When the Game is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices Among Computer Game Modding Culture

In this episode I unpack Sotamaa's (2010) publication titled “When the game is not enough: Motivations and practices among computer game modding culture,” which is a case study that explores the attitudes, motivations, and practices of 29 people who create mods for the game Operation Flashpoint.

Welcome back to another episode of the
CSK8 podcast my name is Jared O'Leary
in this episode we're going to continue
our third part of the discussion on
modding practices and culture so the
first one which was about a month ago
that released was kind of talking about
an example of modding used in a
formalized educational experience then
two weeks ago I released an episode to
kind of talk about modding practices and
the mod culture at large and today we're
gonna actually talk about some of the
motivations behind people who engage in
modding today's article is written by a
Lisa temov which again apologies if I
ever mess up any names kind of went with
the Japanese pronunciation for last name
but I don't think the first name aligns
with Japanese anyways so the paper
that's a lease ultima wrote is titled
when the game is not enough :
motivations and practices among computer
game modding culture and as always a
very friendly reminder that if you go to
the show notes at Jared O'Leary comm or
simply clicking on the link in the
podcast description you can click on the
author's name and it'll take you to
their google scholar profile and you can
click on the paper title and it'll take
you to that publication okay so let's
begin by reading the abstract quote the
actual meanings computer game modders
attached to their actions in practices
remain heavily under researched this
article takes a look at the attitudes
and everyday practices of the people who
make game modifications with special
focus on the forms and consequences of
collaboration between hobbyists the case
discussed in this article is the shooter
game operation flashpoint and the
modding scene around it the article
proposes that there is no such thing as
an average computer game modern it is
suggested that the distinctions can be
drawn based on the objective of projects
such as missions add-ons mods modern
motivations such as playing hacking
researching self-expression and
cooperation and notions on the ownership
and potential commercialization of their
work given the forecast concerning the
growing significance of player made
content the study can offer some
down-to-earth findings from the
long-established tradition of game
modding in quote now the reason why I'm
bringing up this particular study is
because yes it is looking at people who
are making
for a game that is probably not school
appropriate and is probably engaged with
by people who are not in grades K
through 8 however by understanding the
motivations for people who engage in
this it might have some implications for
K 12 and CS k 8 educators who are
interested in applying modding in your
classes if I were to summarize this
particular study in one sentence I would
describe it as a case study that
explores the attitudes motivations and
practices of 29 people who create mods
for the game operation flashpoint now
two weeks ago I talked about different
categories of mods and some of those
included software mods while others
included hardware mods however in this
particular episode it's going to
specifically talk about modding
videogames as I mentioned in the one
sentence summary this is a case study
and it's a case study of 23 modders on a
forum and six modders from a Finnish mod
team and their ages range from 15
through 40 with an average of 23 years
old and around half the participants in
this particular study were students the
way the author actually gathered the
data from this was through the forum
responses and posts as well as emails
and face-to-face interviews the author
describes some scholarship that says
that there kind of three motivations for
modding PC games one of them is that
it's an artistic endeavor or a source of
a creative outlet or expression another
is that it helps people identify with
the games and kind of increase their
enjoyment when engaging with the game
and then the third example is that
modding is seen as a way to get a job in
the game industry which I kind of talked
about in the last unpacking scholarship
episode two weeks ago the author
describes how many monitors engage in
small modifications initially when
they're starting out and then eventually
grow into larger projects that often
require entire teams with different
expertise across the team or asking for
community support when they don't have
expertise to complete a particular
section of a mod now when engaging in
mod teams there's often a project leader
or leaders who find different experts
across the modding community and bring
them together for a particular project
however these roles often shift because
people have varying
levels of expertise in different areas
and contribute in multiple ways
in addition that often find supplemental
experts outside of a particular project
by asking for community members to
collaborate on a team when they need
very specific assistance with something
that the core team iners cannot provide
on their own now what this indicates as
a potential implication is that if
you're going to engage in modding
practices with kids it might be very
appropriate to bring together a large
group of kids to work on a project
however this can become a problem if
you're working on a platform that
doesn't allow different devices to
simultaneously work on the same thing so
for example if you're working on a
scratch project at least at the moment
you can only work on it on one device if
you have two kids signing the same
account on two different devices whoever
saves last is basically going to rewrite
over everything that was saved before it
on the other computer so what you would
need is either people working on
different portions of your project in
something like scratch on different
accounts and in different project
profiles and then combining them all
together into something or you need some
kind of a platform that would allow
everybody to create something together
all within the same interface and this
can become more difficult with the
increase in size and your groups if
you're just doing two people or maybe
even three people you might have like a
driver or a navigator and some other
form of role that kids can engage in but
if you've got like five or even ten
people all working on a project and only
one person's controlling the mouse it's
gonna be very difficult to keep
everybody else engaged throughout the
process but what's nice is if you can
find a way to have everybody take on a
different role and focus on a different
area of a mod then you're going to
encourage kids to kind of develop their
own expertise that they can then use not
only in this project but in other
projects that they work on in table one
of this study there are five key
motivators for the modders who engaged
in this particular study so the five
motivators are playing hacking
researching artistic expression and
cooperation now under the playing
category some of the motivators were
just simply playing the game or engaging
with the game
by adding your own ideas to it in a
playful way under the hacking category
is more of breaking down the game itself
to try and figure out its inner
components and how it works under the
researching category it could be
something like under the other research
I've read on mod culture where people
will engage in historical research in
order to provide historically accurate
information for a particular setting or
mission in a mod that they're creating
for the artistic expression it could be
like I talked about last time where it's
a total conversion mod where you make it
look completely different from the game
was originally intended this allows
people to kind of add their own artistic
expression to whatever game they are
modding and then under the cooperation
motivator some people were cited as
saying that they really enjoyed working
with other team members and kind of
learning and sharing a common goal with
them so these five motivators for
modding could apply into a k-12
classroom so for example under playing
maybe kids are motivated by playing
games that they are creating or by being
playful with some of the ideas that they
incorporate into a game maybe kids are
motivated by hacking in terms of like
better understanding the mechanics of
well how do player controls work maybe
kids are interested or motivated by
doing some research behind a game and
making it so that it's historically or
