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

Article

Scacchi, W. (2010). Computer game mods, modders, modding, and the mod scene. First Monday, 15(5).

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.”