Mod creators earned $300 million from a single platform in 2025, roughly 30 times what Bethesda’s official paid-mod program has paid out in its entire existence. Overwolf, the company behind CurseForge, has now distributed more than $800 million to creators since launch and is targeting $1 billion per year by 2030. Nexus Mods, the other pillar of PC modding, counts 73.3 million registered users and 22.5 billion lifetime downloads across 4,581 supported games. The gap between community platforms and publisher-run storefronts is the clearest structural fact in modding economics right now. The figures below are drawn from Overwolf’s disclosures reported by Forbes, Nexus Mods network statistics compiled on Wikipedia, Bethesda’s own Creations royalty statement, Modrinth’s published rewards terms, and platform content policies.
TL;DR
- Nexus Mods reported 73.3 million registered users as of April 23, 2026 (Nexus Mods)
- Nexus Mods has served more than 22.5 billion file downloads since launch (Nexus Mods)
- Nexus Mods supported 4,581 games in April 2026, up from 4,403 in March 2026 (Nexus Mods)
- Overwolf paid creators $300 million in 2025, up 25% from $240 million in 2024 (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Cumulative Overwolf creator payouts have passed $800 million (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Overwolf targets $1 billion in annual creator payouts by 2030 (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Overwolf supports 178,000 creators and reports 113 million monthly active users (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Mod downloads across the Overwolf network were projected above 32 billion for 2025, up 33% (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Minecraft leads with 240,000 mods and 93 billion downloads on the Overwolf network (Overwolf, via Forbes)
- Bethesda’s Creations program has facilitated about $10 million in creator royalties total (Bethesda)
- Modrinth splits advertising revenue 75% to creators, 25% to the platform (Modrinth)
- Nexus Mods permits AI-generated content but added a dedicated AI-Generated tag (Nexus Mods)
1. Nexus Mods at Scale
Nexus Mods is the closest thing PC modding has to a public utility, and its network statistics show a site still growing 25 years after it started as a Morrowind fan page. 73.3 million registered accounts and 22.5 billion lifetime downloads put it in the same order of magnitude as mid-sized social platforms, built almost entirely on volunteer uploads. Game coverage is expanding faster than most people assume: the supported-title count rose from 4,403 in March 2026 to 4,581 in April, roughly 178 new games in a month.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Registered users (April 23, 2026) | 73.3 million | Nexus Mods |
| Lifetime file downloads | 22.5+ billion | Nexus Mods |
| Supported games, April 2026 | 4,581 | Nexus Mods |
| Supported games, March 2026 | 4,403 | Nexus Mods |
| Games added between those two counts | approx. 178 | Derived from Nexus Mods figures |
| Site founded (as Morrowind Chronicles) | August 2001 | Nexus Mods history |
| Launched under the Nexus Mods name | September 2007 | Nexus Mods history |
| Ownership change (sold to Chosen) | June 2025 | Reporting on Nexus Mods |
| Operating company | Black Tree Gaming Ltd. | Nexus Mods |
The most-modded titles have barely changed in a decade: Skyrim Special Edition, the original Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout: New Vegas, and Oblivion hold the top five slots by mod count. Source: Wikipedia’s Nexus Mods entry, which compiles the site’s published network statistics.
2. The Creator Payout Economy
Overwolf publishes the only large-scale creator payout figures in modding, and the trajectory is steep. $300 million went to creators in 2025, a 25% increase on 2024’s $240 million, pushing cumulative payouts past $800 million. The company has stated a target of $1 billion in annual payouts by 2030, which would require roughly tripling the 2025 figure inside five years. Distribution is the caveat every aggregate hides: Forbes documented a single Ark modder clearing about $25,000 a month across 44 mods, a figure no median creator approaches.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Creator payouts, 2025 | $300 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Creator payouts, 2024 | $240 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Year-over-year payout growth | 25% | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Cumulative payouts since launch | $800+ million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Target annual payouts by 2030 | $1 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Creators supported | 178,000 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Monthly active users | 113 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Mod downloads projected for 2025 | 32+ billion (+33% YoY) | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Documented top-earner example | approx. $25,000/month, 44 mods | Forbes |
Average payout per creator works out to roughly $1,685 for 2025 if the $300 million were split evenly across 178,000 creators, which it certainly is not; the arithmetic is included only to show how far the headline number stretches. Source: Forbes on Overwolf creator payouts.
