Starfield modder threatens to booby trap future paid mods to curb piracy

While the debate over whether mods in general should be free or not rages on, one Starfield modder who charges for their services has issued a warning to those that wish to pirate their mods: Beware of hidden mines.

Modder PureDark, who creates and crafts DLSS mods to bring unofficial NVIDIA DLSS support to various games on day one, restricted access to an “advanced” DLSS3 mod for Starfield, allowing only subscribers to their Patreon to use it. This decision and the decision to use DRM (Digital Rights Management) to authenticate users sparked a debate in the modder community, with many arguing that mods should always be free, while others argue that modders should be paid for their time and effort.

PureDark, who is firmly in the latter camp, believes that $5 isn’t too much for a monthly service that they say provides access to all previously made mods as well as access to new and updated mods. However, users figured out a way to pass the DRM authentication after unsubscribing, so PureDark is responding with a new tactic.

“From now on I will place hidden mines in all my mods to make it harder for these people,” PureDark told IGN in an interview. “They might be able to find and bypass some of them, but they will never know if they have found all of them. The cracked mods will sometimes work, sometimes fail, sometimes work but [be] very wonky, sometimes even crash and they won’t even know if it’s a bug or just them using the cracked version, and they will never have the support I’ve been always providing to my subscribers.”

Starfield players and members of the modding community have previously had issues with PureDark before, even going so far as to warn people about buying their mods because of a supposed instance where their mods “break” each time after a new update, forcing users to pay again to keep using it. While PureDark addressed the issue regarding one-time purchase mods, they seem hell-bent on stopping people from subscribing and unsubscribing and getting past the DRM.

Bethesda has promised official DLSS support in a future major update.