Bethesda has no plans to slow down on paid mods, Todd Howard says he wants to get Creations 'in front of more people'

Bethesda's paid mods program has been controversial from the start, and the publisher will continue leaning into its user-generated content business model moving forward.

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Right from the get-go, Bethesda's Creation Club was heavily criticized among gamers. Mods are a big reason why Bethesda games are so timeless--the free player-created content can expand the game well past its original limits and unlock all kinds of new experiences that weren't possible at launch. Before it was acquired by Microsoft, Bethesda decided to get into mods, treating them as microtransactions that creators could sell, and the Creation Club was born.

The program has changed since it was introduced in August 2017. At the time, Bethesda made both free and paid mods available in Skyrim Special Edition and Fallout 4, initially separating the paid content from the digital mods that gamers could download for free. Now, however, free and paid mods are lumped together and the program is simply called Creations.

Even with a new name, the initiative still isn't popular with gamers.

The recently-released Fallout 4 Anniversary Edition--which we predicted before it was announced--introduced one of the most negatively-charged pieces of content in Bethesda's history--the ill-fated Fallout 4 Creations Bundle, a collection of premium user-created paid mods.

Despite the backlash, and the continued unpopular sentiment around the UGC marketplace, Bethesda will continue its Creations program into the future--including both free and paid mods.

In a recent interview with Mortismal Gaming, Bethesda's Todd Howard briefly talked about Creations, saying that the team is pretty happy with where it's currently at when it comes to operations. However, it sounds like Bethesda wants more people to try out the program, as Howard also says that more exposure would help.

"I think the good news is that [Creations] is a really healthy community.

"I think when you go into 'paid mods,' and we've had a couple stabs at it with some success and some issues...we really like where we're at, our creators are great, we've seen that kind of rise all boats.

"There's great content here, go into the menu and check it out. We're really, really happy with that program, with how it's going, from the free stuff, the paid stuff, and our own stuff.

"I think our issue now is getting that content in front of more people, because we think it's so good. I think we have a little bit of friction still with how our audience gets that stuff and plays it."

Starfield, Bethesda's latest RPG, has been getting quite a few pieces of premium user-generated paid mod content throughout the years, and seems to be the latest proving ground for new creations. The Elder Scrolls 6 is likewise expected to support the Creations system as well.