3. Download Concentration by Game
Modding is far more concentrated than its long tail of 4,581 supported games suggests. Minecraft alone accounts for 93 billion downloads across 240,000 mods on the Overwolf network, roughly 33 times The Sims’ 2.8 billion despite hosting only 2.4 times as many mods. That ratio is the real lesson: mod count measures community size, download count measures how often an average player reinstalls a modded setup, and the two diverge sharply by genre.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Minecraft mods on the network | 240,000 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Minecraft mod downloads | 93 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| The Sims mods on the network | 100,000 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| The Sims mod downloads | 2.8 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Ark: Survival Ascended mods | 5,100 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Ark: Survival Ascended mod downloads | 1 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Hogwarts Legacy mod downloads | 12+ million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Downloads per mod, Minecraft | approx. 387,500 | Derived from Overwolf figures |
| Downloads per mod, Ark: Survival Ascended | approx. 196,000 | Derived from Overwolf figures |
Ark: Survival Ascended is the outlier worth flagging: 1 billion downloads from just 5,100 mods gives it the second-highest downloads-per-mod ratio here, a signature of server-driven modding where every player on a modded server pulls the same files. Deeper platform context lives in our Minecraft statistics and The Sims statistics roundups.
4. Paid Mods: Two Very Different Numbers
Bethesda has run the most visible publisher-controlled paid-mod program since the Verified Creator Program launched on December 5, 2023, spanning Skyrim Special Edition, Fallout 4, and Starfield. Its cumulative creator royalties come to about $10 million, against Overwolf’s $300 million in 2025 alone. The comparison is not apples to apples, since Overwolf’s payouts come mostly from advertising and in-app revenue rather than direct sales, but that difference is the point: monetizing free mods at scale has outperformed selling curated ones by more than an order of magnitude.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Bethesda Creations cumulative creator royalties | approx. $10 million | Bethesda |
| Verified Creator Program launch | December 5, 2023 | Bethesda / UESP |
| Games covered by Creations | Skyrim SE, Fallout 4, Starfield | Bethesda |
| Overwolf creator payouts, 2025 alone | $300 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Ratio, Overwolf 2025 to Bethesda lifetime | approx. 30x | Derived from both figures |
| Typical premium mod price on Overwolf | $2 to $15 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Premium mod revenue split | 50/50 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Generative-AI content in Bethesda Creations | not permitted | Reporting on Bethesda |
Bethesda’s public position is that the bet is long-term, expecting players to migrate toward curated mods that are guaranteed to work. The counter-evidence is that free-mod platforms kept growing through the same period. Sources: Game Developer on the Creations relaunch and UESP’s documentation of the Verified Creator Program.
5. Revenue Splits Compared
Platform terms are published and directly comparable, which makes this the least ambiguous table in the roundup. Modrinth offers the most creator-favorable advertising split at 75%, while Valve’s 30% commission on paid Workshop items is the most conventional storefront cut. Overwolf sits between the two with different rates for different revenue types: 70% on app revenue, 50% on premium mods.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Modrinth advertising revenue to creators | 75% | Modrinth |
| Modrinth platform share | 25% | Modrinth |
| Modrinth+ subscription price | EUR 4.99/month | Modrinth |
| Share of Modrinth+ subscription routed to creators | 50% | Modrinth |
| Overwolf app revenue share to authors | 70% | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf premium mod split | 50/50 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Valve commission on paid Workshop items | 30% | Valve |
| Modrinth projects hosted | approx. 122,892 | Modrinth statistics |
| Modrinth authors | approx. 52,766 | Modrinth statistics |
Modrinth allocates its creator pool by page views and in-app downloads rather than direct sales, which changes the incentive shape: visibility pays, not just installs. Source: Modrinth’s rewards program terms. Broader storefront economics are covered in our Steam statistics roundup.
6. AI Enters the Mod Stack
Modding hit the generative-AI question earlier than most of the industry because voice is the hardest asset for a volunteer to produce. Nexus Mods’ published position is permissive with a safety valve: AI-generated content is not against the rules, but files may be removed on a credible complaint from an affected creator or rights holder, and the site added a dedicated AI-Generated tag that users can apply to their own pages or vote to apply to others. Bethesda drew the opposite line, excluding generative-AI content from its paid Creations program entirely. The friction is concrete rather than theoretical: voice actors have publicly objected to Skyrim mods that clone their performances without consent.
