My personal opinion based on past experience, I think that to the dev's, modders, and modding is a double edged sword. Without going into details, on one hand, it encouraged sales, on another it discourages sales. I have heard everything from, "Id like to buy you a beer" to, "everytime i hear that, it drives another nail in the coffin of modablity".
In the end, i think the devs have sided with modding, in that the pros outweigh the cons. Many aspects of SH4 were designed to be more easily modded, and its my understanding that SH5 will stay with that trend, with many files being as easy, or even easier to mod then before. (just scuttlebutt, don't hold me to that) Furthermore, in the past , one of the devs, has made themselves available for questions via email, of which i am grateful for. It's not often you hear of a game developer fielding emails from modders, and even offering ideas of his own.
So overall, i think modders are fairly well liked in general, but maybe not so much if you start costing them sales revenue with newer titles.
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