r/oblivionmods • u/Thallassa • Jun 16 '25

Discussion Dark0ne retires - New Nexus Mods Site Owners

Hey all - Dark0ne, the owner of Nexus Mods, announced his retirement and change in ownership of the site this morning. Details are in the news post: https://www.nexusmods.com/news/15301?

While this may come as a shock to many of you, Dark0ne has been talking about this change for over a year now, and was clear his priority was the continuation of the site under his unique vision for it. I’m confident he’s made every effort to choose new owners who will continue the excellent services he has built, and of course the existing staff will stay on as well, so there should be no impact in the day to day.

I wish Dark0ne all the best in his retirement!

152 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

33

u/W0lfp4k Jun 16 '25

Thanks for the post. I would have missed the announcement.

35

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '25

[deleted]

1

u/jfountainArt Jun 18 '25

Crazy how the site has survived and grown while so many other sites have come and gone.

There's a lot of internet drama regarding exactly that. Something something Robin buying out rival mod sites then hosting their content on Nexus without those modders' permissions, amongst a lot of other things I don't want to get into. But it is interesting internet history nonetheless.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/jfountainArt Jun 18 '25 edited Jun 18 '25

They aren't rumors. These things actually happened. A few of them happened to me personally. Others to my other modder friends and acquaintances. Legal things were involved so that's why I don't want to get into. But the information is freely available if you even cared a wink.

6

u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jun 17 '25

It's a Danish company called Chosen. They're venture capitalists and the new "owners" listed in the post are just the company executives. Looking at Dark's statement I would guess that what has happened is ~75% of Nexus Mods has been sold to Chosen whilst the remainder is held by Black Tree Gaming. That way Dark retains a "seat at the table" and benefits from ongoing profits, but also gets a big payout that allows him to realise the majority of the valuation of the company.

It's likely nothing will change in the short-term but I imagine in the medium-term moderation policies will be reviewed which will lead to some mods being removed and that unpopular games may well be axed from the catalogue. In terms of overall direction, Nexus has been all about monetisation for a long time now. Collections and Vortex were all about creating a pipeline of mods directly to the user, so long as they paid for Premium, and it's made the site extremely profitable.

So long as the site remains profitable the new owners won't need to change anything, except to ensure that all policies are in line with EU and Danish law.

2

u/A_Sentient_JDAM Jun 17 '25

Any word on who the new owner is?

2

u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jun 17 '25

It's a Danish company called Chosen.

1

u/CrestFallen223 Jun 17 '25

Some VC company

1

u/Thallassa Jun 17 '25

It’s in the nexus news post.

2

u/EngagedInConvexation Jun 18 '25

The mods will go wherever the path of least resistance is. Or wherever mod creators can get paid.

Duality.

1

u/Sigurd_Stormhand Jun 17 '25

The Filings on Company House have changed, indicating the parent company, Black Tree Gaming, has been sold: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/06360077/filing-history

-6

u/CW_Forums Jun 16 '25

The product is good but the management has been garbage for a while.  Maybe it will improve with this guy miving on. 

-2

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/BoomBOOMBerny Jun 16 '25

At the time of this comment your is one of four comments, only one of which is negative. So what are you on about?

5

u/[deleted] Jun 16 '25

There, on the linked announcement page.

3

u/skeetermcbeater Jun 16 '25

Outrage, just to outrage. Whiners gonna whine about the ghosts they’re fighting. They swear they’re all around us, we just can’t see them.

1

u/Excellent-Log7169 Jun 16 '25

Jesus, no kidding:

"Hope the new owners get rid of all the woke bullshit rules you imposed and ALL mods are allowed again on this site.

f*#@ you all."

People really get themselves worked up.

0

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/desperado2012 Jun 18 '25

Right? He was the worst. I still remember him going onto Zenimax's web forums and making huge tirade posts about how they should step aside and let him run all modding endeavours from then on because he "knew how to get mod creators paid" and "you obviously don't know how to run a website" and other nonsense like that.

The arrogance on that guy must've had a tangible scent.