"Let me cut to the chase and clarify right now that this system definitely isn't going to let any mod author quit their day job," Scott wrote. "However, it should fulfill that original wish many mod authors have expressed for years now of wanting at least a little something tangible back from their modding hobby, even if it's just some recognition and a couple of free coffees/beers each month to keep them topped up while they're working on their mods.
Gamers Go Makers Mods
Mods have arguably become an increasingly important factor in the commercial success of some games, as they add depth to the original work,[3] and can be both fun for players playing the mods and as means of self-expression for mod developers.[4]
People can become fans of specific mods, in addition to fans of the game they are for, such as requesting features and alterations for these mods.[4] In cases where mods are very popular, players might have to clarify that they are referring to the unmodified game when talking about playing a game. The term vanilla is often used to make this distinction. "Vanilla Minecraft", for example, refers to the original, unmodified game.
As early as the 1980s, video game mods have also been used for the sole purpose of creating art, as opposed to an actual game. This can include recording in-game actions as a film, as well as attempting to reproduce real-life areas inside a game with no regard for game play value. This has led to the rise of artistic video game modification, as well as machinima and the demoscene.
Many mods are not publicly released to the gaming community by their creators.[1] Some are very limited and just include some gameplay changes or even a different loading screen, while others are total conversions and can modify content and gameplay extensively. A few mods become very popular and convert themselves into distinct games, with the rights getting bought and turning into an official modification, or in some cases a stand-alone title that does not require the original game to play.
Doom (1993) was the first game to have a large modding community.[6] In exchange for the technical foundation to mod, id Software insisted that mods should only work with the retail version of the game (not the demo), which was respected by the modders and boosted Doom's sales. Another factor in the popularity of modding Doom was the increasing popularity of the Internet, which allowed modding communities to form.[7] Mods for Quake (1996) such as "Capture the Flag" and "Team Fortress" became standard features in later games in the shooter genre.[6] While first-person shooters are popular games to mod,[7] the virtual pet genre with games such as Petz (1995) and Creatures (1996) fostered younger modders, particularly girls.[8]
Mod-making tools are a variety of construction sets for creating mods for a game. Early commercial mod-making tools were the Boulder Dash Construction Kit (1986) and The Bard's Tale Construction Set (1991), which allowed users to create game designs in those series. Much more successful among early mod-making tools was the 1992 Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures from Strategic Simulations, Inc., which allowed users to construct games based on the game world that was launched with the Pool of Radiance game.
By the mid 1990s, modding tools were commonly offered with PC games,[9] and by the early 2000s, a game that launched with no modding tools was considered more worthy of note in a review than one that did.[10] Maxis released the modding tools for The Sims (2000) before the game itself, resulting in a suite of fan-created mods being available at launch.[7] The advertising campaign for Neverwinter Nights (2002) focused on the included Aurora toolset.[7] The World Editor for Warcraft III (2002) allowed a variety of custom scenarios or maps to be created for the game, such as a number of tower defense and multiplayer online battle arena maps, the most notable of which was Defense of the Ancients.[11][12] The provision of tools is still seen as the most practical way that a company can signal to fans that its game is open for modding.[13] Fans may also use and create open-source software tools for modding games.[14]
There are also free content delivery tools available that make playing mods easier. They help manage downloads, updates, and mod installation in order to allow people who are less technically literate to play. Steam's "Workshop" service, for example, allows a user to easily download and install mods in supported games.[15]
For advanced mods such as Desert Combat that are total conversions, complicated modeling and texturing software is required to make original content. Advanced mods can rival the complexity and work of making the original game content (short of the engine itself), rendering the differences in ease of modding small in comparison to the total amount of work required. Having an engine that is for example easy to import models to, is of little help when doing research, modeling, and making a photorealistic texture for a game item. As a result, other game characteristics such as its popularity and capabilities have a dominating effect on the number of mods created for the game by users.