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nexus Mods stance on AI-generated content | permitted, removable on rights-holder complaint | Nexus Mods |
| Nexus Mods AI-Generated tag | added, user-applied and vote-applied | Nexus Mods |
| Bethesda Creations stance on generative AI | excluded | Reporting on Bethesda |
| Mantella (AI NPC dialogue mod) version | 0.14, April 28, 2026 | Nexus Mods listing |
| Mantella character data file last updated | June 2, 2026 | Nexus Mods listing |
| Mantella pipeline | speech-to-text, LLM, text-to-speech | Nexus Mods listing |
| Free-tier route cited by the mod | local models, or 100 requests/day via OpenRouter | Nexus Mods listing |
Mods like Mantella wire a full voice cloning software pipeline into a 2011 game, giving NPCs live generated dialogue with memory of past conversations. The labor question that raises is covered in our voice acting industry statistics. Sources: Nexus Mods on AI-generated content, TechRadar on voice actor objections, and the Mantella mod page.
Summary: Game Modding by the Numbers
| Metric | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Nexus Mods registered users | 73.3 million | Nexus Mods |
| Nexus Mods lifetime downloads | 22.5+ billion | Nexus Mods |
| Nexus Mods supported games, April 2026 | 4,581 | Nexus Mods |
| Overwolf creator payouts, 2025 | $300 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf creator payouts, 2024 | $240 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf cumulative payouts | $800+ million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf 2030 payout target | $1 billion/year | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf creators supported | 178,000 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Overwolf monthly active users | 113 million | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Network mod downloads, 2025 projection | 32+ billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Minecraft mods / downloads | 240,000 / 93 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| The Sims mods / downloads | 100,000 / 2.8 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Ark: Survival Ascended mods / downloads | 5,100 / 1 billion | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Bethesda Creations lifetime royalties | approx. $10 million | Bethesda |
| Bethesda Verified Creator Program launch | December 5, 2023 | Bethesda / UESP |
| Premium mod price range on Overwolf | $2 to $15 | Overwolf, via Forbes |
| Modrinth creator advertising share | 75% | Modrinth |
| Modrinth+ price | EUR 4.99/month | Modrinth |
| Valve Workshop commission | 30% | Valve |
| Modrinth projects / authors | approx. 122,892 / 52,766 | Modrinth statistics |
| Documented top modder earnings | approx. $25,000/month | Forbes |
Methodology and Sources
- Nexus Mods user, download, and supported-game counts come from the site’s published network statistics as compiled and dated on Wikipedia, since the live stats page blocks automated access (Wikipedia).
- Overwolf and CurseForge payout, creator, user, and per-game figures come from Forbes’ November 2025 report on Overwolf’s disclosures (Forbes).
- Bethesda Creations royalty totals and program scope come from Bethesda’s own statements as reported alongside the Creations expansion, with program mechanics documented by UESP (Game Developer, UESP).
- Revenue-share terms come from each platform’s published documentation: Modrinth’s rewards program information (Modrinth) and Valve’s standard Workshop commission.
- AI content policy comes from Nexus Mods’ own news post on AI-generated content in modding (Nexus Mods), with the voice-actor consent dispute reported by TechRadar (TechRadar).
- Mantella version and pipeline details come from its Nexus Mods listing (Nexus Mods).
- Data watch: three rows in this roundup are labeled as derived, meaning we did the arithmetic on published figures rather than citing a disclosed metric (games added month over month, downloads per mod, and the Overwolf-to-Bethesda ratio). Overwolf’s payouts and Bethesda’s royalties are not directly comparable, since the former is mostly advertising and in-app revenue while the latter is direct mod sales; both are reported here rather than merged into a single “modding economy” figure. Nexus Mods does not publish a monthly active user count, so its 73.3 million is lifetime registrations and cannot be compared with Overwolf’s 113 million monthly actives.
- Nexus Mods’ AI content policy is the most recent published version at the time of writing; the site has stated it may revise it as legal precedents develop.
- Last updated: July 29, 2026. We update this roundup quarterly as new Overwolf payout disclosures and Nexus Mods network statistics are published.