Today I came across a news piece on GameZone claiming that "Nude Females" is the most popular mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

I fully expect gutter press and Fox News-like media outlets to try their hardest in order to paint gamers as sex-starved basement dwellers, but to see an actual gaming site using flawed data to fabricate a controversial headline aimed towards the same goal is a little disturbing.

The article claims that the "Nude Females" mod is the most popular between the community because it's been downloaded on the Curse network 26,294 times (actually 29,316 times at the time of this writing), and that's undoubtedly a whole lot of downlods, but as I hinted at above, the research behind it is fatally flawed.

The simple reason is that anyone that has the slightest knowledge and experience about the Skyrim modding community (or the Elder Scrolls modding community in general) knows that the place to go for mods is not Curse, but SkyrimNexus, the Skyrim-focused spinoff of the extremely popular TESNexus that played host to the largest part of the modding community through Morrowind and Oblivion. 

Quite obviously that large part of the community didn't suddenly move to Curse, but just shifted to SkyrimNexus. The numbers are undeniable: The same "Nude Females" mod on SkyrimNexus has been downloaded 71,658 times. Now That is a whole lot of downloads. It's almost two and a half times those on Curse, making Curse's numbers just a tad irrelevant.

Now, while that's a very sizable number of downloads, is "Nude Females" the most popular? Not even close. The most popular Skyrim mod is "No More Blocky Faces" (That I already featured in my weekly "The Skyrim Mod Forge" column), with 123,790 downloads on SkyrimNexus. That's more than enough to abundantly surpass the numbers of "Nude Females" on SkyrimNexus and Curse combined.

Mind you, "Nude Females" isn't even the runner-up, as that spot belongs to "FXAA Post Process Injector" with 122,212 downloads on SkyrimNexus alone.

One could say that "No More Blocky Faces" is still a mod based on aesthetics, but it definitely doesn't share the same goal (and looks a whole lot better). Turns out that the modding community of Skyrim and those that enjoy it aren't nearly as sex-crazed as someone would like us to believe.

If you want to learn more about the best Skyrim mods you may want to read my "The Skyrim Mod Forge" weekly column. Here are the available episodes: Episode Zero - Baby Steps, Episode 1 - Large Address, Steady Growth and Lips, Episode 2 - Mod Managing, Beauty and Dragons, Episode 3 - More Beauty, Divorce and Small Details, Episode 4 - Even More Beauty, Fashion and a Better HUD, Episode 5 – Hair, Flora and Weapons from Morrowind, Episode 6 – Handsome Men, More Hair and Armor From The Witcher 2, Episode 7 – Swords, Ice, Spells, Fashion and Realistic Light, Episode 8 – Cats, Shouts, Hideouts and Swords from LOTR, Episode 9 – Armor, Soul Gems and More Swords from LOTR, Episode 10 – Rainbow Colors, Weapons, Armor and Witcher Gear, Episode 11 – Companions, Pretty Faces and More from The Witcher 2, Episode 12 – Houses, Lovely Hairstyles and Riding Like a Boss, Episode 13 – Lovely Hair, Armor from The Witcher 2 and Hundreds of Books.