Importance of modding games

[McDoob]

Modding has been the most important part of the PC gaming industry. Every major success nowadays is based in some way or the other on the modding efforts of the community.

CSGO is a mod. DOTA is a mod. Roblox is just a sandbox for mods. Fortnite is a sandbox for mods.

Steam, Epic and GOG were literally build on their success. A good part of today's AAA industry is only based on paywalling mods.

I don't entirely agree.

Let's be clear, I'm a 'PC Master Race' kind of guy. And modding is definitely one of the reasons why PCs are better than consoles. But I don't think that this is 'the most important part' of PC gaming.

Mouse and WASD 'hax' are why so many games don't have 'combined' servers. And there's a reason for that. I am unapologetically a Mouse/WASD haxxor. Because it's just better than any gamepad!

I'm not going to talk about the relationship between Valve and Steam, nor will I mention Epic. But I think GOG is doing good things, literally repacking Good Old Games.

Sorry for going off-topic.
-McD

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Mouse and WASD 'hax' are why so many games don't have 'combined' servers. And there's a reason for that. I am unapologetically a Mouse/WASD haxxor. Because it's just better than any gamepad

PC master race gang unite!

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

I don't entirely agree.

Let's be clear, I'm a 'PC Master Race' kind of guy. And modding is definitely one of the reasons why PCs are better than consoles. But I don't think that this is 'the most important part' of PC gaming.

Mouse and WASD 'hax' are why so many games don't have 'combined' servers. And there's a reason for that. I am unapologetically a Mouse/WASD haxxor. Because it's just better than any gamepad!

I'm not going to talk about the relationship between Valve and Steam, nor will I mention Epic. But I think GOG is doing good things, literally repacking Good Old Games.

Sorry for going off-topic.
-McD

GOG is the lesser evil, but they're in for the money like any other store, and in the end they artificially re-conduct intellectual properties that should just be public domain already.

They literally repackage, like you say. They didn't develop Dosbox, and the vast majority of their games are pre-patched by community fixes (that we could consider as community mods). They offer a worse service for the users than what abandonware sites did before them, and they force a "partnership" with them by making them remove ISOs from their servers.

When GOG dies, like everything does, the only thing that will persist of it is the torrents of their files that people hopefully kept sharing.

 

[McDoob]

GOG is the lesser evil, but they're in for the money like any other store, and in the end they artificially re-conduct intellectual properties that should just be public domain already.

They literally repackage, like you say. They didn't develop Dosbox, and the vast majority of their games are pre-patched by community fixes (that we could consider as community mods). They offer a worse service for the users than what abandonware sites did before them, and they force a "partnership" with them by making them remove ISOs from their servers.

When GOG dies, like everything does, the only thing that will persist of it is the torrents of their files that people hopefully kept sharing.

That's a pretty pessimistic, though probably accurate, summary. I definitely agree that a lot of what they host should be public domain, and a great deal of it can still be found 'in public' if you look for it.

I'm sure there will always be people seeding the 'golden oldies' torrents, for as long as the internet lasts.
-McD

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

That's a pretty pessimistic, though probably accurate, summary. I definitely agree that a lot of what they host should be public domain, and a great deal of it can still be found 'in public' if you look for it.

I'm sure there will always be people seeding the 'golden oldies' torrents, for as long as the internet lasts.
-McD

That being said, they still got indie titles that are worth the money and can help actual devs.

But their marketing is pure hypocrisy. They managed to make people believe they are willingly DRM-free... Of course, most of the games they sell has been patched with a no-CD crack, so they wouldn't dare putting DRM back on top of that, that would be PR suicide. But why force Abandonware sites to remove real ISO content, then? To be able to sell their one-file zip-exe install and their crappy launcher.

They had a real negative impact on preservation IME. You can still find the more obscure stuff if you look for it, but you need to really look for it now. Even Archive.org now has a streaming-only policy for 30 years old games and you need to source the ISOs elsewhere, hoping it's a good dump.

 

[Ikagura]

While I dislike Brutal Doom and GZDoom as a whole it's one of the perfect example of expanding an old game to give it a new shiny coat of paint.

 

[King Koopa's iconKing Koopa]

Modding can help save older games that were only considered bad because of bugs, console limitations, or poor programming choices. One example is Castlevania 2.

 

[Ikagura]

Modding can help save older games that were only considered bad because of bugs, console limitations, or poor programming choices. One example is Castlevania 2.

The romhack is great but CV2 has flaws beyond these issues.

 

[Pandaprewmaster325]

Lol i was thinking of play castlevania from the first game and climb up the series one by one

 

[Xdqwerty]

Re-adding scrapped/unused content