Another hidden aspect is when developers/designers are out of touch, like in one interview with Boyarsky and Cain when asked about modding Outer Worlds answer was something like "modding is great, but for OW it doesn't fit because it would mess with creative design of the game", now looking at story and characters design the game has is clear what was meant with that. In same vein why first version of Bard's Tale 4 (which was crowdfunded as I remember) had open UE paks, while in Director's Cut were encrypted. No one asks for developers to make first class support for mods, just that that they don't actively put barriers for changing the game.

Tim you're so so wrong about this. I know a _lot_ of people who hated Skyrim for its base game, but put thousands of hours into it anyway _because of mods only_ . I think developers underestimate how this translates directly to earning money. In today's world of games as a service, you will see stuff like GTA Online perform the best (mods on private servers). Officially Rockstar _does not_ support the modding community, but it thrives anyway. A lot of games, especially those were modding is actively supported, would have been looong dead and forgotten had it not been for their moddability. Quite a lot of videogames get semi-hacked to allow for moddability, with zero preparation from the developer beforehand. If the same engine is used by multiple games, this part becomes infinitely easier, not more difficult. Meaning arguably it _could_ be free, depending how your game assets are setup and assuming the game doesn't phone home all the time to check integrity of the original game (for a singleplayer or non-interactable multiplayer experience (think Dark Souls)). Remember the days of all the Quake-engine based stuff with .PAK files??? Essentially glorified ZIP files with a lot of editable non-essential content? Couldn't be more easy and free to mod that stuff. And official servers could check for allowed content. Yes, updates can break mods and therefore affect end user experience if they desire to do modding, but so could every other random update to a game anyway. Allowing games to refuse from auto-updates pretty much solves this issue.

Hey there, I'd be very interested in trying to find a way to get a published supplement for Arcanum in 5th edition. As I understand it, the rights of Arcanum are in a very rough place. Do you have any advice on how I can navigate these Waters?

Hey Tim, Fallout mod author here. From my (and the larger BGS Fallout modding communities) experience, documentation is not critical as long as you expose your game data to modders and, if your game has scripting, an API ref chart for your script environment. If your players are dedicated enough they'll figure out how things are done simply by looking at what you and your team made and how they made it. Bonus thought re: data validation and fault tolerance: Modding on Creation Engine is weird in that way. In some subsystems you can feed it complete nonsense and it'll happily chug along, just gracefully handling all the problems the dev introduced. You can make the scripting VM completely nonfunctional by punching holes into the base class structure and the general "run around and shoot stuff" gameplay still completely works. This goes to the point where actual mod users become unaware of the game logic level problems they're introducing by combining badly made or conflicting mods because there's no "hard" problems like crashes or ingame error messages that make them aware. Working on Unreal these days it's almost comforting that when I do something stupid to the engine, it'll make me aware with a crash.

With Unreal being such a popular engine choice now, couldn't devs just dump the project file to the community, assuming you don't need to rip out any other licensed middleware? I guess the main problem then is someone could just repackage and list the game again for a higher price, particularly if you're an indie developer without an army of lawyers to sue people that reuse your stuff without attribution. Sadly, the golden age of modding is over, but now everyone can just go make stuff with an OTS engine and stock assets rather than learning a game-specific engine with deliberately designed and modifiable parameters.

I played OW only this year because of your videos and really loved it. Great world building, characters, sense of exploration. Also really liked the leadership skills. Looking forward to OW2. 🎉

Moddability prolongs lifespan of a game by decades, thus driving sales of that game in the time period. Paradox and Bethesda only exist thanks to their pro-mod creator outlook on games, no one would stick with their halfbaked products if they didn't allow players to tinker their experience to their liking.

Number one rule of moddability: have "beta testers," "QA," etc leak your PDBs. Done.

Is this guy a game developer or an accountant?

No the “real” reason is them evil devs up there hate the players, of course. 😉

I'm so very happy you share your thoughts and experience! It's a mystery to me how you have not way more views.

The thought of “moddability” being added in AFTER the design is done - even before any code has actually been written in anger - is pretty concerning to me as an outsider. You would be mad to make even small changes to the design of your house after you start building it …

i already forgot when devs made their games moddable from scratches. But stalker 2 latest example of exemplary moddable game and they even provide tools yet.

“Illegal script code. See Dave.” Goddamnit Dave 😂

But you literally just said how easy it was to make a game moddable at the beginning? If you deliberately have the intent for modders from the very beginning all these extra (time x money) factors wouldnt even be factored in because that was the intent it would only cost if you purposely withhelf and obfuscate and then try to go back and change it. Just don't do that from the beginning. Further more if the engine doesnt change the devkit/modkit would carry over to other games made in the same engine.

Modding is relative. I remember modding Caesar III back in the day and that was just changing a few values in a end user accessible file. Most mods for most Owlcat RPGs are just portrait mods. What counts as a mod is relative. Is the Dungeon Master Mode in Divinity Original Sin 2 a moding interface or it's own separate thing that comes with the game?