culturally accurate or maybe kids are
motivated by the artistic expression in
that they want to go in and create some
unique characters and change the artwork
and things or maybe kids are just
motivated by the different forms of
cooperation that go on in the game
itself so if you were to kind of engage
in a mounting practice with kids you
could assign each of these different
roles with kids like okay you're gonna
be the play tester you're gonna be the
person who's doing the hacking or doing
the inner mechanics of the game itself
you might be the researcher and you
might be the artist and then you could
have them all kind of switch between
these different roles or just have them
stick with something throughout now one
thing that I will mention if you are
going to do something like this you're
gonna want to make sure that everybody
at least understands how to do the other
components in particular if you're doing
a computer science class you'll want
them to understand the coding side of
things so if you're ever doing any kind
of pair
ramming your driver and navigator if
somebody is more comfortable doing the
artistic expression side of things and
less comfortable doing the coding side
of things you want to make sure they at
least understand what is going on with
the coding and they're not just creating
art which obviously is very valuable and
ended up self but if you're trying to
align to standards they need to at least
understand the computer science
standards now an important thing to note
is one of the participants actually
mentioned that time spent in the game
shifted towards testing the mods rather
than playing it in a normal sense so for
the playing side of things you know I'm
just sitting there and playing a video
game all all day just for the sake of
playing you're actually doing it to try
and make sure that your changes
don't break the game in ways that you
don't intend it to at least so as much
as I encourage kids to work on games and
to test their games I also wanted to
make sure that they weren't just sitting
there all class just playing their games
but we're actually going back and forth
between the code and play testing and by
the way a great way that you can
incorporate play testing is like at the
end of class you could have kids switch
computers and test out each other's
games or where they're at in development
and kind of provide some feedback be
like hey I really liked what you did on
level one but what I'm wondering is if
I'm level two you could do X Y & Z and
then the next day they can come back and
work on that on the researching side of
things the author points out that some
matters actually consult experts in the
field so for example this was a
first-person shooter so it was probably
a game that is not appropriate for your
school but in in the modding of this the
researchers would go and consult
military experts and look through
libraries and go to museums to kind of
make sure that their mods were accurate
representations of what they were trying
to include in the game so although
modding is playing with video games you
can actually incorporate a lot of
research related to all sorts of other
subject areas within the game itself to
make sure that it's accurate in some way
now on the cooperation and community
side of things one of the things that I
love about mod culture is a lot of the
modders actually create tutorials or
descriptions that kind of describe how
to do things in mining so for example
when I was learning how to mod the game
minecraft I had never worked with Java
before
never worked with eclipse which was the
IDE that I was using and I had never
modded a game before so I actually
watched a kid go through tutorials that
he had created on YouTube that walk
through how to do it and I was learning
from him along the way so this presents
an interesting way that you could
actually augment the classes that you
facilitate rather than your self
creating resources on how to do
something you could actually ask kids to
create resources that teach others how
to do similar things if they are gonna
create a similar mod now this might be
very difficult to do for the first year
because you're gonna have to either
create or find those resources however
after several years of having kids kind
of create tutorials and little examples
and resources on how to do things you're
gonna make it much easier for them to
learn from others who have taken the
class before them so two weeks ago when
I talked about encouraging kids to
engage with mod culture outside of
schools what I are just describing is
something that you could do to a create
an asynchronous community of modders in
your classes who are kind of learning
from people who have been in the class
before them and two weeks ago I talked
about the notion of play burr which is
the idea of the play as labor so people
who engage in modding practices are
doing so in ways that corporations
benefit from however the models in this
study indicated that they were actually
proud of the fact that they weren't
making money off of their endeavors but
what's interesting is they also note
that because they weren't making money
off of this it was actually preventing
them from doing larger and more
ambitious projects that they wanted to
do but they didn't have the time or
money to do so so if you're interested
in engaging and modding in your class I
hope these last couple unpacking
scholarship episodes have been useful
for you and in particular you could use
this as an example for kids who are
unsure why they need to learn computer
science if they don't plan on getting a
career in computer science you could use
this as an example and say well look if
you enjoy applying video games and you
could actually kind of create your own
or modify them to do new and interesting
things that you want the game to do that
they can't originally do now reading
through this one of the questions that I
have as just kind of a lingering
question is in what ways might be
motivators for in
aging in modding practices outside of
school be similar or different from
motivators within a formalized
educational context so in other words so
we have these ideas that modders
outside of school are motivated by
playing hacking researching artistic
expression and cooperation but do those
motivators change in educational context
if they're engaging in modding and if so
why so for example maybe a motivator is
just getting a good grade well why is it
that in an educational context that's a
motivator but it's not outside of a
classroom setting
another lingering question that I have
is how might these motivators change
among different age groups platforms or
languages or even types of mods so among
the age groups from might ask well what
is it that a five-year-old really likes
about modding and how does that compare
to a 17-year old who's engaging the
money under the platforms and languages
we could ask well what do you people
like about modding something in sonic PI
which allows you to create live or
composed music and how does that kind of
differ from somebody who's engaging with
scratch which allows you to make like
stories and media arts and games and in
terms of types of mods I wonder what the
motivating factors are for people who
are modding games and in particular are
modding just the code or modding just
the art and the sound of the game or who
are engaging in a total conversion mob
so each of these different types of mods
might have different motivators for it
and I think we need to have more
research on that and in particular not
just research on informal settings but
research in the k-12 realm as well I
hope by listening to the last couple
unpacking scholarship episodes you've at
least considered possibly engaging in
mod practices in your classes and just
as a friendly reminder in the episode
two weeks ago that was released talked
about how this is not just software
modifications you can also engage in
Hardware modifications so you can engage
in standards outside of the algorithms
and programming standards if you're
interested in doing so as always you can
find these show notes at Ghirardelli
recom and you can click on the author's
name to read more of their scholarship
and click on the title to get access to
the publication itself if you really
enjoyed this episode I hope you consider
sharing it with somebody else and
joining again next week
I interview somebody else and two weeks
from now I'm actually gonna start
exploring another topic where we're
going to talk about questioning
techniques that can be used in computer
science and that's gonna segue into a
discussion on some maker practices that
mm could be used in computer science
education thank you again so much for
listening I will talk to you again later

