Will Modding take over?

Who needs the full package anyway?

Published on July 3, 2008 By Roshak In PC Gaming

As people have gotten more savy with computers, and developers are starting to make it more and more possible to mod their games, it ponders the question: Will developers give you the basics of the game, but provide you the tools to finish it to your liking?

Say we have a new RTS game. Its base is a Space Conquest game where you build structures, build units and conquer planets. You buy it. Now they provide you with the AI and programming, a couple of designs, effects etc., but they don't provide you with the actual game because its up to you to finish it.

It would be like the Editors for Galactic Civilizations: Twilight of Arnor to a degree. You would than assemble it like such:

Make workers units to collect resources by inserting "Gatherer" and "Builder" commandlines, along with a design or one you would make yourself. And you would have it for your game.

Create the type of game by providing victory options "conquer X and Y planets" or "Capture this X ship and bring to Y" commandlines. And so on.

The advantage would be that you're provided the components, but ulitimately its you who finishes the game to your liking. So you could make the game you wanted of the engine that the developers made, and provide a longevity for the game. Developers can also create additonal packs for their base game that add more components for you to work with, but you have to buy them. Also you can't yell at the Developers, for balance or over-powered issues because your the one making it. The only thing they could be accounted for are errors and crashes of the engine itself.

The Disadvantage is that you have to finish it which means work for you to actually run the game at all. The other is that Multi-player would be close to impossible because of the vast differences in the game designs of the same engine.

Some of you will bring-up "Well there are plenty of games that have scenario and editors. Heck there's one you just listed!" True. But that's a FULL game that already has a default way of playing. For example you can play as the Dregin empire and conquer the galaxy. In my idea, there would be no such thing. You wouldn't have a Dregin from the beginning, you would have to build a "Dregin", the galaxy, and insert the victory commandline yourself..

So in a nutshell buying a game in this way would be like getting a Lego or Model set. You're given the parts, but you need to build it yourself.

Personally I think this would be cool. Not sure if it could be mass-marketed because people to like buy things that don't involve much effort (Why we occassionally eat out), but again people buy miniatures, models and the like as a hobby. So would this be Game Modeling?

Comments

catwhowalksbyhimself

on Jul 04, 2008

Games make money from the average joe. The average joe expects to push the disk into the system or computer and start playing as soon as possible. I mean, compare the number of mods downloaded for any given game to the units of the game itself sold. Only a small fraction ever use the mods at all. Your everyday person will simply refuse to buy it, so unless it's freeware or a very, very niche indy production, it will never fly.

Aractain

on Jul 04, 2008

That wont happen past special interest projects because in order for a dev team/publisher to make money they need to sell as many copies as possible.

This benifits the mods too, more people means more ratio of talented people with vision (for the big headline mods).

People on the street wont go out and a source engine 'user license' which allows them to play all mods made on that major version of it (which is pretty much what you do when you buy HL2 anyway).

The VAST majority of people never play big mods (ignore those people who are still playing CS lol). They want to go to the shops (online or off) and install then PLAY.

Zydor

on Jul 04, 2008

Not sure if it could be mass-marketed because people to like buy things that don't involve much effort (Why we occassionally eat out), but again people buy miniatures, models and the like as a hobby. So would this be Game Modeling?

Kind of answered your own question in a way. I think over time games will become far more "moddable" as more and more people get into the background of PCs etc. Those numbers are steadily growing as PCs are now, for all intents and purposes, a "commodity item".

(A side note - Bill Gates Vision Statement for Microsoft way back when he started, and remains to this day Microsoft's Vision Statement, was ".... a PC on every desktop and in every house on the planet". At that time 30 years ago it was a ludicrous and audacious Vision to many people, but love him or hate him, he nailed that one, all due credit to him)

The other aspect of modding is that it encourages original thought and different perspectives - with the best will in the world we can all miss "the obvious" when we work on our own specialisation. Modding encourages constructive feedback and new ideas, all good stuff. So as an Option for a growing segment of the Market Place it will be more common, but as you indicated in OP it will never be mainstream.

Mrs Joe Soap standing at the fridge door interface, punching in today's shopping list or getting a print out of today's newspaper, could care less about the nasty Korath, the Drengin's favoured menu options or the recipe for the survival of the Human Race - the latter has usually been nailed at the party the previous night

Regards
Zy

TFLBigBANGtheory

on Jul 04, 2008

Crysis & Unreal Tournament3 released some truely outstanding modding tools and development kits, videos with the game.

Will future games encourage modders to finish the game for themselves and others?

I don't think so not as the general rule becuase it takes too long and too much effort for the vast majority of players.

Roshak

on Jul 04, 2008

This would be for people with a "modeling" mindset, where you get the pieces and you make it. Don't think it will be useful now( which I see I left out in my original post), but in the future this might be a possiblity. Looking on how more and more people are becoming accostumed to computers in the past few decades, people who did their own software and the like back than was very rare. Now, that number is climbing, it would be interesting to see if someone would do this.

Campaigner

on Jul 05, 2008

First thought I gotted when read your post was something like: "....is this guy for real...? Normal people don't want to do so much. They just want to insert the disc and play".

In the future however, it's possible there'll be a market for those kind of modelling games. For now, Stardocks fantasy strategy game which they claim to be extremely modfriendly may be a milestone in it.

I'm also quite negative to it since the community would be SO split since everybody would be playing different versions. But we'll see in the future.

danw13335

on Jul 05, 2008

I don't think so. As other people have said, average joes just expect to play a finished game. Besides, there are also many people more computer-savvy than the average joe but still have no clue how to mod. Honestly, I think it's a horrible idea.

DethAdder

on Jul 05, 2008

What if you took, say a game offered on impulse. You D/l the base game which is in effect the tools and such as described by the OP. Now through the launcher UI or even within the Impulse UI you have access to D/L the scenarios/campaigns of your choice. The Developer would start it out with several different ones upon release, while the modders begin adding their own to D/l as time goes on. The Devs could still once in a while throw out an "official" campaign/scenario while the community keeps adding there own. You could essentially have AARs that you could play instead of just read. More ambitious people could even create overarching storylines and campaigns in a series. It may never be a mainstream market thing, but it could be a very interesting project.

catwhowalksbyhimself

on Jul 06, 2008

This already discribes many comercial games, which are moddable to the point of adding entirely now adventures. Many of these games are never used to much of an extent. The most popular example is the Neverwinter Nights series which has hundreds of player made adventures. Indeed, many people encourage others to buy it for the user made adventures, but the majority of people who buy them still only play the included stuff.

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