If you want examples of games where the situation with mods is much worse than it is for Skyrim, you could look at literally any other game that exists. For one indication of that, if you look at the front page of nexusmods.com right now it appears to list the games it covers in order of mod files downloaded. Skyrim is #1 (SE) and #2 (LE) on the list. The next three are other Bethesda games. Skyrim Special Edition is ahead of the first non-Bethesda game on the list by an order of magnitude. You will not find a game anywhere else offering anything like the quantity, quality, and diversity of mods that Skyrim has, and this is a large part of the reason it ranks among the best-selling games of all time.
They’re mad to try and mess with the model that has proven itself more successful than anything else for more than a decade.
If you want examples of games where the situation with mods is much worse than it is for Skyrim, you could look at literally any other game that exists. For one indication of that, if you look at the front page of nexusmods.com right now it appears to list the games it covers in order of mod files downloaded. Skyrim is #1 (SE) and #2 (LE) on the list. The next three are other Bethesda games. Skyrim Special Edition is ahead of the first non-Bethesda game on the list by an order of magnitude. You will not find a game anywhere else offering anything like the quantity, quality, and diversity of mods that Skyrim has, and this is a large part of the reason it ranks among the best-selling games of all time.
They’re mad to try and mess with the model that has proven itself more successful than anything else for more than a decade.
I would argue that had much more to do with the fact that Bethesda is one of the very few companies who provide a decent SDK alongside their games.