Two years ago Bethesda made the disastrous call to start charging for mods. After a wave of anger crashed on Bethesda from fans and modders alike, the company walked back the announcement. Now, Bethesda has released their second attempt at monetizing mods – and it still doesn’t work.

The biggest problem with the Creation Club, and why it’s hard to ever imagine it working, is Nexusmods. For anyone who has ever attempted to mod their game, be it Skyrim, Fallout, or GTA, nexus is the king of modded content. Not only does it feature thousands upon thousands of mods, many of the modders are insanely responsive to the needs of their users, answering questions, fixing bugs, and offering everything they can in ways to improve their free product. Creation Club simply doesn’t have the time or resources to do what thousands of modders can.

We would also expect fewer issues and bugs with the Creation Club since Bethesda is charging for their mods, but in addition to Creation Club forcing users to download content they don’t want, it has reorganized and deleted many users’ mods. Not only is Bethesda forcing a product onto their users, they are forcing a bug-ridden, less qualitative version of something that is already free. Users are also complaining that the pricing makes little to no sense, charging anywhere from $8-$12 for simple armors or skins that are normally free through Nexus.

Normally, we support all efforts to give back to the community, especially financially, but the Creation Club has seemed far more like a cash grab than a community initiative. For instance, when Valve’s Team Fortress 2 community wanted modded content that they could create and purchase, Valve responded much differently.

Valve opened a marketplace for content creators, highlighting the community and the modder above all else and taking a portion of fees for hosting. As a result, many modders made a lot of money and the community benefitted dramatically from improved content. It was also regulated in such a way that it caused no conflicts with the existing game. Creation Club’s approach has taken power out of the community’s hands, made the process a chore, and been far less open about profit sharing. Add onto this the fact that Nexusmods already has a donation tab for modders and there is little reason for the community to embrace the Creation Club whatsoever.

We will have to see what else Bethesda has up their sleeve, but for now, this is looking like the 2015 fiasco all over again.