I never quite understood modern modding. Back in the day we knew it wasn’t our game, we knew it belonged to the company and that modding was just for fun. Nobody was entitled enough to think they should make money off of, or be allowed to make a mod for a AAA game and the company would just be ok with that.
Basically, mods have always been against the rules. But we did it for fun. Then it became accepted by the developers, so people now feel entitled to mods and making money off mods you made in someone else’s game.
Back in the day we knew it wasn’t our game, we knew it belonged to the company and that modding was just for fun.
No, back in the day we knew it was our game. We didn’t own the IP, but we did own our purchased copy of the game, and that entitled us to do whatever we want with it.
Unless you’re a boomer or gen X’er, you likely have never actually lived in a time where software wasn’t mostly licensed to the end user. This practice of not owning the software or having the right to do whatever you want with it has been going on since the 70’s. Back in the day for us millennials, it was simply more common for game companies to allow users to do more with the software than they do now; mainly because they were smaller, often idealistic, groups of passionate individuals who were mostly doing shit for fun.
The 70s? Given the first IBM PC was released in 1981, do you mean no individual has ever owned their software?
Do you believe that the IBM PC is the first home computer to exist? The Altair. Apple II. The PET. The TRS-80.
Not make money off it. We were never allowed to just adjust or mod the game and sell it as our IP to make money off. Modern modders are getting paid.
Really strange take. If you buy lemons from a farmer are they entitled to the profit you may make from lemonade? Or to shut down your shoppe?
THIS is a strange take. A lemon isn’t an IP.
But let’s stay it this way, a movie studio makes a movie like Avengers. I buy a copy, I alter it and add new elements using CGI. Now I resell my cut, call it 100% mine, and ask people to pay me for it’s copyright.
If you’re modding just for you or for fun, whatever. But modern modders are generally big crews, with funding and who make money off the mod by selling it and by streaming content off it.
I don’t see how this is different. Your cut would be a unique product. Marvel will still be making their millions off of the movie. Also these days the majority of the budget goes to actors who continue to get obscenely rich while the VFX artists get laid off, I wouldn’t even support the big movie studios
Thats how art has worked for the majority of human civilization, and has only changed very recently.
So. Yeah, bud, modders are returning artwork to its roots. Huzzah.
Back then you were already set on seeing any game you paid for as someone else’s property?
Yah you always bought a license to play or watch whatever media you bought. It was never yours.
Back in the days games had official modding tools and rules to accompany them.
Sure, but nobody was trying to make money off em
‘Back in my day’ games came on 5.25" floppies and you were encouraged to make backups and use those while storing the originals in a safe place.
Modding those games was a lot different than today’s HD graphics, where the most popular mods seem to be just removing clothing from game assets and posting videos of it online, which I can see any company having an issue with.
The only time mods have been against the rules are when they were to cheat in multiplayer. Plenty of games have had explicit mod support.
