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.

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is Jared Leary this

    episode I'm going to unpack some

    scholarship and this is a continuation

    of a mini-series on modding and mod

    culture so two weeks ago I introduced a

    study that found some positive results

    for modding video games in terms of it

    was highly motivating or interesting for

    the students who would participated and

    it allowed students to engage in a

    variety of practices and concepts from

    not only in computer science but other

    subject areas as well so this week I

    want to talk more about what are game

    mods who are modders what is modding and

    what is the overall mod scene and again

    chapter 2 in my dissertation which is

    linked in the show notes as some more

    studies that are useful if you're

    interested in learning more about the

    mod scene and it provides kind of a

    general summary or overview of this

    culture and again the show notes can be

    found at jared early recom where there's

    nothing for sale or you can find it in

    the link inside the podcast app

    hopefully it should be at the bottom

    underneath a short description so

    today's publication is titled computer

    game mods modders modding and the mod

    scene and is by walt sketchy and

    apologies walt if I've mispronounced

    your last name I'm very bad at

    pronouncing names as I'm sure most of

    you have gathered by now one of the nice

    things about this particular study is

    you can find it for free online so in

    the show notes when you click on the

    title for this study under the citation

    you'll actually be able to read the

    entire thing it is available so

    thankfully this publication avoids the

    paywall that often separates research

    from practitioners here is the abstract

    for this particular paper quote computer

    games have increasingly been the focus

    of user-led innovations in the form of

    game mods this paper examines how

    different kinds of social technical ed

    for dances serve to organize the actions

    of the people who develop and share

    their game mods the affordances examined

    include customization and tailoring

    mechanisms software and content

    copyright licenses game software

    infrastructure and development tools

    career contingencies and organizational

    practices of mod teams and social

    world's intersecting them on scene

    numerous examples will be used to ground

    this review and highlight how such

    affordances can organize facilitate or

    constrain what can be done

    overall this study helps to provide a

    deeper understanding of how a web of

    Associated affordances collectively

    serve to govern what mods get made

    how modding practices emerge in flourish

    and how modders in the game industry

    serve each other's interests though not

    always in equivocal terms in quote if I

    were to summarize this particular study

    into one sentence it would be that this

    study examines modding practices within

    the mod scene and discusses these social

    and corporate pressures that influence

    this particular culture so the article

    begins by kind of unpacking what the

    author means by affordances so this is

    an introduction of quote affordances

    refer to situated interactional

    properties between objects tangible or

    symbolic and actors that facilitate

    certain kinds of social interactions

    within a complex environment the concept

    of affordances seeks to characterize

    aspects of complex work settings that

    facilitate how people interact through

    social technical systems like computer

    games end quote later in this

    introduction the author describes

    affordances as enablers of collaboration

    and governance so in this introduction

    what the author is basically discussing

    is how different objects and actors kind

    of interact with each other and

    influence each other through social

    pressures and kind of govern what can

    and cannot be done in or is viewed as

    acceptable within a particular culture

    and what is considered to be socially

    acceptable is it not only historically

    situated in terms of prior practices

    that came before it but also the current

    social norms that are going on within a

    culture now the reason why this is

    important is because in this particular

    paper the author describes how the mod

    scene is kind of working in reaction to

    both leisure interests in terms of like

    modding for fun as well as corporate

    interests in terms of modding either for

    corporate gain or for gain of an

    individual who eventually will get hired

    by a video game developer so following

    this introduction the author kind of

    unpacks very briefly what each of the

    terms are so a mod is basically a

    modification of existing software

    typically a video game within

    culture however you can modify other

    things like a productivity tool or

    something that is also modding software

    now modders are the people who do the

    modding and modding is the actual

    practice of modifying a video game or

    software and the mod scene is the

    broader social world that encompasses

    all of these practices and people who

    engage in such practices so under the

    customizing tailoring and remix in game

    embodiments heading there is the

    following clip at least 5 type of game

    mods can be observed user interface

    customization game conversions machinima

    and art mods game computer customization

    and game console hacking in quote so

    under the user interface mods those

    could be something like adjusting the

    in-game identity of a player customizing

    the color palette of the game design or

    modifying in-game information management

