Antiwhippy
the holder of the trombone
That's how Bethesda is spinning it right now. If other publishers start going down this path, maybe 10 years from now mods as we know them today don't exist.
This isn't about something being free or not free (users have always had the option to support modders and this is why the scene still exists!). It's about publishers getting their hands on what I consider to be one of the last and purest forms of user interaction with their games and squeezing even more money out of it for themselves.
Depends on the revenue split really. If they're actually providing a proper infrastructure then yeah there probably should be a split to pay for using that infrastructure. If it's unfair we'll have to see how the market reacts to it.
Hell, valve has been doing it for years now with TF2 and Dota 2.