this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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It's an long-term decision meant to kill modding. Having to seek a cracked version for modding isn't a problem for some users, but it's an imposing thing for users on average. It makes it less likely that your average user will attempt to engage with mods, which reduces the audience for mods, and that in turn makes mod developers less likely to develop them.
It's about strangling the life out of modding communities slowly.
Which is incredibly stupid since mods prolong the lifetime of a game's value
The problem is that game companies are no long interested in prolonged lifetime they can't directly monetize. Who cares that mods add a decade of additional sales if people are modding costumes instead of buying them from the cash shop.
And this sort of attitude is making me wonder if it's still worth buying from these companies.
Indeed, people seem to forget but modern monster hunter sells cosmetics, they have a financial interest to not let you mod the game to change skins.
If the skins they sell are higher quality than the ones available with mods, then people will buy them anyway.
If the mods are making those skins available for free then that’s probably a copyright infringement issue (assuming the assets are only made available once purchased, and that they’re not just available but disabled) that should be handled with a DMCA takedown.
If the mods are making their own content available for free but the mod content is lower quality than the paid skins, then the people who don’t purchase paid skins as a result will be far more limited. The bigger the quality divide, the lower the impact.
If they can’t compete with free cosmetics then that speaks to a lack of quality on their part.
The games that I love the most more than any other are games that have a good modding community. Factorio, skyrim, minecraft, hoi4. It just creates content that the developing company doesn't have to do and the consumer gets to experience.
I don't understand why some publishers of singleplayer focused games are against modding.
I understand that it could impact other players experiences in a multi-player setting. And I support any game developer segregating modded clients from vanilla. What I can't wrap my head around is why some try to ban modding all together. If a player ruins or enhances their experience with mods, it's on them, not the developers.
IIRC, it’s from a Street Fighter tournament scandal, where one particular player had a nude Chun Li mod installed. The tournament didn’t know about it, the player forgot to disable the mod ahead of the tournament, and nude Chun Li was broadcast to the entire banquet room full of viewers (and everyone streaming online) because they had the game projected on a giant screen.
I've purchased it but haven't installed it yet... I wonder if I can refund it.