Starfield lol

Without modders stalker 2 would have no audience

1:40 I feel like this is such a big thing in life in general, I've had so many conversations where people tell me 'why don't you just, and then they described the most difficult thing on the planet' putting something in a sentence with just doesn't make it easy.

Great video

When people mod a game, they don't ask how much it costs. They ask how badly they want to mod the game. Developers making games moddable do so because they want players to because they understand players want to. If you're looking at cost, you're asking the wrong questions. Just like those who keep screaming "games are expensive to make!" but all the micro transactions in the world still can't cover the gaping hole. Takes like "moddability is expensive" are IMO, smokescreens and goalpost-shifting.

I feel like mods never actually add value to the game, since they are just adding very low quality content. Like a new paint job on the same car. I want a new car each year to drive, not some bumper stickers added on my old Honda Civic haha. I prefer companies like Call of Duty that keep delivering new cool experiences and stories packaged in more modern games, instead of something like Skyrim which was awesome when it came out, but has been artificially kept alive by mods. I want a new Elder Scrolls, I don't care about adding Teletubbies and Thomas the Tank Engine into the same ancient game.

this video makes me wonder if you're familiar with Rimworld? that game is so flexible with modability that more people might play the game modded than vanilla.

May already be mentioned but the gold standard of mixing dialogue with fighting is Monkey Island. You only win fights because you learned the correct jokes.

I'd played quite a few games before Fallout that made me think I want to make games, but Fallout is what made me think I HAVE to make games. I can't think of a more formative piece of media in my own personal life.

It is similar explaining why we can't "just add multiplayer" 😅 _This single-player RPG is nice... but what if we turn it into an MMO?_

I love mods especially the incredible system created by Bethesda for their open world games. Its dreamlike how they have made it possible since MORROWIND to jump right into the guts of the game and change everything from world behavior to audio/graphics. I still remember taking the sound files from Bradley's rpg WIZARDS & WARRIORS and creating a talking demon sword in MORROWIND even changing things like the look of the sword while doing it. Probably the easiest editor to use alongside the old UnrealED for the fps shooter UNREAL TOURNAMENT. WadED was also pretty good but was a bit more like a CAD design program. All these editors especially the one by Bethesda taught me so much of the what, where, why and how of game structure where i found myself not even using editors years later because of knowing where everything is and what it does. This is another great thing of when Bethesda games first come out there is no editor out yet so everything has to be done on a manual level til Bethesda releases the modding tools/editor so its one more way of learning how things work. Pretty exciting and magical. Who would have thought way back in the 1990's playing THE ELDER SCROLLS II DAGGERFALL one day i would be able to transform my favorite games with aspects of my favorite books, movies etc etc. Thanks for the great video with information i had never taken into account making me appreciate even more both the base game and mods along with those who make such technical miracles possible. Cheers and happy holidays ☕

Yup! I've been working on a project outside of work (custom engine) and it's taken me 3 years to add an intricate modding API that can reliably replicate itself over the network. Still need to update all the documentation for it though.

The villain is always Brian Fargo, because he could be a really petty d-bag. Even if he wasnt responsible for it, he deserves to shoulder some blame.

Half the people saying “Just do this” couldn’t make functional blank white HTML file

I just saw where the new monster hunter game is always online. Why? I know monster hunter world was heavy centered on being online, but you can play it offline still. I can't do always online for games that have always been able to be played offline. The only MMO I go back to every now and then is Old School Runescape.

There's another hidden cost of moddability when you do have it in your game. You must be a lot more deliberate with updates and how you decide to do reworks. Updates frequently break many mods that rely on a specific implementation of that version or they just need to match the new version number in the config. Bethesda did this many times when they released like 4 different definitive editions and many random pointless updates (like adding creation club into main menu) years later that broke many mods. If this becomes frequent, you're at risk of alienating modders, which is the last thing you want for all the effort you put into making modding possible

I love DnD for what it has done for the popularization of pen and paper RPGs, but at the same time I kind of have grown to despise it because of how it's the ONLY mainstream PnP RPG. And it's echoes are always pushing through the entire scene. Kind of what the mid 2000s consolification was to PC games IMO. DnD combat to me manages to be super overcomplicated and dull at the same time (until you're like mid-level) and so many other RPGs do so much more interesting stuff, but people will never try it out, because they get caught up in only DnD.

Modding is the best. I wish they stopped updating Fallout 4. BG3's mods are amazing.

Oh my god! Hearing Deathspank in 2024 is crazy! Please tell me you’ve played it Tim

When I choose what game to play, I instinctively select good ecosystem over good baseline game. Don't get me wrong, I really like Minecraft, especially the Beta era versions, but it's not like I would play it if there was absolutely no way to modify anything about it. And even if I don't install any mods, I just get a lot of enjoyment from the fact that I am playing something that I can rather easily modify. Same thing with Skyrim, Fallout NV, Witcher 3 or any other. I cannot imagine myself playing something with a hard expiration date on the amount of content it provides, even if I feel like I would enjoy the core gameplay loop. I need to feel like I am purchasing a tool and not a commodity. That is also why I don't play console games at all. No modding is a no-go for me.