A game that allows modding is said to be "moddable". The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as well as its predecessors, The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, are examples of highly moddable games, with an official editor available for download from the developer. Daggerfall was much less moddable, but some people released their own modifications nevertheless. Some modifications such as Gunslingers Academy have deliberately made the game more moddable by adding in scripting support or externalizing underlying code. Supreme Commander set out to be the 'most customisable game ever' and as such included a mod manager which allowed for modular modding, having several mods on at once.[citation needed]
For cross-platform games, mods written for the Windows version have not always been compatible with the Mac OS X and/or Linux ports of the game. In large part, this is due to the publisher's concern with prioritizing the porting of the primary game itself, when allocating resources for fixing the porting of mod-specific functions may not be cost-effective for the smaller market share of alternate platforms. For example, Battlefield 1942, ported by Aspyr for Mac OS X, had file access issues specific to mods until the 1.61D patch. Unreal Tournament 2004 does not have a working community mods menu for the Mac OS X version and, until the 3369 patch, had graphics incompatibilities with several mods such as Red Orchestra and Metaball.
Also, mods compiled into platform-specific libraries, such as those of Doom 3, are often only built for the Windows platform, leading to a lack of cross-platform compatibility even when the underlying game is highly portable. In the same line of reasoning, mod development tools are often available only on the Windows platform. id Software's Doom 3 Radiant tool and Epic Games' UnrealEd are examples of this.
After the Hot Coffee mod incident, there were calls from the industry to better control modders.[6] There is concern about mods which show nudity, and Bethesda does not allow mods with nudity to be uploaded on its website. Nexus allows for mods which allow nudity as long as nudity is not present in the preview image. One of the most popular mods of this type is Caliente's Beautiful Bodies Edition, which allows for body modification in Skyrim and Fallout 4, and has been downloaded at least 8.2 million times.[19]
The Internet provides an inexpensive medium to promote and distribute user created content like mods, an aspect commonly known as Web 2.0. Video game modding was described as remixing of games and can be therefore seen as part of the remix culture as described by Lawrence Lessig,[24] or as a successor to the playful hacker culture which produced the first video games.[10]
Mods can be both useful to players and a means of self-expression.[4] Three motivations have been identified by Olli Sotamaa for fans to create mods: to patch the game, to express themselves, and to get a foot in the door of the video game industry.[4] However, it is very rare for even popular modders to make this leap to the professional video game industry.[25] It has been noted that these motivations encompass intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.[26] Poor suggests becoming a professional is not a major motivation of modders, noting that they tend to have a strong sense of community, and that older modders, who may already have established careers, are less motivated by the possibility of becoming professional than younger modders.[1]
Mods can extend the shelf life of games, such as Half-Life (1998), which increased its sales figures over the first three years of its release. According to the director of marketing at Valve, a typical shelf-life for a game would be 12 to 18 months, even if it was a "mega-hit".[28] In early 2012, the DayZ modification for ARMA 2 was released and caused a massive increase in sales for the three-year-old game, putting it in the top spot for online game sales for a number of months and selling over 300,000 units for the game.[29] In some cases, modders who are against piracy have created mods that enforce the use of a legal game copy.[30]
Due to the increasing popularity and quality of modding, some developers, such as Firaxis, have included fan-made mods in official releases of expansion packs. A similar case is that of Valve, when they hired Defense of the Ancients lead designer IceFrog in developing Dota 2.
For example, a number of fan-made maps, scenarios and mods, such as the "Best of the Net" collection and "Double Your Pleasure", were included in the Civilization II expansion Fantastic Worlds and the Civilization III expansion Play the World,[32] and in the Civilization IV expansion Beyond the Sword, two existing mods, Rhye's and Fall of Civilization[33] and Fall from Heaven were included with the expansion (the latter through a spin-off called Age of Ice[34]). Sid Meier, who had opposed supporting mods in Civilization II, said that "the strength of the modding community is ... the very reason the series survived".[35] 2ff7e9595c
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