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Why Do Some Computer Game Developers Love Modding So Much?

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It is easy to see why modding is such a positive from the perspective of coders and players.

Players get free content for their favourite games, and programmers get a platform to develop their game design skills, ones that they can build up to use on their own projects later.

A game like Minecraft has thrived thanks to its modding scene, and whilst Mojang were unsure whether to support it at first, they ultimately made the right choice to lend their support behind modding.

They might have been inspired by one of the first games to become hugely successful because of its modding scene, however.

The 1993 game Doom was one of the first successful games that was not explicitly a construction kit to make itself more openly mod-friendly.

Part of the reason for this was philosophical; John Carmack was an idealistic hacker whilst John Romero loved the idea of people hacking his game and getting some much out of it. This led to the creation of the “WAD” file, a packet of game data that could be easily swapped out and tweaked.

They were tinkerers born from the bedroom coder revolution, but in the early days of the modding scene, there were worries from other people in the video game space that it would cost the company money and potentially lead to legal issues.

This led to a very slight compromise and an unwritten rule that made modding work for developers as well; id Software would provide the technical foundations but in return, modders had to ensure their mods only worked with the paid version of the game rather than the shareware one, and that mods were not sold for money.

Whilst both of these rules were bent somewhat, they were adhered to enough to make Doom a massive commercial success, as well as hugely popular in the community. It retains a very popular modding scene to this day, with people managing to get the source code working on lamps, thermometers and fridges, as well as other unusual devices.