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.
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Testament test test my test test yeah
we're gonna keep that in welcome back to
another episode of the csk8 podcast my
name is Jared O'Leary each week of this
podcast is either an interview with a
guest or multiple guests or a solo
episode where I unpack some scholarship
in relation to Computer Science
Education in this week's episode I am
unpacking the paper titled precarious
player colon modders in the digital
games industry this paper was written by
Jillian kuklich and it's available for
free I include a direct link to it in
the show notes this paper problematizes
modding as a form of Free Labor you're
not familiar with it modding is a
practice of modifying a game or a
program be able to make it do something
that it could not originally do as
designed done a couple of podcast
episodes that talk about it which I link
to in the show notes which you can find
at jaredelary.com or by clicking the
link in the app that you're listening to
this on while you're on my website
you'll notice that this podcast is
powered by boot up PD which is the
non-profit I work for and you'll also
notice a bunch of other free computer
science gaming and drumming content on
website I'm a nerd who creates content
for living and for fun there's no
abstract for this paper however a
paragraph 5 either the introduction
provides a nice article summary so I'm
going to read that for you real quick
quote the following paper analyzes the
relationship between the modding
community and the games industry from a
political economy perspective without
disregarding the pleasures and rewards
individual modders may have derived from
their work within this context the
questions of whether modders can be
regarded in terms of a dispersed
multitude and how the power that comes
with the status can be realized more
fully deserves special attention at the
same time this paper seeks to gain
insight into the changing relationship
between work and play in the creative
Industries and the ideological
ramifications of this change end quote
so this paper is written in 2005 and
it's really interesting because the
author mentions that in 2004 it's most
likely that the games industry will
become more valuable from in terms of
like how much money is made from the
industry than the music industry but as
of today in 2022 it's actually more
valuable than the movies and music
industry combined and I've also seen
some other stats that says it's more
valuable than the movies and sports
entertainment Industries combined which
is fascinating as somebody who gave
games a lot kind of happy to see that
but one of the ways that the gaming
industry has been able to make profit is
off of the work of people who play their
games and in particular people who
modify their games and so we're going to
talk about that in this particular paper
so there's a link in the show notes at
geraldleary.com to a presentation where
the author actually kind of talks about
labor for a conference and in that
conversation Julia mentions quote
playbur is not work but it is also not
not work unquote Playboy is this form of
Labor that you might partake in for
leisure or during play so by modifying a
game to be able to make it do something
new and it's something that I have
brought up in multiple other podcast
episodes and brought up to somebody
recently and I was going to share a link
to this podcast where I talk about this
paper and then I was like wait I haven't
recorded an episode on this I need to do
that and here we are today now if you
think back to video games way back in
the day what was released by the gaming
company like the developers was what
players could use now what some
developers realized fairly early on in
the history of gaming industry is that
people who modify games create mods
extend the shelf life of that game and
in a way that is not at risk to the
developers in terms of amount of time
and money put into making variations of
the game and this keeps the game fresh
and makes it so that some people will
continue to play the game many years
after it has been released and with very
little effort from the developers in
terms of having to create new content
because people will create it for them
so like when Skyrim came out some people
made modifications that would like
change the characters in the game so
instead of a dragon flying around it
would be a fire breathing Thomas the
Tank Engine and videos like that will go
viral on YouTube and other platforms and
would make people want to buy the game
to try out these like goofy mods but in
order to play these mods you had to buy
the original game which gives money to
the developers and again these mods were
not made by the developers so all this
content that was being created and
shared was at no cost to the developers
other than maybe hosting files if they
had it built into the game otherwise
there are platforms and websites that
did that for them and by the way if you
haven't seen it yet I'll include a link
to to that Thomas the tank engine mod
that I was talking about because it's
hilarious and there's a bunch more that
you can find the people modding video
games in some fun ways and to be clear
that link is in the show notes now
what's really interesting is that some
entire games were actually originally
created as a mod for a different game
and then kind of branched off and became
their own thing so an example is
Counter-Strike it was originally a mod
