In the wake of Valve rolling out paid mods in 2015 and then quickly pulling them back in again a week later, you defended the idea. Does the existence of
mod.io suggest your view hasn’t changed? Scott Reismanis: I definitely think that there’s a place for paid mods, it just really depends how it’s done. There’s definitely a happy medium where players get access to more content and creators can really hone their craft and be rewarded. It’s just a matter of finding that balance. And again, that’s really where we are being careful with how we expose this space, because we really want to find that balance, where it’s a win-win-win for all parties, and it’s seen as a very strong positive and not as a threat.
But is that something that’s built into
mod.io?
SR: At the moment, no. It’s a feature that’s not available. But our entire platform is designed so that studios are in control of their creative community, and they can choose how they want to use it and enable it. Once it is available, it will be at a studio’s discretion as to if and how they use it. We’ll certainly work with them to explain best practises, what we think works and looking at what’s great for their creators and players. So it will be coming and it’s something that we’re very focused on and putting a lot of thought behind, but it’s not quite here yet.
How geared is
mod.io towards supporting fan ownership of content in the form of NFTs? SR: It’s not really an area that we’re observing. Just like with paid modding, we’re listening to the feedback of the games we’re working with and we’re prioritising what’s most important to them. The NFT part of it, once it stabilises and once the initial hype has worn off, it’ll be interesting to see how many gamers are actually engaging with it, because it almost seems to be predominantly speculators, not necessarily players. And we’re very focused on the normal game that wants to release on Steam and ship through Playstation and reach an audience that way. If NFTs are a really strong way for them to accomplish that and succeed then absolutely will be a direction that we will look to enable.
important to studios these days. They know that it’s no longer about just shipping a title and then moving on to the next one. It’s about working with the players to create an engaging live service-type title.” For Reismanis, nothing creates community better than mods. “Mods are a really awesome way of pulling fans together, no matter what platform or device they’re on, and unifying them around something they love, which is finding and exploring new content for games, whether it’s on Xbox Games Pass, or on Steam, Epic Game Store or wherever.” Reismanis cites the success of Roblox as the
platform that really took the concept of UGC to heart and allowed creators to “go pro.” With
mod.io Reismanis wants to provide studios with the tools they need to make it a no brainer to embrace mods to the same degree. “That comes down to metrics and dashboards and tools that show them how many of their players are engaging with content and what types of content are trending in their ecosystem. So that they can identify and help elevate their top creators and content, make it official in their game and really just learn. Because the creativity of many is always going to outweigh the expertise of one.
Mod.io is about enabling that.” That’s all very well of
course, but holding up Roblox as a trailblazer in the realm of UGC is also problematic when you consider how much player-created content exists in
the Roblox ecosystem that willfully crosses those IP boundaries that publishers are usually so keen to protect. Reismanis responds by saying that it’s not for
mod.io to curate what UGC can and can’t be available: “Each studio is able to set up their own policies for what creation they permit, what creation they encourage, and then we can help them implement that policy and start growing their creative community. It’s just about having a platform that can help moderate and manage content and can let it run when it’s permitted.” It’s telling that Reismanis wants to nurture
relationships between publishers and UGC creators similar to the way that influencers are managed, in the sense that mod creators are often first and foremost fans. “For the majority, the reason why they mod is because they absolutely love the game. They actually see themselves as more creative types than a consumer type. They mod just because they just want to learn game development, and because they derive enjoyment from seeing people play and experience what they’ve
“Modding is very much a multiplier of success. It’s not necessarily something that will create success on its own, because you’ve got to have that passionate community that really wants to extend the game and personalise it.”
38 | MCV/DEVELOP January 2022
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