I don't get ballooning mod teams. I mean, at that point why not ship a standalone game? Last time this happened it was called The Witcher and I hear that did alright.
this post was submitted on 11 Apr 2025
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Modding something that already exists is way easier than making a game, and when it comes to huge mod teams most people contribute in small ways in their free time. People also come and go to the modding scene whenever they feel like it as opposed to actually requiring to work in a timely manner.
Yeah, well, that's why game engines are a thing. I didn't pick The Witcher at random, that was built on top of Neverwinter Nights tech.
Maybe I'm too stuck in the 90s, but I never quite got the point of doing all those total conversions for Quake games when you could just as well use the exact same tools by licensing the engine and just ship the thing as a game.
Well, no, I'm lying. The point of those total conversions was very often that people wanted to use a bunch of licensed characters they didn't own, which I guess is the point here as well, so maybe I've answered my own question.
As far as I know you also can't just buy the Larian engine. It's proprietary.
Pre-existing models/art is something that is a huge work effort. Not to be undervalued. If one can get those for free, it can be the reason some game exists.
Take Auto Chess for example. I can imagine programming that DOTA 2 mod was an effort one or few programmers did as a hobby at first. If they would have had to either pay or network with artists to create the art and other people to do marketing, it would have been a lot more than a hobby.
"One or few programmers" is the key part of that, though. I'm not saying every modder should get into game development out of the gate. Modding is a great way to dip your toes into gamedev without having to do all the teambuilding and groundwork of putting together every piece of a game.
But some mods get so big they do have a full-on dev team. Nothing wrong with spending some time getting proof of concept that the team can do the job, but if you're spending years with a full team completely overhauling a game... I mean, get paid, man. You're doing a whole ass job at that point.
Last time a ballooning mod team released a mod was Fallout: London and that also did alright...
why not ship a standalone game?
Hasbro owns the ip and it's way cheaper to use someone else's license and make changes than to get your own license.
A friend of mine had a similar thought. He was sitting down to do some work on an open source game, and then was like "Wait. What am I doing?" and he made his own game from scratch. ( This one: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271280/Rift_Wizard/ - It's good, but kind of too hard for my brain )
It helped that he a had a lot of xp in game development. I imagine some of the boring, difficult, stuff doesn't have as many people readily available. There's a lot of "Why does the game crash if I push the up arrow key when I'm in my inventory, sometimes?" stuff you have to worry about when you're doing the whole thing.
Rift Wizard!
Part of me is so pulled by games with customizable characters and good magic systems, but roguelike… oof. But it calls to my childhood self. Maybe I'll watch a playthrough to try to see if it's for me.
Props to your friend for making and finishing a game at all, let alone the reviews said one lots of people enjoy!
I've never heard that this started as a mod. Last I knew, even Witcher 1 was a licensed product even at the initial development. It's been a couple years since I watched the CDProjekt documentary though.
It didn't, technically, but it WAS originally build on the Neverwinter Nights toolset/engine. A licenced version, then modified. Which is sort of my point. Why mod if you have a big group of devs and you're working at speed? Just pay to license the toolset you're using and ship a game.
Because Larian wouldn't let them do that. It's extremely rare for companies to legitimize and officially adopt a fanmade mod as a real product. Larian isn't licensing the BG3 engine as a game toolkit so there's no legal avenue for fans to do this.
They would need to make it a new IP with different tech and new assets, which is much much harder than what they're doing now.
Well, I don't know that Larian is the problem. They don't own the D&D or the BG license and they´re moving on from both, apparently. That said, I don't know how willing they are to license their engine. I'm guessing not particularly, since they haven't done it so far, to my knowledge.
Yeah, definitely not Larian, they've always been pretty open to players and other devs alike. And if they really do end up moving on, I cannot wait to see what they do next. Maybe a new Divinity game that's as in-depth as BG3?
