a way to make id Net a reality, paid mods might very well be an industry norm today.