News
Video Game Disconnect - Modding
Cordova, TN; July 10, in the year of our Lord 2017--Family
Friendly Gaming, the industry leader in covering the family
friendly video games is continuing our new series under the
umbrella Video Game Disconnect. These are articles on areas of
double standards and disconnections within the video game
industry. This article is on the topic of modding. Personal
Computer (PC) gamers know all about modding their games,
systems, and devices. Modding has been a big part of PC gaming
for decades now. The console game manufacturers are generally
against modding. Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony have all attacked
modders. In fact they have been known to brick devices.
What happens when your device is bricked? In essence your device
is locked up and does not work without the game manufacturer
being paid to fix it. Talk about a racket. They break your
device and then demand payment to fix it. How can they legally
get away with that? It is like taking your car to repair place
and they break something else and demand payment for your
vehicle to start working again. That falls under my definition
of extortion. I am still unclear how these companies can get
away with such extreme and radical viewpoints. The biggest
problem is these companies see video game consoles and hand
helds as their devices after they have sold it to you. That does
not work in other industries.
Why are video game manufacturers causing such bad blood, and
giving themselves such a bad image on the topic of modding? They
feel they will lose money if they allow gamers to mod as PC
games have done for decades. Pirates use mods to play pirated
games. This is also where homebrew video games come into play.
What is homebrew video games you might ask? Those are video
games where a fanboy creates their own games. Think of it as fan
made games, or modifications to games they like.
There is hope as video game companies have been releasing video
games that let you mod their games as part of the game.
LittleBigPlanet, Project Spark, and Super Mario Maker are
examples of games companies have released that let you mod that
game. It lets fans create their own levels. Hopefully these
companies are starting to come around to modding. Thus far they
have shown they only allow modding if they can make money off of
it. Or you could say they allow modding if they can control it.
Which is the opposite of what modding is all about. You can give
Family Friendly Gaming your opinion on this. Do you have any
ideas on how to fix this disconnect? Do you want a better video
game industry going forward? What say you?
God bless,
Paul Bury
Family Friendly Gaming