Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry

Precarious Playbour: Modders and the Digital Games Industry
Jared O'Leary
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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.

  • 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

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