For just a minute, I would like to have everyone think about the fondest gaming experience you've ever had, what was the game? Was it a linear or free world? Now take another moment to think about what the game would look like under your vision, maybe new characters, or new weapons, crazy upgrades.
For those reasons, my wish for Christmas is that Companies and developers allow for more modding capability to the community. I truly do not think there is a single other gaming-related wish that I would wish for since this would impact every game in varying intensities, extending its' QoL and niche communities.
Some of you console gamers may be thinking I'm crazy right now with this wish as modding isn't too common for console games, but if you played Fallout 4 then you know the excitement I have for this. I came under this impression after playing some CoD: BO3 modded zombies and thought about the sad realization that modding may never become mainstream enough.
From a very young age, I fell in love with a certain game that was infamous for modding and had me dreaming to have a PC to do it. That game was Call of Duty: World at War, no joke WaW was the best game in my eyes. Just to put everything in reference, I didn't get a pc good enough to play modded WaW until past BO2 era, so I was extremely behind and a game like that would feel outdated and irrelevant. . . Until you check online for zombie maps and the community is like an anthill, everyone comes out of the woodwork and somehow the game is immensely popular after all that time.
Now let's fast-forward to current day CoD zombies, the last moddable CoD was Black Ops 3 (released in 2015) which is insane! Albeit Vanguard zombies were rushed, there is the same if not more demand for modded maps than watching the brand new zombies. Highlighted top-left is modded, bottom middle are from the first days of Vanguards release.
Modding games allow for soo much creativity and longer living games, imagine all of the new experiences and fun that can be had from just one mod that changes up the story the tiniest bit. A terrible example is GTA 5, it came out in 2013, yet people still come on and play the storyline to this day from the mods that release. I say this is a bad example, is because GTA is still a mainstream game and you would expect people to still play without mods, but modding extends this beyond the intended life-cycle.
Way too few games this generation has been available to easily be modded, and this is due to the fact companies do not want to create this community. Companies would rather create a new game with a strict QoL that influences the players to spend money to get the next game in succession. This is totally unfair, (although legal for the company to do this) the community knows better than the developer what is dreamt of in the game, and coders make this dream a reality.
Let's take, for example, Farming Simulator(console mods , a game that I have been recently playing a ton would have gotten stale after saving some money and getting the new equipment to make farming easier. However, modding creates that open spot for even easier farming, or maybe just enjoyability is increased. Naturally, the FS games only come out with 2-3 maps on release but the community makes more that create a story or just challenges the player with fewer sell-points and actual land to buy. I can personally say that my gaming experience on Farming Simulator has been exponentially increased and even to the point that I probably played 3-4x more than I would've if there weren't mods. Source | All of 31 of those vehicles are in one modpack
To end things off, ease of modding these days should be completely common-place, your favorite game doesn't have to die as soon as you finish the campaign for the 1-2nd time. You can continue to play and relive that experience with new versions in every aspect. I wish that companies would just listen to the community, and make this reality. It's big enough to be trending, so why cant it become reality for all games? Remember this?
Until next time...