for the game Half-Life and then became
its own Standalone product that has made
a lot of money and is actually still
fairly popular to this day although
other games that are similar like
valorent are kind of more popular we're
talking about a game that has been
around for more than a decade but what's
interesting is that Half-Life is
actually a mod of the game Quake 2. so
Quake 2 had a mod and it became
Half-Life then Half-Life had a mod and
it became Counter-Strike both Half-Life
and Counter-Strike sold a lot of copies
of the game and are kind of a standout
breakout success for the modding
Community as a way of being able to make
money with mods that you make you could
turn it into a full-fledged game or even
a company like valve however quote many
models are either uninterested or unable
to translate the social capital gain
through modding into gainful employment
the precarious status of modding as a
form of unpaid labor is veiled by the
perception of modding as a Leisure
activity or simply as an extension of
play this draws attention to the fact
that in the entertainment Industries the
relationship between work and play is
changing leading as it were to a hybrid
form of pleiber end quote that's from
paragraph 4 of the introduction now in
the next section of this paper the
author talks about the history of
modding and so the author talks about
how Castle smurfenstein is often
credited as like one of the first mods
and this is a mod of the game Castle
Wolfenstein where you go and Hunt Nazis
and instead of hunting Nazis in Castle
smurfenstein you hunt Smurfs as in from
the cartoon show with the blue little
characters and castle smurfenstein mod
was released in 1983 so the modding
practices have been around for quite
some time but it wasn't really until the
source code for Doom was released in
mainstream and the Doom editor in
particular quote was a watershed in the
evolution of the participatory culture
of man-making anyone with the interest
could create a level of a complex game
the equivalent of writing a new chapter
into a book and then via the Internet
publishing that creation the unplanned
and unexpected proliferation of dumonts
turned out to be a stroke of luck for ID
software since the mods required the
original software to run on players
computers as James Wagner owl points out
not only did the tradition of communal
self-policing create a bond between ID
and their best fans it benefited the
company commercially to enjoy all the
free fan created content now coming
available you first had to pay your toll
to ID and apogee as a consequence
subsequent ID Products such as quake and
Quake 2 were shipped with powerful level
editors that allowed players to make
their own mods end quote from paragraph
the author in the section goes on to
talk about some other examples that I've
already mentioned like how the mod or
Quake 2 became Half-Life and then that
mod became Counter-Strike Etc and so in
the next section titled the economy of
modding the author talks about how valve
which is a video game company was able
to make some money off of these mods
however the end user licensing
agreements the eulas now prevent people
from being able to make money or
royalties from the mods that they make
so even though entire companies were
developed around this those very same
companies that originally started off of
mods will prevent people from being able
to make money off of mods for their own
games which may have originally been a
mod so while people can get access to
the source code and modify things they
are creating content for that company
without being able to monetize that and
extend the shelf life of the game now
one of the interesting things is that
this actually can help increase Customer
Loyalty so by making us so that fans of
video games or entire series of video
games could modify games in interesting
ways customers are generally more
engaged or more appreciative when
they're able to engage with those mods
because fans of the game are able to
interact with it in ways that they
wouldn't have been able to if the
company hadn't released source code or
enabled modding in easy ways so like an
example of an easy way to modify games
in the video game Left for Dead if you
go into the files the folders like on
your computer you can find the sound
files and you can actually swap out
those sound files for whatever you want
as long as it's the same sample and
bitrate and depth Etc which is something
that I did in a community college class
that I designed and facilitated it was
called like the media arts Ensemble and
so one of the things that we did was
actually modding the video game Left for
Dead and we did it by changing out like
various sound effects re-recorded stuff
or found other memes like as an example
we replace the gun sounds with Pee-wee
Herman sounds so when you shoot a gun
instead of going Pew it would be like
Etc it made it hilarious to play through
the game which was supposed to be like
scary and whatnot but when you hear
zombies making really goofy sound
effects in your gun as Pee-wee Herman it
completely changed the style and people
who saw this and how easy it was to
modify things wanted to then go and do
similar mods called sound pack mods and
so they would end up buying the game as
a result of this so This helped the
company and increased Customer Loyalty
because like people like myself had fun
engaging with this game and trying to
think of new ways to be able to engage
with it this can also lead to innovation
