When Games Allow Mods, Beautiful Things Can Happen
from the externalities-create-value-for-everyone dept
Recently, Mike wrote about the importance of externalities and spillovers in economics, and the fact that it's often best to allow other people to capture pieces of the value you create and build on top of it. Not only does this benefit the economy as a whole, it benefits the originator, because some of the additional value that people create feeds back to them.
In the video game world, a great example of this is when companies open their games up to mods, so users can tweak them or build entirely new games on top of the same basic engine. Valve's Counter-Strike series grew from a fan-made mod for Half-Life, which was so popular it has been credited with keeping Half-Life on gamers' radars for years longer than it would have been otherwise, leading Valve to hire the creators and turn it into its own game, which remains one of the company's most successful titles. This week another example bubbled up on Reddit, in the form of a captioned screenshot of the Steam store titled "Dear developers, this is why you should make your games moddable":
The game ARMA II: Combined Operations was on track to be another mostly-forgotten game, still enjoyed by a small group of fans with few other prospects. Then, two years after its release, and without getting any kind of promotional sale price, it started selling like crazy and surged to the front page of the Steam leaderboards. Why? Another team of developers One of the company's developers released the alpha of a project he'd been working on independently: Day Z, a zombie-survival game built as an ARMA II mod. Fans have been clamoring for a particular type of zombie game for a while now (and Cracked's Robert Brockway pitched a similar idea recently) and the description of Day Z sounds like it fits the bill—so when the free alpha of the mod was released, lots of people bought a copy of ARMA II so they could give it a try. The developer was expecting it to be a hit within the existing fan community, but he had no idea that it would cross over into the mainstream.
In this situation, everybody wins. Gamers get a new game, ARMA II gets renewed sales, Day Z gets to exist (without the need to build a brand new engine). The sales boost to the original might be temporary, or it might spark new interest in the game and revive it entirely, or it might inspire newer and even more popular mods, or... well, there are a lot of possibilities, none of them bad. All because the ARMA II creators had the foresight to let people add value to what they created.
Update: A commenter pointed out that Day Z is the independent project of one of the developers working on ARMA 3. Post has been updated to reflect that fact.
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Filed Under: arma ii, counter-strike, externalities, half-life, mods, steam, z day
Companies: valve
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And offer it for sale in a convenient manner (Steam) at a reasonable price ($30).
Imagine if the only way to buy it legally was via a physical disc. Or if it cost $60.
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All I'm saying is that Steam lets you play offline. If a game doesn't, that's added by the game developers and they should be the ones ostracized.
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Annihilation, from Cavedog. I've built my own custom units for that game. It's incredibly fun even now and it's AGES old. I can carry around in an USB stick if I want.
I'll finish my comment with a single question:
Will I come back here in 10, 20 years and say the same about D3 and these Steam DRM games?
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It's unfortunate, but in order to go offline, you first need to be online. However, once you go offline, you can play without an Internet connection.
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And after a month, the leash gets yanked back. Bad dog! Sit! Stay!
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I�ll skewer you like a sow at a buffet!
When I�m done with you, you�ll be a boneless filet!
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There are corner cases like our brave military who just wants to get away from reality for a bit and are thousands of miles from home with no internet.
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Any game I have already downloaded and played at least once that is not an online game I can ply in offline mode.
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Talk about redundancy. Just goes to show you how stupid publishers are, and how good of marketers DRM makers are.
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DRM but not Bullshit
However, DRM does exist and when we evaluate DRM the question can be is this DRM worse or better than that DRM. To that end I argue that while Steam is DRM it is not "Bullshit DRM". Steam's DRM differs from many other DRM schemes in several important ways.
1. They are honest about what DRM the games they sell contain and how it works.
2. They provide other benefits that help to balance the "cost" of DRM to the user (the ability to install games on more than one computer, the ability to download my game whenever I want, the fact that they remember all of my CD keys, social features, etc.)
3. They sell games more cheaply. If DRM makes a game just a rental (as some argue) that's fine as long as I am paying rental prices.
4. Offline mode. This is huge as it means that Steams DRM will rarely actually be a burden to the player.
Basically, If DRM protects the seller and doesn�t hurt the consumer then let�s keep the pitchforks aimed at the worst offenders.
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I long ago quit buying any games except the ones offered by Good Old Games, since they're 100% free.
AND I don't buy books, movies or records unless they're DRM-free or I can jailbreak them.
F**K DRM
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Re: DRM but not Bullshit
Honest question; What happens when Valve's license to sell a particular game runs out or is revoked by the original publisher?
The last I heard, they were selling copies of the game Jedi Knight, which is owned by Lucasarts. If their license runs out and they don't renew it, or LA decides they no longer want the game sold through Steam, will all the copies that they 'sold' continue to work? What happens if someone's drive crashes and they need to re-download the game, but Valve no longer has the rights to distribute it? Also, as they add more and more games to the Steam catalog, will they still be supporting all of these games a decade from now?
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The problems you point out are quite real (see EA server shutdowns) and while they haven't effected Steam yet they could.
The thrust of my argument is that I am a realist. I don't see the ideal world of no DRM coming to pass any time soon. Steam as DRM is certainly not the worst offender currently available so lets direct our focus and energy at the people using truly "Bullshit" DRM first.
Also lets give Steam and Valve credit for what they do get right. Their games and client are available cross platform, are incredibly mod-able, and are sold at reasonable prices with frequent significant sales.
