Or there is the other side to this where modders are doing it not for money, but for the joy new content brings to users. The drive to make money infects and destroys artistic quality. I don't want it anywhere near my mods.

I don't like this because there are a lot of bad mods out there for games and to pay for a crappy mod would not be fun. 

No I don't want to pay for mods.

And if I made a mod I would want people to play it and charging for it would reduce that number. Many would not pay for community mods.

Wrong. I cannot convey my disdain for this way of thinking. Money is not something evil that corrupts the 'holy artistic qualities' you speak of. I do not want to get into a philosophical argument about art, so let me just state my point of view. As I see it, the fact most mods are a hobby (or 'pure art') is the exact thing that make most mods so bad. Regardless of the medium, I expect an amateur work to be inferior to a professional (the difference between the two is 'does he get paid for doing that?'), so it is no wonder we have so few really good mods. In my honest opinion, increased incentive for great works would increase the amount and quality of available great works.

I direct your attention to the first Elemental game. Fiscal success and critical acclaim (or however you want to judge a game's quality) do tend to go hand in hand. I didn't do the actual statistical analysis, but Frogboy himself said metacritic score is an indication of success.

Why would you pay for a bad mod? There would be a rating system and all that jazz you find in any bloody list of anything on the internet. I would suggest any modder to put a new mod up for free as a kind of beta, and start charging for it only when he has enough positive reviews to draw in new costumers.

So would I, but there's this degree I'm in the middle of. Maybe in a couple of years. But that's not what you mean, is it? The concepts of who's working for whom are irrelevant in this discussion. The point here is people voting with their wallet, hopefully for better mods.

You make some good arguments and if you think about it, Derek Paxton is a great example of someone that turned an epic mod into a resume booster. Now he is doing FE. But monetizing mods would have massive legal liabilities and really limit the content of mods. In much of my quests, I take plots and stories from my favorite shows and books. Quality control and price setting would also be a hassle. And all of this is assuming there would even be a market for it. Beyond that, DRM would be the only way to allow modders to mod, but not let files be shared from a customer to a friend or pirate. DRM would make the whole thing annoying. After all that, there would be tons of modders that could make legal claims to profits because we often need each other's help when modding. So, as in business, innovation and other information would become a commodity. That would mean less overall innovation. The whole thing would be tedious and cause modding to become just as inefficient as the business world is today. The inspiration of a good modder is joy of the art of modding. Money would not increase that impetus, but fill our community with those only fueled by greed. Their quality will only be as good as the money they are paid and I doubt it will be much. 

I am much more excited about free information. Our society has gone the route of information as a commodity, where I believe this system would work more efficiently. If every company, university, and person had equal access to all the world's information and everyone worked in unison towards the goal of quality in their respective fields, it would be magnitudes more effective than the competition that capitalism fosters. Modders work more efficiently with a collective interest towards innovation and quality. It is not us that should conform to the capitalist system, but the capitalist system that should conform to us. 

I am not saying that modding can never be monetized. I just think that it would have to be a massively popular game where modding is streamlined and this concept is built into the game design. The problematic legal system we would have to deal with is the biggest hurdle that would have to be climbed. The world is simply not ready for this kind of change.

Well there you have it. I was born in either the wrong dimension or the wrong time-space. I just don't like what money does to a society. 

Heck most of the new games put out are crap and have pushed me too the point i no longer buy new games and now you want to charge for mods?    Mods are put out by people who love the game they are modding and want to build on it and if you want me too pay it better be damn good or your whole mod for cash scheme will go down in flames with the first few mods put out by greedy developers who spoil it by going for the quick cash.

One note- In the post I use Stardock as an example (instead of "the company"), since we are all familiar with the company, the game and everything.

Legal issues could indeed be a problem, though in many cases, not.

In your example of taking a story from a book, that's a common thing to do. How many worlds (Elemental included!) are based on "the great empire fell to a catacalysm some hundred years ago."? Elemental, Dragon Lance saga, just to name a couple. Does that means that Elemental have to pay revenues to the Dragon Lance writers for the idea?

There might be some such problems, but in many cases it can be solved.

Paying for mods- Assuming we are not all pirates, if I can allow myself to pay 40$ for a brand new game (say, civ5), and later on 10$ for its DLC content, I could just as well pay the same 10$ for a mod-content.

Money distribution (among the team) would most likely go as a contract. Most works has a credit section- everyone's signature will have to be put, and arranged between them. If a problem arise, any of the members may put a hold, as well as copyrights, to remove the mod from the market until the issues are cleared.

This means that if I use the works of a composer who dictated his work to be used non-commercially only, and he dislikes my use, he can put a hold on everything I do until Stardock, me and him clear the issue.

Money ruining the mod community- just one thing I want to say is, that in many cases, each game has only a few "spectacular" mods, the rest, to the community mind, are either "bad" or not in the stage to be used. FFH was a spectacular mod that got as a mod example to Civ4 (FFH1, not 2). While the effects might have unforseen results such as degrading or uplifting the community, I don't believe we can just state it.

A way to make the whole money for mod payment can be as follows: Stardock releases Kumquat (I believe this is the engine name), with an official mod named E:FE, for 40$. People who "own" the engine, may build maps and mods, as well as download them (a slightly different version of this is the CryEngine, where the company released the Crysis games as a trailer to the engine, with the plans to earn the big bucks from selling the rights to the engine). Maps could be sent to Stardock for approval. Depends on the value a map is given (from 1c to 1$, I have no idea) it's sold independently/in a bundle or an other system. This system can go around many ways, such as selling it directly to Stardock, or any number of ways.

Mods are a little trickier- I'd say that mods will be free to use, and if it gets popular the modder may sign a deal with Stardock. In a sense, he is working for Stardock. We can see how a person who made a great mod (Derek) got into a high position. The same way, the company can hire the modder, as it sees him as an asset to the game.

An option for the "I don't want to pay for something I know nothing about" is the Android Market system, with their 24h 1 time money return (if you buy an app and dislike, you can cancel the order in 24h, money returned, no questions asked, once per app).

DRM- Most pirates are cracking the game, and maybe the patches. SOTS2 for example, is a game I won't touch without testing firsthand, but there is no crack from the past half a year out. (Note- I do not support piracy, but badly released games are not something I will ever support, either) It's relatively safe to assume that the modding community will be protected like the online-play.

One last thing, regarding the money degarding the quality: In a different entertainment brunch we got Comics, and the Web Comics. Many comics cost a small amount (5$? There are no such shops near my house to know the prices), and web comics are usually free for all. Web comics usually earn revenue either by adverts, or donations. There are people the work full time as web cartoonists, and earn their living in such a way. In some cases, I do believe that we could get some great mods from people that cannot dictate their full time to the project, but would if they could.

I don't think its a good idea to let people sell mods. There wouldn't be a modding scene in the first place if it wasn't free in most cases.

I also haven't seen any good ways to organize a store to sell mods that can't be gamed to push undeserving mods to the top of the charts.

On the flip side, brad mentioned they would look to opening up their engine for other people to make games on. That is what I am waiting for.