in terms of the games industry so it
almost acts like an r d and a form of
marketing for the game without having to
actually spend any money on it so
content creators like myself like I
create content for a game's Elden ring
for fortnite for stardew valley with my
wife Etc when I am releasing my videos
on YouTube of like the highlight reels
or even doing full streams on YouTube
twitch Facebook wherever all of those
platforms benefit by me being on there
creating content for them but the
original games also benefit as a form of
marketing for those games I've had so
many people like when I'm doing Eldon
ring live streams or if I'm sharing a
shorts or something like on Tick Tock or
on YouTube people ask oh what game is
this because they too then want to go
and play it after seeing me do something
in a short video so that is a form of
marketing but on terms of research and
development some mods completely change
the style of the game and allow you to
do brand new things that the developers
hadn't originally conceived of that's a
form of r d because developers can then
look at that and go oh that's really
popular we should add that into our game
so for example the original game for
fortnite what's now called the save the
world mode is a PVE experience player
versus environment you can build bases
you can craft and upgrade different
weapons different traps and you fight
off cartoon looking zombie hordes while
being able to build and edit all sorts
of like really big bases that you then
defend however games like Pub G DayZ Etc
had this Mode called Battle Royale which
is based off of a movie and in that
movie a bunch of people enter into an
arena and only one person's allowed to
leave live that idea of the Battle
Royale was intriguing to Epic the people
who created fortnite and they went huh
what if we did that but we took all of
the mechanics we've got for building and
editing and then things like that in our
save the world feature and we just put
it into a battle royale because they saw
other games being successful with it
they decided to implement it into their
game okay so that was the company doing
r d however they have since created a
mode that allows you as a user of the
game to create your own content this has
led to new types of content like
something called a death run where you
try and run through like all these
different traps without getting caught
in them or story modes or more open
world RPG experiences Etc epic is able
to look at this and go what are people
creating and what is popular and
resonating with our fan base and while
epic doesn't charge for the game itself
at least for the Battle Royale
experience it's 100 free they do sell
in-game items that they've made billions
off of in addition some companies will
actually use this as like a form of
recruiting so as I've talked about in
other episodes some modders view this as
a stepping stone to get into the game
company by being able to demonstrate
what one can do by modding the game then
they can submit that as a portfolio on
say hey you want me to create more
content like this hire me okay so this
all sounds beneficial for the company
but let's talk about the next section
which is titled modding as player so the
author mentions that all of that I just
mentioned is problematic because the
gaming industry is commodifying other
people's Leisure like the user's Leisure
the author notes that this type of
player is similar to like the open
source software development where people
will create or modify programs or entire
operating systems like Linux to be able
to do something new this often comes
without being able to make money
although some certainly do and while the
gaming industry will often say that file
sharing and piracy is a problem in terms
of losing Revenue although again it is
more than music and movie Industries
combined what the gaming industry does
not often talk about is the fact that
they are still making money off of
people who are creating mods for the
game or user generated content so
instead of making a mod for a game which
changes the code or changes the sound or
the textures you might create like a
outfit like in this game Sims or a house
and then you can put that in various
websites that will allow you to share
the content that you create and then
people could download that and then they
can use it in their purchased version of
the game Sims all without having to have
the developer actually create that
content users create it okay so the next
section titled modding as precarious
labor so here's a quote from the first
paragraph quote arguably the
precariousness of moderous player lies
in the fact that it is simultaneously
voluntarily given and unwaged enjoyed
and exploited because this renders it
unclassifiable in traditional terms of
work and Leisure modding and other
similar forms of Free Labor do not fit
the categories of wage labor freelancer
voluntary work and neither do they fit
the category of leisure play or art
while free art or player shares traits
with all these occupational types it can
only be understood on its own terms
modding and productive forms of wage
labor are comparable in regard to the
fact that the creators of the produced
Goods do not own their products by the
terms of the original games Eula mods
usually Remain the property of the
game's manufacturer and while some
modders have received payments by game
developers they are usually barred from
receiving royalties end quote and so
that was from paragraph one and a little