    an example of a game conversion mod is

    you could add or modify the appearance

    or capabilities of the game itself the

    objects like the levels or some of the

    rules or even mechanics of the game and

    then if you modify it completely it's

    what's usually called a total conversion

    mod where everything is modified and

    it's sometimes done in parody so for

    example there was a game called Chex

    quest which was basically a non-violent

    total conversion of a game called doom

    so doom was a first-person shooter a

    very violent looking game and then the

    game was modded into a serial type of

    game that was nonviolent so it was very

    different from the original and that's

    considered to be like a total conversion

    mod where it looks completely different

    and behaves differently ok so here's a

    quote on what machinima is so machinima

    is a form of modding the experience of

    playing a specific game through a

    recording of its visual play session

    history so as to achieve some other ends

    beyond the enjoyment or frustration of

    gameplay unquote so in other words an

    example of a machinima is people mind to

    record their gameplay session from

    different angles and turn it into a a

    story so a very famous example of this

    is the red versus blue

    machinima stuff where they were playing

    the game Halo and they basically created

    like characters and a full story after

    comical where it was like different

    perspectives of the characters in the

    game that often were set in the game

    world but didn't really have anything to

    do with the gameplay itself so it's

    basically taking a video game and using

    it as your own environment for creating

    movies and the author says that art mods

    quote modify the gameplay experience

    through manipulation intervention

    appropriation or other creative

    transformation of the game's original

    visual content as it is consumed by

    users during a play session in quote so

    in other words in the instead of making

    an environment that looks realistic like

    with the forest and trees maybe you'd

    change the environment so it looks like

    Candyland like the trees are made out of

    little popsicles or something and

    lollipops as opposed to like pine and

    birch not the final example a game

    console hacking it's actually something

    I've talked about a lot in my

    dissertation there's a lot of examples

    of people who modified video game

    consoles and hardware in order to make

    music with it so if you want to learn

    more about that you can however the

    author describes game console hacking as

    like customizing a gaming PC for the

    purposes of modding or creating a

    specialized PC so an example of this

    that the author provides is overclocking

    CPUs with liquid cooling devices so it's

    making it so that the CPU actually

    performs faster than is originally

    intended so that way you can get

    squeezed a little bit more performance

    out of your device and this often

    requires a lot of expensive tools now in

    addition some people actually modify

    their cases of their consoles or pcs

    rather than making it perform better

    they just wanted to look more

    aesthetically pleasing so that's also a

    finding that I found in my dissertation

    where people would include video game

    art work on their new creations that

    they made by modifying a video game

    console okay so now taking a step back

    from the study itself so with these five

    different categories what you could

    think of in computer science education

    in like the k-8 or the k-12 realm is

    that here are five example types of ways

    that kids might be able to engage in

    modifying things so one is modifying the

    user interface so the different kind of

    function

    that you can use in a program another is

    actually converting a game in some way

    whether it's partial conversion or a

    total conversion for instance a Chex

    quest example or the examples that were

    discussed in the episode two weeks ago

    another is machinima in art mods so this

    is more of modifying the way that the

    game looks or the way that you actually

    use the game to make a movie with it and

    then there's also the game computer

    customizations and the game console

    hacking which is actually modifying the

    hardware itself now often in computer

    science education we tend to focus on

    programming but one of the things that I

    love about this article is that it talks

    about Hardware modding and not just

    software modding so there are a lot of

    really interesting Hardware things that

    you can do it with mod related practices

    which is why I think this is very

    important culture to know about as

    computer science educators now it's an

    important thing to note that while it is

    often illegal to distribute to the

    original games themselves some game

    developers actually allow and encourage

    gamers to create mods and share those

    mods now there have been some people in

    other articles who have kind of talked

    about how this is a way for a game to

    extend its life so for instance the game

    Skyrim when it came out it was a very

    popular game but after about a year or

    so it wasn't as interesting because

    people had already played through it

    however people continue to develop

    customized versions of the game that

    added new quests and new ways of

    engaging with it often in very comical

    ways like replacing a flying dragon with

    Thomas the Tank Engine there's actually

    a pretty hilarious video demonstration

    that I'll include in the show notes if

    you're interested in that this made it

    so that people were continuing to engage

