Video Game Modifications between IP Theft and Promotion: Recent Developments

Mark Kretzschmar
Visiting Lecturer, University of Wyoming Honors College

Mel Stanfill
Assistant Professor, University of Central Florida

If we were asked what we would like our readers to take away from our article, it would be that the Skyrim modification (mod) that turns dragons into wrestler Macho Man Randy Savage is still hilarious. Joking aside, the current modding landscape both bears out the model we developed in ‘Mods as Lightning Rods: A Typology of Video Game Mods, Intellectual Property, and Social Benefit/Harm’ and suggests new research directions.

Video game mods—noncommercial labors of love created by amateur video game designers who wish to alter, build from, or remix games that are other people’s intellectual property—comprise a broad spectrum of changes to games. They can enhance perceptions of user agency and enjoyment by providing more options than the base game, for example. Some successful mods have even become their own video games, as was the case with Counter-Strike (1999), which was a mod of the 1998 game Half-Life (which modified the underlying game engine of 1996’s Quake). Although it is rare, some successful mods are even entry points for talented amateur designers to enter the video game industry as they are hired by the company whose game they have modded. Mods also bolster the sense of community for online groups around games.