Can we sell professional mods?

I would think you would have to buy a license to the engine you would be using if you were going to profit from it.

I certainly doubt that. But if you have an idea for a total conversion maybe you could talk to StarDock about it and they might green light it?

No - read the license agreement.

from wikipedia

In December 2003, TGTSoft sued Stardock and Brad Wardell for declarative relief, claiming that they should be able to use the IconPackager .iptheme file format without charge. Many open source programs do read and write proprietary file formats without paying royalties—for example, OpenOffice.org reads and writes Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft Office  files. However, Stardock maintained that they should be entitled to royalties or a license fee on such software, particularly as TGTSoft was charging money for their products and because it was considered likely that their users would use the WinCustomize libraries, which are run with help (monetary and otherwise) from Stardock. The case was eventually settled out of court, with TGTSoft licensing the format for use with their products.

Okay, so if we made a (non-stand alone) mod we couldn't sell it, despite the fact that in order to use the mod people would have to have bought Elemental. That is good to know.

Bit of a pitty though because for all the effort I would have to put into making new races, new monsters, ect... I could sell those art assets somewhere else. I guess I was just hoping that I could have been paid for modding . That way when my wife asked what I was doing I could have said "working" instead of "playing".

Ahh well I guess I will stop making my minotaur race and get back to work...

 Note, that this image is just a simple work flow that I originally hoped to demo to find a team.

Modding is a way for fans to participate to the game's development, not a way to make a quick buck.  That's why modders are called fans and not employees.

But I suppose that it wouldn't be impossible to reach some kind of deal with Stardock about some kind of "Premium Modules" a la Neverwinter Nights? One would expect something more than a "mod" in those cases though. More like a new game based on the game engine or developer level mod. imho

Well if you make a great mod, and not just some races, a lot of dev teams these days look at modders for potential new workers and companies look at high profile mods for stand alone games.

Yeah, i wouldnt write it off until you have talked to SD yourself redcap21.

If your content is good enough to meet their demands it might be possible that they either would

A. Buy it and use it in the game in a microexpansion or similar

B. Make it available as a paid mod

Only way of knowing is by asking, but i would think that they would have demands for the quality of the content (no pun intended looking at the current state of Elemental!)

fujisawasensei, yes I know and I appreciate that; it is so cool to see the mods a lot of people have already made without any hopes of financial reward.

When it comes to reskinning an already exsiting model or playing with the particle system it is realitively easy to make changes to the game. I was hoping to make brand new races, new skills, and more monsters then the common darkiling, spider, wolf, bear, bandit. I am a fan and will dabble in mods here and there, but I was hoping that there might have been a monetary way to drive full fledged mods.

Moddling, unwrapping, skinning, rigging, and animating a entirely new 3d asset is something beyond the skills of many, but more importantly, even as a fan it would take a very long time to produce a new 3d asset on a fan's schedule.

So though we will see some awesome mods, I think it is safe to say that the primary bottleneck for modders is going to be good 3d assets. Lets hope that I am completely wrong, which is likely

Edit: In the time it took me to respond to fujisawasensei several more people posted.

So as a general response, I think I would be interested to hear from stardock concerning this. The nice thing about selling a mod would be no one would buy a mod if it was pathetic, thus only truly original mods could be sold in the first place. So I will sit tight and wait to see their response, and if it is "no" then I will still be quite content with my new game Elemental.

Stardock lets professional skinners sell their work at wincustomize.com, so I would not be surprised if Stardock eventually allowed professional modders to sell their work for low prices via Impulse.

also, if you make awesome enough mods, you can find yourself a job

I believe there are rumors of a stand alone Fall From Heaven game in the works... you never know! However, as everyone said, you can't just make a mod and expect to legally sell it. That'd ruin modding for everyone. tbh.

But yeah, it could look REALLY good on a resume.

my recommendation would be to talk to stardock/brad and maybe they would be cool with it on some level, they are unlike any other game company. 

My suggestion is to make the best mods you can if you have fun doing it, and it may lead to a position in the industry or even at Stardock.  I would not hold your breath though on any company, even a smaller one like Stardock, allowing you to make money off of their product.  There are enough people willing to give the game additional features and life for free as a hobby.

This actually happened to a couple of the top modders for Thief 2: The Metal Age(The entire Thief series, btw, is my absolute favorite).  Their maps were so good that they were actually recruited onto the design team for Thief: Deadly Shadows, and the result was the Shalebridge Cradle mission which was not only one of the best in the game, but one of the best of the entire series. 

I would encourage you to continue this mod...if not as a playable race, as an npc race.  The art you have posted there looks fantastic and fits perfectly with the game.  I think it would be a great addition.

And possibly the most creepiest level in a game ever!

I've been wondering this as well.  I just checked the EULA and...

"YOU MAY NOT:

8. Include "mods" in any commercial products intended for manufacture, distribution, or sale."

But, if you can somehow include them in the money making I can't see them minding.

Develop a working prototype (alpha/beta level to prove you can do what you say) and come up with a proposal, then talk to Stardock!

There a plenty of examples of game mods that became expansion packs or games.

- The Fall from Heaven 2 Mod, is now being developed into it's own game.

- The mod War Plan Orange for War in the Pacific, became it's own game .

- War in the Pacific Admirals Edition was done mostly by moders.

- Several games for the unreal engine started out as mods.