    with this game and continuing to talk

    about it which from a gamer perspective

    it makes us so they get more value out

    of the game because you're able to enjoy

    it in different ways for longer periods

    of time but from a developer standpoint

    you also don't have to release content

    continuously because people are doing it

    for you so as a critique of this some

    people have actually called this as a

    form of play burr or play based labor

    where game companies are actually making

    money off of the gamers who are engaging

    in modding practices now because this is

    a way that companies can

    increase engagement with their products

    that they create often a lot of

    developers are including in tools for

    easily creating and sharing mods with

    their games so if you are interested in

    engaging in some mod practices with the

    kids that you work with and you want to

    do it in an actual game that has been

    released and is obviously appropriate

    for the age range that you're working

    with you want to try and find one that

    has tools already developed inside of

    the game itself or as an extension of

    the game it will just make your life a

    whole lot easier when doing so otherwise

    you'll want to find a platform like

    scratch which just has the ability to

    remix or mod another person's program

    very easily now under the header that is

    called career contingencies and

    organizational practices of modders

    alone and together in quote and I'm a

    mouthful now the author poses the

    question at the very beginning who gets

    paid to make games when comparing

    developers versus modders well some game

    companies do actually allow you the

    ability to sell is some of the assets

    that you have modded or and shared with

    the broader community many of the game

    companies do not so it is only the game

    developer who makes a profit in the long

    run and not the modders however the

    author argues that modders actually can

    benefit from modding by gaining personal

    and career related resources and

    experiences that quote include deep game

    development knowledge skills for how and

    when to apply such knowledge status

    community recognition and reputation and

    other forms of social capital for the

    gifts of Labor creativity expertise and

    collaboration efforts they contribute

    include now what's interesting is the

    author kind of provides a

    counter-argument to what I referred to

    previously as play birth so the argument

    goes like this and this is a quote that

    is before the social world's

    intersecting the mod scene header it's

    quote if game honors are acting out of

    self-interest to establish a career path

    into jobs at game companies and if they

    get to create games conversions that

    open new career opportunities in other

    industries then it would seem that

    modders use modding as a way to exploit

    game development studios as desire to

    hire skilled game developers in close in

    other words the authors actually flip

    the notion of plate on its head and

    saying well actually modders might be

    gaming the system and making money off

    of the game companies because they're

    demonstrating through a portfolio of

    mods that they've created what they can

    actually do and gain valuable experience

    in the process so as an example there

    are many people who have actually

    submitted game mods to companies to show

    what they can do so it's like hey you've

    created this game however look what I

    did all on my own by modifying the game

    that you created here are some of the

    things that I can contribute to your

    organization as an example of this

    that's found in the footnotes under

    number 33 the author mentions that John

    Schafer started his career as a modder

    for the civilization game series and

    actually ended up becoming the lead

    designer for that game series so as much

    as I love advocating for leisure

    experiences and computer science and

    programming I do acknowledge that there

    are a lot of people who are interested

    in the more corporate routes so if

    you're interested in game modding yes

    you could certainly do it from leisure

    as I have done but you could also end up

    helping kids find careers in the video

    game industry just by getting them

    started with modifying video games now

    one of the things I do appreciate though

    is the author includes an entire

    discussion on what's known as the where

    scene so this is under the heading

    called social world's intersecting the

    mod scene so the where scene is

    basically a place where people share

    open source software and sometimes even

    develop hardware that enables the

    playing of open source software so if

    you're interested learning more about

    this underground community of people who

    kind of modify software and digital

    media and then share them openly for

    consumption you can check out that

    particular section especially take a

    note of how some cultures like India and

    Asia actually support by releasing

    modded consoles that allow you to play

    materials developed by other people now

    the final sentence before the

    conclusions heading says quote modding

    as a cultural practice continually

    shifts how artifacts embodiments

    technical configurations and

    arrangements of participants on all

    sides govern value and reproduce what

    can be accomplished through game mods in

    quote now the thing that I really love

    about the mod scene is

    everything is constantly in flux whether

    it's software or hardware so people are

    always adding new things they're always

    providing suggestions or experimenting

    with new ways of changing something and