bit of paragraph two now if you're like
okay this is interesting but what does
this have to do with cs education I'll
kind of talk about that towards the end
of this podcast so stay tuned the next
section is titled the modding Community
as a dispersed multitude in this
particular section the author talks
about how while the gaming industry has
Financial Capital modders have social
capital within the modding community so
people who are able to create mods and
the people who then create content
around those mods get a lot of social
capital in terms of views and Subs Etc
but that can also nowadays lead to more
financial capital for example one of the
biggest Minecraft streamers and content
creators is dream and dream used a lot
of mods that would change the game in
various ways like oh we're gonna make it
so that we try and beat the game and yet
the gravity is randomly flipping so
sometimes you'll fall down and then all
of a sudden you'll start falling up and
so dream created video about that and
that video shared on YouTube is able to
create AdSense Revenue which then makes
it so that the content creator and their
team are able to make money when the
author wrote this way back in 2005 that
wasn't really the case it was more
Social Capital rather than financial so
things have kind of like blurred the
lines between the two now it might
actually be a form of Labor rather than
labor so this leads into the very last
section which is on the future of
modding and it was interesting to read
that because it's been almost two
decades now since this was written and
so things have definitely changed some
for the better and some have kind of
stayed the same let's talk about that so
at the end of these unpacking
scholarship episodes I like to share
some lingering thoughts and questions
and now I'm going to tie this into
Computer Science Education in particular
I wanted to introduce the idea of
playber what is it what does it look
like Etc now let's like get a little bit
nerdy here so the first question that I
have is when might CS education also be
a form of Labor so for example rarely
recently over the last year or so there
have been questions about fees in the
App Store in particular Apple has been
criticized for having a high cut and
preventing from developers from being
able to lower that percentage or make
sales outside of the App Store where
Apple takes a cut Etc so a question that
I have is when might an app development
course like in a high school or even
Middle School be a form of Labor and
when might it be in an entrepreneurial
opportunity kind of blurs the line
between the two because while a student
might be creating an app just for fun
they could potentially make money off of
it but if they do app stores and their
hosts like apple Google Etc might end up
making money off of that so was that a
form of Labor if you do an app
development course is that a good thing
is that a bad thing I don't have an
answer to that but building off of that
at what point does modding become a
problematic form of player in your eyes
so I really enjoyed modding Minecraft I
did it to propose to my wife also done
some of the audio mods that I mentioned
the sound pack mods Etc it's a lot of
fun all of those mods I made for myself
I did not share them with anyone else
and I did it for fun I genuinely enjoyed
it and I got married as a result of one
of them well that wasn't the only reason
but you know what I mean okay so what I
presented so far has been an idea of
play bear and how companies make money
off of people so again tying it back
directly into the Cs classroom how might
we discuss the ethics around modding and
playber or user generated content or
even just social media Platforms in
general in our CS classes could go under
the impacts of computing or it could be
an entire class on ethics around
computer science now one of the
interesting newer developments is that
companies like epic games who's a
company that made fortnite is they have
an ability for creators to make money so
there's a supporter Creator code this
code allows creators to receive roughly
five percent of a cut of digital
currency spent Within fortnite game
store or other games on Epic store all
somebody has to do is like type in Jared
O'Leary for their creator code and then
anything that they buy while that code
is active will then go towards a content
creator like myself this makes it so
people who make mods or usage generated
content can actually make some money off
of this Granite it's not a lot of money
generally speaking but it's better than
nothing but again a lot of content
creators use multiple streams of income
so the support of Creator code from epic
is great but a lot of content creators
are also making money off of like
AdSense on YouTube or if they're like a
twitch partner or affiliate they can
make money for every thousand people who
watch their live stream that has an ad
that plays on it or from their subs or
from donations Etc so a lot of modders
are combining their modding abilities
with content creation abilities to have
a different set of income streams this
is all stuff that we could talk about
when it comes to computer science and
ethics and whatnot so perhaps not only
should we teach computer science like
the skills and practices Concepts Etc
but one of the things we could also
focus on more broadly speaking is just
communication skills so not just
computer science for the sake of
becoming a developer or a software
