Modding is alive and well as Nexus Mods reveals that today, the site has surpassed 10 billion downloads since records began in 2005. Leading the charge are the likes of Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Stardew Valley, but the site acts as an accessible repository for mods for a whopping 2,689 games. In an article posted on the site today, Nexus stressed that it is seeing around 10 million mods downloaded every day – and that number is growing.
Take it and Change it
For PC players, modding a game is the most effective way to make a title truly yours. It’s taking the base formula and twisting it as you see fit, applying graphics packs, introducing alternate character models, installing ‘unofficial patches’, and in some cases, downloading game-sized, fan-created DLC packages.
Nexus Mods is the most popular platform for players looking to download and use mods in their games. It’s one of the most densely populated sites when it comes to files – there are more than half a million mods hosted on the site at present, and talented mod authors are uploading more every day.
In a recent blog post, Nexus Mods’ leadership team tried to help users visualise the magnitude of this milestone:
If every download were a footstep, you could walk to the moon 11 times, or walk The Seven Thousand Steps to High Hrothgar 4,161,464 times. If a file download was made every second, it would take 317 years to download all files.
Here’s what it looks like in a number:
10,000,000,000
In the comments on this post, one user joked that the screaming success of Nexus Mods of late is due to so many games launching in a terrible state that modders need to patch up the holes. There’s some credence to that claim, of course – but we won’t go there.
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