Ooooohhhh fuck yeah
Does anyone get paid anything? Or potentially just the game makers capitalising on the success of the mod?
bethesda taught us a very important lesson a while ago - if your game isn't good, then the modders won't bother. Skyrim despite its flaws is a good game, and has mods to show for it, Starfield despite its budget is pretty bad, and after the initial hype most ambitious mod projects were cancelled.
because of that i don't think there's any neferious plot behind the game makers celebrating their modding community, and the modding community certainly isn't getting forced to work without pay - they're passionate about the game and want to make something of their own within it, and honestly that builds a good portfolio for future use too
People get mad when payment is expected for labor
Defending amateurism in amateur fields is reasonable. Especially when amateurism is a legal defense of the practice such as modding. Professional mods without official license are copyright violations.
This is similar to fanfic communities. The amateurism of the field gives it part of its charm and community, and it also makes it easier for people to come in, develop these skills, and move into creating and selling original works if they'd like to move in that direction.
Copyleft "fanfics" are what we call the entire SCP universe. CC-BY-SA is just like the GPL. Notice it's not CC-BY-SA-NC (NonCommercial). Labor, even if it's "mods" or "fanfics" is still labor. What, suddenly your work grew in value because it was based off of a different license agreement? The hard work didn't change, yet it suddenly legitimately grew in value?
If i ever made a game, im making sure everything is released cc by sa and a FLOSS software license for the source code. Because fuck the mentality that says your work isn't valuable simply because I didn't give you a license to "my stuff"
Labor is labor, and copyleft is great. Hell copyright has massive issues. But also if youre going to participate in amateur labor where it would be illegal to profit, something wonderful and fulfilling for many people, then you don't get mad when you don't get paid. If you decide you'd like to make it something you get compensated for you can file the serial numbers off as has become a common practice for fanfic writers who achieve a certain level of popularity.
But also, the exchange of money changes the nature of labor. Labor done out of love and a desire to create and act and give to one's community is deeply human and quite satisfying and it's why amateur communities develop culture of amateurism. And it's why many people who don't want to do these things for a living choose to do them for a hobby
Selling a game based off of the hard work of a game engine: good
Selling a mod based off of the hard work of intellectual property: bad
Is that too reductive? It's the same industry: game dev
Being paid to compete in professional sports vs being paid to compete in intramural sports. It's the same industry is it not?
What's wrong with accepting payment for playing a sport? I really don't see a problem of somebody trying to earn a living by doing that
I don't either. But if they're joining an intramural league, I oppose it. Because its a league defined by amateurism in which nobody's really seeking to profit.
When we talk NCAA or Olympics then I think that as people are starting to profit off of it the athletes should profit. Though I ask why we're endorsing the everyone profit model rather than the "college sports teams should more resemble high school ones and we create a minor league instead" model.
Lets go to a form of labor I've done: open mic nights. Comedians should be able to make money off their craft, but open mic nights shouldn't pay because that creates conditions that ruin the point. It's a space where anyone can go up, try their hand, and with minimal judgment perform. You being good is a nice surprise to the audience, unlike when you're being paid where they have reason to expect it. It's a different environment, one more focused on the human desire to create and perform and share it and on the development of skills to a level that they can be sold.
That's what amateurism is about. It's about keeping it low key, keeping the expectations reasonable, and keeping the vibe of "people are selling their stuff here" out. It's the same reason that as a former nudes poster who has dated nudes sellers I've wanted to keep those communities separated.
So yeah, it kills the vibes and for us supporters of amateurism we know we're losing out on highly skilled people's contributions to our communities when we say we'd rather them not engage in commercial works in those realms. Thats OK.
And I'd like to add that I do purchase art from former amateurs when they move into professional realms. Tamsyn Muir is my favorite author and her writing drips of her fanfic history. But her fanfic is for her and under a name idk if shes even released, and I wouldn't buy it if she were to sell it wholecloth, because that kills the vibes.
I'm stoked for this mod.
As an avid fan of BG2 this does tickle my fancy.
What a treat, and what a win for self-hosting. I wish they talked more about how they did it in the article.
Man, BG3 is so much downloaded at 15th April. Steam servers, better be ready for my 130GB download.