Basically this my whole post was spurred by one word "bullshit" I just don't like to see Steam (a relative good guy) get lumped in with the Ubisofts and EAs of the world.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_video_games
I don't know about you, but I am living in that world right now, I don't have to worry about DRM, I only have to worry about the devs and to that end I contribute everything I can, work, money and ideas.
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One of the things that Steam gets very wrong is that it can retroactively change the minimum requirements for a game. It's already happened once. Retail packages of Half-Life II list the minimum Windows version as Windows 98, however since Steam has been changed to require at least Windows XP, it's no longer possible to play HL2 on anything less. Many of the older games that they sell through Steam were also designed to work under older versions of Windows, but have now inherited Steam's minimum requirements. When Valve decides to up the requirements to Windows 7, anyone still using XP is going to find themselves unable to play any of their Steam-crippled games.
Most will say that people using older versions of Windows are too few to count, or that they're dumb for not using the latest version, but that doesn't change the fact that when Valve upgrades Steam, they are effectively taking away software that people have paid for.
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Just to clarify, I don't think that you should have to do any of this, but it's easy enough and it is the solution to your question. I have a couple dozen games I purchased on Steam, and if any of them stops working because they lost the license (or for whatever stupid excuse is given at the time), I will fire up my favorite torrent client and download a version that isn't broken. And not a single moment of sleep will lost.
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EA pulled Crysis 2 off of Steam, yet I can still install and play it from Steam. They only took it off the store, but they support and give me the game I paid money for. Even took the time to make it a seamless transition for me. It doesn't point me to Origin (like I bet EA would want it to), it just installs and goes, with not a problem to be had.
So that's what happens when Steam loses a game. Nothing at all.
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I always managed to play offline when I needed to, I never once was locked out of a game due to lack of Internet connection (except for cases where the publisher's DRM is at fault, such as Dragon Age).
The one thing I worry about with Steam is what happens if one day Steam won't let me play my games anymore? As you say, this is something that could happen. Steam could shut down one day or ban/block my account for some reason or block access to a specific game for any reason...
If that day ever comes, I'll go to the Pirate Bay to get my games back. It's as simple as that. And I'll download games I never bought in my life while I'm at it. This way I keep what I paid for and the publishers have an incentive to make sure Steam keeps giving me access. And downloading music and games is 100% legal in my country.
I realize this solution might not work for everybody but it suits me personally.
Of course I wish Steam wasn't DRM and had less restrictions, in fact I try to avoid Steam as much as I can. But often it's worth what I get out of it, for me at least. And again, any problems Steam DRM can cause, the Pirate Bay can solve. Simple as that.
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For example Dungeons of Dredmor can run without Steam.
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this is where EA has been failing hard with the last couple BF games, neither can be moded, Neither allow you to run your own servers.....all because they are more worried about piracy then sales numbers.
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It's a real crapshoot, and part of why I oppose propritary software.
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Which has been bought out by GameFly with annoying spam mail that I can't seem to get out of.
I liked gog.com; the prices were nice, and the lack of DRM made the games worth a try. I have no interest in GameFly
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Two years? That's nothing.
People are still releasing mods, server worlds, and non-Bioware enthusiests are even releasing a patch for the game (Bioware didn't release the source code, so the patch seems to be viewed as worrying). Just another example of developers doing something right.
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Many many fan made levels, mods and a lot of additional fun.
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Modding FTW
Portal 2 is also in the top 20. Probably because of the Steam Workshop and the Perpetual Testing Initiative.
In fact, I've recently been playing another game that's easily modded. Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. It's about *eight* years old, and yet there is still a fan community releasing patches to improve and tweak gameplay. They're even trying to finish a level whose assets are on disc but it wasn't finished and so it couldn't make it into the official game.
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Jagged Alliance 2
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Somehwere...
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Hmmm....
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not just mods
but now it looks like EA is going to step in http://www.wcsaga.com/forum/index.php?f=19&t=680&rb_v=viewtopic&start=10 there was also a thread posted by the devs with a C&D letter in it but it disappeared soon after I hit the submit story button
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Because they believe its garbage they will throw it out eventually like Warzone 2100, that is now open source :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warzone_2100
They(the open source dudes) are looking for new artwork and music for the game.
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Correction
It's actually a guy who works for the developer that makes ARMA II that made the mod.
Check the URL for an interview with him.
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(the more i read about this Day Z game, the more I want to play it...)
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OMGWTFBBQ DRM!!!!
Regular Commenters: Yeah steam DRM's really not that bad, I hardly ever notice it.
AC: OMGWTFBBQ!!! IT'S DRM AND EVIL!!!!1! I WANT TEH OLD SCHOOL GAMES.
And as for what happens when steam ends? Well, what happened when they stopped making Nindindo 64s? Emulators and Cracks!
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Re: OMGWTFBBQ DRM!!!!
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THAT FEEL....
DOOM, Starcraft, Warcraft, Diablo, Red Alert are a few classics that are still completely playable today due to modded levels and maps.
I'd go so far as to say that the real strength of PC games is not the beauty of the graphics, but in the possibility of re-playability and the extension of the player's fun.
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Re: THAT FEEL....
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Things like the no CD patches they release are awesome.
Shame there are not many like these guys.
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Really, every PC game I have has been modded in some way. This includes games on disc, and games by major publishers. Take the Sims franchise for example, despite being published by teh ebil EA, they are some of the most modded games available. Teh ebil EA has, to date, not made any attempt to stop or limit the Sims modding community and openly encurages such practise.
Why is this article acting as if game modding or the modding comminity is new or somehow unique to DRM free sources. Modding is as old as the hills and is an accepted practice even by the worst of the "Old Guard Gate Keepers".
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