In my previous two personal enquiry posts I’ve talked a lot about a few different mods for games. For the final part of my personal enquiry I will talk about what purpose mods serve and discuss whether they have a future in the pc market.
Mods extend the longevity of a game. Games can be burned through at an alarming rate these days. Once you’ve consumed all there is to offer, you either wait for the dlc or move onto the next game, dropping another £30 to £50. However many mods increase the lifespan of games by adding in more content; such as game modes, levels, quests, items, all sorts.
The elder scrolls games are a particularly good example of this, there are hundreds of hours of mods to explore for skyrim and oblivion, there was even one mod for oblivion which boasted more gameplay than the original game ! Another example is battlefield 2, there are a few mods for battlefield 2 which are still populated where the online community for the original game itself is dwindling.
Other ways that mods can extend the life of game is with visual upgrades. A notable example is the Morrowind Visual Update Mod. A mod which aims to bring the now quite dated game morrowind back into current gen in terms of visuals.
Regardless of how timeless the gameplay is some people will not attempt to play an older game just because of how dated the graphics look. A few visual upgrade mods can really breathe new life into a game and let newer generations experience classic gameplay they might otherwise miss out on.
Other games that have visual upgrade mods are Half life 2 and GTA4. Along a similar vein there is a source mod that has completely remade the classic Half Life with updated graphics, again allowing new gamers to experience a classic in a more familiar graphical environment.
Unfortunately in todays market extending the longevity of a game is not always in a company's interests. The Battlefield series has had a good history with mods but that ended with the introduction of Battlefield Bad Company 2 and mod capability was never brought back to the series. Now this was quite probably due to the publishers intervention.
As a company their end goal is just to make money. So why release one game that lasts 2-3 years, when you can get the same customers to buy a sequel every year. If you are releasing a sequel every year then there is no room for mods that extend the longevity of games as they could detract from sales of the new games. A new game every year sounds exciting, but pushing studios to unrealistic deadlines to keep shareholders happy is not good for the consumers in the long run.
Other than improving the playtime of a game mods can often be used to fix problems with games. Be it oversight on the developers part or the community just being too picky, there are often a number of things that gamers will not be happy with on an otherwise enjoyable game.
For example when Dark Souls Prepare to Die edition was released for PC in 2010 there were a whole number of issues with the PC port which did a fantastic game no justice.
Within the hour of its release a solution was created in the form of DSfix, and later on a whole number of other mods that helped various other issues. Ideally there should be no need for these sorts of mods as they were only adding features that should come as standard for a PC release, but the japanese developers of Dark Souls were inexperienced in PC ports. Through a community of driven and creative players, solutions to a problem that should not have happened were delivered.
There has been a trend recently of game developers being more involved with the gaming community before and after release. Particularly so with indie games. Minecraft is a perfect example. It was released early and unfinished to the community and the developers have always listened to suggestions from the community that made it so popular while completing development. With active development there is much less need for community bug fixes, however this involvement is very time consuming and not financially viable for larger studios working on multiple projects.
As I have mentioned in previous posts mods are almost always about fun. In a roundabout way mods being used to extend the life of games and fix problems in games is still just about fun. Prolonging the enjoyment players have by extending the life of a game, and fixing small problems that have the ability to suck the fun out of a game; these all just boil down to players enjoying games the way they want to.
Mods have such a strong history in pc gaming that I think they will forever be a part of it. If anything it seems user created content for pc games is becoming more and more prevalent with the help of systems like the Steam Workshop, just a year after release there were 30000 items available to download from the workshop for a variety of games.
While mods will sometimes be required for unofficial patches and the like, many platforms are using a strong framework of a game to allow for user created content.
The option for user created content is becoming more widespread on console exclusive titles such as Little Big Planet and Halo 3. In fact over 6 million custom levels have been created since its release. User created content hasn't always been unheard of on consoles, older games such as the tony hawks pro skater series has allowed for user created levels for a long time. However a huge new aspect that the two most recent generation of consoles has added is the ability to share the content over the internet. This brings it closer to the likeness of sharing user made content for PC games which have been internet connected for much longer.
Mods may not always live on in the traditional sense of vastly changing whole aspects of a game, older games were much easier to pull apart and route around in. However with all the new support for user created content the primary purpose of mods being users bringing more entertainment to other users will most definitely live on.
References
Blackmesasource.com, (2014). Black Mesa: Re-visit the world that started the Half-Life continuum. [online] Available at: http://www.blackmesasource.com/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
Blog.metaclassofnil.com, (2013). dsfix | metaclassofnilblog. [online] Available at: http://blog.metaclassofnil.com/?tag=dsfix [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
Bluesnews.com, (2014). One Year of Steam Workshop - Blue's News Story. [online] Available at: http://www.bluesnews.com/s/136180/one-year-of-steam-workshop [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
Halowiki.net, (2014). Halo 3 Forge - Halo Wiki. [online] Available at: http://halowiki.net/p/Forge [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
Hamilton, K. (2014). Morrowind Just Got Even Prettier With This New Graphical Overhaul. [online] Kotaku. Available at: http://kotaku.com/5947989/morrowind-just-got-even-prettier-with-this-new-graphical-overhaul [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
PC Gamer, (2012). The First Moments of Minecraft. [online] Available at: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/02/06/the-first-moments-of-minecraft/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
Steamcommunity.com, (2014). Steam Community :: Guide :: How to get started with the PC version of Dark Souls. [online] Available at: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=113145325 [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
VentureBeat, (2012). Six million LittleBigPlanet user levels created; here are some of the best. [online] Available at: http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/17/six-million-littlebigplanet-user-levels-created-here-are-some-of-the-best/ [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
YouTube, (2014). Battlefield 2 - Do People Still Play? + Forgotten Hope 2 & Project Reality Multiplayer Review. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTARy1xgAZM [Accessed 27 Apr. 2014].
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