    in particular I was very familiar with

    the software side of things when I

    started doing research on this but when

    I did my dissertation in particular the

    participants in the discussion forum

    that I looked at there were so many ways

    that the people were modifying Hardware

    that I just constantly just dumbfounded

    with all these unique and interesting

    ways that people were creating musical

    instruments or devices for music making

    so if you're interested in learning more

    about this this article in particular

    has a lot of great resources to point to

    in terms of citations but you can also

    take a look at in the show notes my

    dissertation chapters for kind of lays

    out all the different ways that people

    are engaging with stuff so I'd probably

    start there and then chapters five and

    six kind of unpack scible how does this

    work in a school setting and in what

    ways is like multidisciplinary or

    transdisciplinary and finally in the

    conclusions section of this paper says

    quote game matters are sometimes viewed

    as leisure laborers these playful

    modding actions primarily contribute to

    the growth of economic rents collected

    by game studios however modders can also

    be viewed as independent and

    self-organizing actors who are acquiring

    the means for producing their own games

    or King conversions through self-serving

    investment in skill and knowledge

    acquisition time effort and

    socialization with others like-minded in

    quote so a lingering question that I

    have when going through this article is

    how and when might CS educators

    encourage not only engagement with

    software and hardware modding practices

    but the mod scene outside of a school

    itself well the reason why I ask is

    because it's nice that we might be able

    to provide the opportunities to modify

    games to learn how to program and engage

    in other discipline areas however many

    of the people who engaged in the

    discussion forum that I looked at from

    my dissertation mentioned a strong sense

    of community in fact community practices

    was one of the larger themes that kind

    of was evident across all the other

    practices so how can we

    not only foster a sense of community

    similar to the Mon scene within a

    formalized educational context now how

    can we encourage kids to engage in an

    outside of schools in a safe and

    respectful way and taking into account

    the fact that the mod scene is not just

    made of people who are gonna be at the

    ages of the kids that you're working

    with but might be significantly older or

    even younger so how can we encourage

    kids to engage in such environments with

    diverse ages expertise experiences and

    different cultural values and norms and

    whatnot which may or may not be

    considered school appropriate so I hope

    this quick summary of this article kind

    of points you towards some different

    directions that you might consider going

    into for engaging in modding practices

    and hopefully in the larger modding

    culture within the classes that you work

    with however again this article itself

    is linked to in the show notes and the

    article is available for free at least

    at the time of this recording and my

    dissertation in Chapter four kind of

    unpacked some more examples of not only

    software modification but hardware

    modification practices and those are all

    related to music in particular but they

    should at least point to some potential

    ideas for how you can engage in hardware

    and software modification practices as a

    friendly reminder the show notes are all

    found at jared O'Leary comm or should be

    linked in the app that you are listening

    to in the description I hope you enjoyed

    this week's episode next week we're

    going to have an interview and then

    following that we're gonna have one more

    paper that we're gonna look at that it

    kind of discusses the motivations for

    people who engage in modding so we've

    looked at what modding practices look

    like and whether or not it's beneficial

    in this setting today we looked at the

    broader culture of mod culture and some

    of the practices within it and then two

    weeks from now we're actually going to

    talk about why do people engage in these

    mining practices thank you so much for

    listening I hope you enjoy next week's

    interview


Abstract

“Computer games have increasingly been the focus of user–led innovations in the form of game mods. This paper examines how different kinds of socio–technical affordances serve to organize the actions of the people who develop and share their game mods. The affordances examined include customization and tailoring mechanisms, software and content copyright licenses, game software infrastructure and development tools, career contingencies and organizational practices of mod teams, and social worlds intersecting the mod scene. Numerous examples will be used to ground this review and highlight how such affordances can organize, facilitate or constrain what can be done. Overall, this study helps provide a deeper understanding of how a web of associated affordances collectively serve to govern what mods get made, how modding practices emerge and flourish, and how modders and the game industry serve each others’ interests, though not always in equivocal terms.”


My One Sentence Summary

This study examines modding practices within the mod scene, and discusses the social and corporate pressures that influence this culture.


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • How and when might CS educators encourage not only engagement with software and hardware modding practices, but the mod scene outside of a school?


Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode



More Content