Gaming 2.0

that is a very narrow viewpoint of things.

of course the company profits from people modding their game.
but it was them to implement this possibility in the first place.
i'm a developer myself and i know how much work it is to put up a game (or project) like this and then start adding mod tools.

you can always test and develop 1000 ways of your own game but once you let people mod core configurations / graphics / gameplay etc. it becomes much more difficult to make a stable release.

and in my opinion sins is - compared to all other games i played over the past few years - "almost" bug free.

some other companys (like EA) would have released sins about 6 month ago - with about 1 or 2 upcoming patched to fix typos in game menus and then release sins 2, sins 3 and sins 4 in under 2 years with no bugfixing or support whatsoever

would you rather have forced balance changes every patch where the devs decide every single thing how the game has to look, feel and behave rather than having the possibility to decide yourself how you like to play the game?

with sins you get regular bugfixes and patches and if you wanted to - could still play vanilla 1.00 sins gameplay-constants.

in the end - the gamer wins by a much richer variety of game-styles to choose from

You should pay me to post my wisdom.

Humorous analogy aside, the point my little joke makes is valid. People make those mods because it's a hobby that they enjoy exercising. It's not enough to be entertained by someone else's creativity, they get more satisfaction out of providing their own to us.

So I don't and can't expect to see them *EXPECT* to get paid for it. What I can do is understand that really good modders might wish to be hired by the ironclads of the world. Relic Entertainment, for example, has hired a number of the stellar talent from their community.

-- Retro

This is nothing new, mod-ing games has been around almost as long as games - in fact just as long. Some of the earliest games were released in source code form on university networks for ultimate "mod-ability". Commercial games have had "level editors" about as long as I can remember - and I'm pretty old It wasn't long after the release of Wolfstein 3D that id Software released mod-ding tools and have continued to do so with Quake and Doom.

Bioware also toyed with paid-for community mod's by offering mod-ers the opportunity to have their work considered for release as "Premium Modules" on shared-profit basis.

The best 3D game engines are actually already licensed commercially to other software houses to develop there own games. Its not a huge leap for a good mod team to turn into a full fledged developer and release a full game instead of a mod for an existing game. In the 3D shooter world its "really" just a matter of content.

I don't think you can seriously accuse Ironclad of holding out on the content to let other do their jobs for them. The main criticism that has been raised against Sins is the lack of a Campaign. I'm someone how really likes a campaign and I can honestly say I haven't missed it in Sins.

It takes as long to learn Sins - whilst having great fun learning - as it does to play through an entire campaign in many other games.

I also think that community mod-ing, in general, is a great thing. People can build mod's that commercial publishers would not touch, for one reason or another, try out wacky ideas and generally have a lot of fun with it. The mod-ers have fun, the player have fun - what's not to like.

You have failed to realise that Sins went through a very long beta process where it got it's gameplay and balence Ideas not from the people in house, but from the customers who played in that beta. No game is perfect for every single person who will play it. I full hearted believe if a game is mod-able, it opens the doors to every person out there to experience a game they enjoy.

I also think that the release of mod tools is not to finish the game the developers release but to extend shelf life. I am not so jaded that I think the devs don’t' think it is also cool to do so but how long would something like a vanilla UT or Quake have on the shelf were it not for the tons of maps and mods made on an almost daily basis?

I think the mod community really, really adds to shelf life if the tools are any good. I have not messed with anything yet but it sounds like the interest is there and people are getting cool things done.

And whats wrong with a gaming company JUST releasing the framework.  Modding then *becomes* the game.

/me hearkens back to the hours spent building and trading projects from Pinball Construction Set (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set)