Does this mean that games cant be moddable?

[SememeS]

@Archibold;101274

To collect up all the modders into the Unreal subscription pool might sound greedy, but it’s actually very rational if you consider that it gives far more than what an individual dev studio can produce for an equal given cost=time, as you are indicating.

Modding could split into two tiers:

1. Simple graphics modifications and script edits via runtime content re-importing
2. Full lighting/entity/c++ mods that blur the line a bit more between mod and distinct new game.

Realistically, is most of your player base really interested in learning enough of the complexity to create full mods? If not, then full editor access wouldn’t help them anyway.

Compared with say Skyrim, which was weighed down by a terrible game engine to begin with, there is a true potential here for breaking-open and modifying things.

Today games and game engines suffer from problems of complexity, the most striking perhaps of these being no-backwards-compatibility for engine assets. If your team is smart enough, you can overcome these problems, but the mainstay of software development is not evolved or mature or intelligent enough to escape them, so you’re going to have these fundamental problems anyway and it’s impossible to have Unreal magically cater for every eventuality themselves. Keeping up-to-date is much smarter, because otherwise you’re creating gap between the old and the new, which is going to have to be bridged anyway if the modders want to move onto developing in Unreal. Why not just completely separate the content from the rendering/api/architecture? The priority is flexibility, so you can sacrifice things like hard drive space.

Left4Dead used to have regular updates that broke demo playback (when the version number changed) (it recorded the game events and played them back so you could make a video later.) even though it probably would have functioned mostly anyway. is the type of problem I’m talking about.

Something like a Modders’ License included with every game copy would create unnecessary EULA and DRM complexities, I think. But the idea of Unreal integrating with e.g. Steam, and switching near-seamlessly between game and editor, well… is certain in the future at some point, surely?

*The main point here is that gamers don’t get editing tools for free, or something? *(You might be a little confused now.) Well, you see, it’s the pro-corporate logic,—but such discussions aren’t smiley-faced and no-one really has the attention span for it, now, do they?, so they aren’t welcome in these spheres.

Sorry. But saying that someone’s opinion isn’t welcome just because it displeases you is unprofessional… It is welcome and we all have a right to voice our opinions. I have the attention span and many others do too.

Skyrim modding is still going on today. The shelf-life of Bethesda games is a record despite how one perceives their engines. The biggest reason is because of modding. Because the users can extend upon the world they already have.

Modders make their own tools if they have to and they will break through the barriers imposed by the developer if restricted. Asking for money to be able to that will not work very well(some few won’t mind), as they most likely will just find a way around your barrier.

Requiring an entire game engine editor just to mod makes no sense. They would have to recompile/rebuild the entire game every time they make any changes…

How do they distribute that to other players after? Oh yeah, by requiring anyone who wants to use said mods to subscribe for the engine. is endlessly requiring users to subscribe to the engine at least once… How does that make sense?