Article

Sotamaa, O. (2010). When the game is not enough: Motivations and practices among computer game modding culture. Games and Culture, 5(3), 239–255.

Abstract

“The actual meanings computer game modders attach to their actions and practices remain heavily underresearched. This article takes a look at the attitudes and everyday practices of the people who make game modifications, with special focus on the forms and consequences of collaboration between hobbyists. The case discussed in the article is the shooter-game Operation Flashpoint (OFP) and the modding scene around it. The article proposes that there is no such thing as an average computer game modder. It is suggested that the distinctions can be drawn based on the objective of projects (missions, add-ons, mods), modder motivations (playing, hacking, researching, self-expression, cooperation), and notions on the ownership and potential commercialization of their work. Given the forecasts concerning the growing significance of player-made content, this study can offer some down-to-earth findings from the long established tradition of game modding.”

Description text goes here

Author Keywords

Computer game modifications, modding, game fans, player production

My One Sentence Summary

A case study that explores the attitudes, motivations, and practices of 29 people who create mods for the game Operation Flashpoint.

Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

In what ways might the motivators for engaging in modding practices outside of school be similar or different from motivators within a formalized educational context?
How might these motivators change among different age groups, platforms or languages, or types of mods?

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

Other podcast episodes that were mentioned or are relevant to this episode
- Computer Game Mods, Modders, Modding, and the Mod Scene
  - In this episode I unpack Scacchi’s (2010) publication titled “Computer game mods, modders, modding, and the mod scene,” which examines modding practices within the mod scene, and discusses the social and corporate pressures that influence this culture.
- How to Get Started with Computer Science Education
  - In this episode I provide a framework for how districts and educators can get started with computer science education for free.
- Learning through Game Modding
  - In this episode I unpack El-Nasr and Smith’s (2006) publication titled “Learning through game modding,” which describes two case studies on modifying video games to learn software development and design, as well as programming, artistic, and video game concepts.
- Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry
  - In this episode I unpack Kücklich’s (2005) publication titled “Precarious playbour: Modders and the digital game industry,” which problematizes modding as a form of free labor.
- Understanding Women Modders Using the Serious Leisure Perspective
  - In this episode I unpack Trancred et al.’s (2020) publication titled “Understanding women modders using the serious leisure perspective,” which discusses a survey that investigated motivations for participating in modding practices among women.
- More episodes related to modding || remixing
- More episodes related to video games
- All other episodes
Chapter Two of my dissertation briefly summarizes mod culture or the mod scene
- Direct link to the page
Example Scratch projects I’ve created with comments that encourage modding/remixing
Find other CS educators and resources by using the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter