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[AD-FREE] Why Are Publishers Terrified Of Modders? (ft. Shivaxi - RLCraft) | Dev Heads
Added 2024-10-12 00:00:06 +0000 UTCThis week, the Dev Heads crew are joined by Shivaxi to chat about the past, present, and future of mods.
Comments
I agree with your remarks that big companies have so much hierarchies and compartmentalization in their specialists to "divide and conquer" the problems that it's unlikely that anyone with the power to call the shots has both the big picture and in-depth understanding of the situation. Which is why I missed Tina's perspective on this, because I'm curious how love and passion for games and game-making itself is distributed in game industry company - like, is it just at the bottom, or is it in anyone who started in a hands-on position, even if they moved up since? My suspicions is that for the big game dev companies and most publishers, the answer to the question in the topic would be something like "because it's not a monetization feature, it won't drive sales, it can't be put in a trailer and used to fuel hype, it takes time which delays the ROI and banking and developing the next cash cow takes priority, it's an unreliable investment beyond our ability to control and predict, hardware companies won't support us if we won't drive their sales with progressively excessively demanding products, and satisfying the needs of the customers for the next 10-20 years sinks the potential for remakes and sequels". Maybe someone in that meeting would be tech-savvy enough to add "because the tech will be obsolete in 3-5 years". If I was an indie developer, my answer would probably be "I'd love to do it, but I barely have the resources to make the game itself, and I have like 5 more projects that have been waiting for their turn for years now". If I could make all the tools for easy content creation for this game, I'd use them to make this game in the first place - but at that point, I wouldn't be making a game now, would I? I would be making an engine, and using the game to sell it. That being said, I admire and respect modders for their passion and effort in improving the things they love, or just keeping them alive for others to enjoy. I respect anyone who can create software flexible enough to support modding without making it brittle. And I love that you gave game content creators that aren't in the industry an opportunity to tell their side of the story, even if it was just one person in one episode.
Maciej Myczkowski
2024-10-19 11:46:01 +0000 UTCStrange...the last couple of episodes your guest's audio has been far too low relative to each host's audio.
Mark Whitby
2024-10-14 07:37:49 +0000 UTCThis was such a great discussion. Keeping the passion and the magic alive when you know the specific nuts and bolts of a construction. Really dug it. Thanks sooo much! Could we get Tina to weigh in on that in the next one? π
Catherine Stowell
2024-10-13 03:43:06 +0000 UTC
