That's because without the base game, there wouldn't be any mods. I agree, without the mods the game is quite dull, but I nonetheless support it on Patreon, because the mixture of both is interesting.
Actualy, that statemen is wrong. Without mods game will have only cca 5% audience, if not less.
And modders are experienced enough to develop game alone, and based on codes, i can say they are even better coders.
I cant recall any game mechanic introduced by game dev in last 2 years which is outside what modders did.
Ok, ok, mayby animations, but that is not realy desired or needed.
Onlyest think that moders dont do is creating new pics - bodies/clothes, and thats all.
And dev so far failed to listen to moders to add another layer to pics, for easy of adding accesories - cigaretes, rings, necklacess... Etc.
So if any modder with graphic skill will pop up there, moders will be fully capable of dwveloping that game, alone.
Faster, with more features and less bugs.
Even simply coping bugfix of mods to core game will be great for moders, yet, dev dont do that, for reason unknown.