engineer or whatever but talking about
how you might use computer science to
become a content creator so as an
example when I went through schooling it
mainly focused on preparing me to write
scholarly Publications and while I have
written over a dozen of those this
podcast is a completely different type
of communication form that has a wider
reach on any given week than any of
those dozen public locations combined
it's easier to listen to it's easier to
engage with and to respond to there's
not a paywall behind it Etc so what I
kind of wish would have happened in my
grad school is the opportunity to create
content outside of just scholarly
Publications alone same thing might be
said for computer science while it's
great that you might be able to engage
in computer science Concepts to create
an app or create a game or whatever but
also we could explore using computer
science Concepts practices skills Etc
integrate entertainment in the form of
like YouTube videos or something just an
idea the last question that I have is
what are other examples of player that
might be discussed in computer science
education classes so I mentioned in past
thing but social media sites would not
exist if people did not create and share
content on those social media sites who
then sell ads to users of that site who
are creating the content for them so
that might be something that we could
discuss in ethics of computer science
especially around well what are the
ethics of encouraging engagement like do
we share the controversial post or we
share the posts that make people happy
what ads do we put on those what are
other ways of making money without
having to polarize people or engaged in
play-based forms of labor for example we
have that support a Creator code for
epic games what about social media
platforms doing similar things hey we
notice you have a lot of users engaging
with your content that you're creating
for our platform we are going to give
you a cut of the ads that are played on
the content that you create that could
be a really interesting discussion in
your computer science classes that blurs
discussions around business
entrepreneurship Etc so I don't know
about for you but labor was one of those
things where it just really opened my
eyes and I was like wow this is
fascinating I had never thought of that
I just did this for fun I wasn't
thinking about how the fact that people
are profiting off of my fun and now that
I know that I still engage in it because
I am enjoying it and there are
opportunities to make money off of it
whether it's like the YouTube content or
streaming or whatever but I'm doing that
while being fully aware that somebody
else is making significantly more money
off of the content that I create for
them so it's an interesting thing to
think about I know this was kind of a
different episode of the csk8 podcast I
hope you enjoyed it I like to switch
things up in different ways as there are
now 159 episodes on my website
geraldleary.com so if you like this
episode and want to try out a different
one check out the interviews check out
another unpacking scholarship episode or
check out one of the April fools
podcasts but stay tuned next week for
another episode until then I hope you're
all staying safe and are having a
wonderful week
Article
Kücklich, J. (2005). Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry. Fibreculture Journal, 5, 1–5.
Article summary
“The following paper analyses the relationship between the modding community and the games industry from a political economy perspective, without disregarding the pleasures and rewards individual modders may derive from their work. Within this context, the questions of whether modders can be regarded in terms of a “dispersed multitude”, and how the power that comes with this status can be realised more fully, deserve special attention. At the same time, this paper seeks to gain insight into the changing relationship between work and play in the creative industries, and the ideological ramifications of this change” (Intro, par. 5).
My One Sentence Summary
This article problematizes modding as a form of free labor.
Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts
When might CS education also be a form of playbour?
At what point does modding become a problematic form of playbour in your eyes?
How might we discuss the ethics around modding and playbour in CS classrooms?
What are other examples of playbour that might be discussed in CS education classes?
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.
Considering Leisure in Education with Roger Mantie
In this interview with Roger Mantie, we discuss the importance of leisure for self preservation, problematize the single focus of education for workforce readiness, discuss the importance of focusing on happiness and wellbeing, explore discourse in education and around leisure, and much more.
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.
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.
Reconceptualizing “Music Making:” Music Technology and Freedom in the Age of Neoliberalism
In this episode I unpack Benedict and O’Leary’s (2019) publication titled “Reconceptualizing “music making:” Music technology and freedom in the age of Neoliberalism,” which explores the use of computer science practices to counter neoliberal influence on education.
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.
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.
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