I think is worth the extra effort, Fallout, TES, Asetto Corsa, are examples of single player games that are still being sold and being played by a lot of people because of their healthy Modding communities.

Happy holidays.

Happy Holidays to you !

I'd like to add that if a community wants to, they will find a way to mod your game whether you support them to or not.

personally, I would ignore it. they're gonna do it anyway. but if I wanted to do like Microsoft and Valve does, and commodify the creative output of people (who may not realize what they've signed up for in the EULA); I'd probably make a modding platform and claim copyright over all that data. Modability isn't always what it seems. What I do like though is the old school approach like WAD files. those are just normal files that anyone can get into and play around with. There's a great talk by Will Wright way back in the 2000s on the value of user created data. It is totally worth looking up. although, that's how you end up with really tasteless stuff. nude mods, maps of people's high schools and stuff, with your game's logo on it like a seal of endorsement. So tread lightly with mods if you don't wanna deal with all that. But like I said, if they really want to they're gonna do it anyway. But that's the difference between 1 really difficult community mod or thousands of things someone threw together without much thought. either can be good or bad things imo. If I did want to make a engine highly moddable, what I would do is make that the product I am selling and the game would just be the trojan horse for selling the engine. Like how Burnout was a tech demo for the RenderWare engine.

I will say this, you are far less likely to pirate a game, if steam workshop for it exists.

Love you but this aint it

The real question is not just the cost, but the value. Is implementing modding going to be worth the investment of time and money to do it. For Skyrim, the answer turned out to be definitely yes. For other games, it may not be. Personally, I have to admit that it's a huge driver of whether I buy a game or not. I mostly play single-player RPGs, and I can get a lot more play time out of a moddable game than one that isn't moddable. That makes moddable games more valuable to me, and so I'm more likely to buy them.

There is no cost. Just leave everything open. It doesn't need to be difficult.

This is missing one type of moddability. When a company puts out a game the community figured out how to mod, then disables it. That takes resources to make an existing public game no longer that way. This is the one case of all the cases listed that it's not acceptable.

The single biggest regression in gaming happened when games moved from a physical to a digital presentation. No digital game is as easily and completely moddable as every physical game in existence. A game is what/how players choose to play, not what game designers want players to play. Moddability is an integral part of the gaming experience (this is especially true for RPGs where physical games evolved as far as GURPS). Unfortunately almost every digital game these days comes with the equivalent of a straight jacket for players, albeit for various reasons: monetization (throttling player progression, selling customizations, etc.), tight budgets (as mentioned), game designer hybris ("players don't know what they want", "my vision is more important than your experience") and player gatekeeping ("only one difficulty"). Now, we can debate the economics of adding moddability as much as we want, but we should at least be able to agree on the chilling effects of patents: beyond the moddability of a single implementation, they also try to put a lid on the creation of game implementations with a modded but similar ruleset.

Another reason a lot of companies don't do mod tools, or do it far less than they used to, is they often view mods as competition. Rockstar is a good example, where even though they never purposefully made their games moddable, the games had extensive modding communities and with the old GTA trilogy, they DMCA'd the work of modders and de listed the original versions of their games. Bethesda and Valve have the right approach and it benefits them long term even with the cost of adding those features because their games can have longer tails and relevance, they can monetize and even publish certain mods in collaboration with mod authors and it allows them to have a high aggregate talent pool for their in house engine that they can hire for without needing to do too much on the job training or tank the cost of switching to an OTS engine.

An interesting conundrum in the modern context is that the ease of access to tools (Particularly _financially_ ) is that a lot of the Talent that would've been making Mods in the past is now funneled straight into making their own games instead; And a lot of the people who do make mods for modern games often springboard into crowdfunding making their own game soon enough anyway. Myself, I've thought about making mods for Rimworld or DwFortress, but the logical-half of my brain pretty much immediately shuts-down such ideas as "That's time that I could be spending on my own game instead".

The timing on this video is incredibly perfect with the rumors about the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remake. I've seen a lot of people concerned about the moddability of the game as it's either a vertical integration with Gamebryo on the bottom providing code, physics, etc. with Unreal Engine 5 on top for graphics, or it's entirely rebuilt in UE5. Both of which have their concerns. How does modding work when you have two incredibly different engines impacting the game? And by that same token, how deep can that modding really be? The same applies if it's exclusively Unreal Engine 5, just how much can the developers open that up to modding? How easy would that be to do on the level that the Creation Engine offers? An Elder Scrolls game without in depth modding on the face of it sounds like a failure waiting to happen because Bethesda games are associated with basically being able to make a new game within the mod tools.