Mods are Odd: Do they detract from a game's artistic merit?

[James Joseph Emerald]

Everyone's going on about buying Skyrim for the PC, so you can partake in the fruits of the modding community's labour. Even Bethesda has been discussing some way to bring 3rd-party mods to consoles. That got me thinking about something.

I think most of us can agree that games are an artform, like movies or books. Even if you object to the word "art" being used (because you're terrified of change, or whatever), games are far more comparable to movies and books than they are to action figures and pogo sticks. But where do mods fit in with this comparison? Imagine a book, where somebody decides they don't like a particular chapter (say, the epilogue to Harry Potter), so they rip out the pages, write their own chapter, tape it in, and then give it to all their friends to read. Isn't that odd? Or a movie, where somebody decides they don't like a particular character (say, Jar-Jar Binks from The Phantom Menace) so they edit the film, replacing Jar-Jar's CGI with a model of their own design, dub over different voice acting and then redistribute the film to other fans. Sounds rather bizarre to me.
Conversely, if you were annoyed by a book which was written entirely in first person, would you consider seeking out a "mod" that converted the book to third person (if that was possible)?

My point is that, adding cool third-party content like extra spells, flying dragon mounts and new NPCs and altering gameplay mechanics and overhauling graphics... doesn't that fundamentally change the experience? If you play Skyrim with mods right off the bat, can you really say you've played Skyrim?

Keep in mind, I'm not saying mods are bad and shouldn't exist. I'm just wondering what they mean in the context of games as an artform. What do you think?

 

[Gill Kaiser]

You can't compare games to books or movies, as they're not remotely the same. Games as a medium are all about player interaction, and as soon as gamemakers forget that and start taking freedom and agency away from the player, they've ceased to make games and started making movies. Mods are just another way for the playerbase to interact with the building blocks that the developer has provided.

As for Skyrim... modmaking is encouraged by the developers, and the game is specifically designed to be very moddable. Modding has been a big part of the reason why the Elder Scrolls series is so beloved. The developers expect it, I doubt they mind their product being altered.

Aside from this, why exactly can't mods themselves be just as much an art form as the base game? There have frequently been mods for Morrowind and Oblivion that fundamentally improve systems and aspects within the game, beyond the ability (or at least, the inclination) of Bethesda. The developers of Skyrim have even incorporated several ideas and systems from popular Oblivion mods, most notably the "Better Bows" mod, into vanilla Skyrim, because they recognise their superiority.

As far as I'm concerned, a large part of why PC games are so fun is their openness and susceptibility to modification, which allows me to personalise my gaming experience and get the most enjoyment out of each product. No other medium allows this, not even console games.

 

[_Depression]

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

 

[Sixcess]

I don't tend to bother with mods, but I'm very glad for the ones I have used, since they enable me to alter things that the game got wrong in the first place - such as fixing the screen resolution on Saints Row 2 (aka worst pc port ever) and removing the disembodied heads of your squadmates from the Mass Effect 2 UI. The former was just ineptitude, but if the latter is changing the experience then, for me at least, it's changing it far far for the better.

 

[Rawne1980]

Some of us do play the game first before we set to making mods for it.

For us that make the mods it's fun. I do it because I enjoy it.

It also adds to the replay value. I know in games like Oblivion, F3, F:NV when I put mods in it gave me over 100+ of extra game time with added quests.

Some mods you get are on par with DLC. I'll use Wasteland Bounties for F:NV as an example. It adds a whole quest chain that takes around 5 hours to do and has an amazing storyline that continues on into Bounties 2.

People put a hell of a lot of time and effort into some of them.

Plus we get really amazing player housing we make ourselves.

And guns.

And better armour.

We can basically do whatever it is we feel like doing to improve the game how WE want.

This way, Bathesda still sells it's game and we still love it but we get to tweak things to add a bit of extra fun and make the game last a whole lot longer.

Hell I still play Morrowind due to all the mods that are out for it. It never gets boring.

 

[Seishisha]

In my own experiance and i'd guess in most other peoples aswell, they look into mods once the game has been played through a couple of times, its a chance to breathe some new life into your gameplay, i think Max Payne is a great example of modding ingenuity, its got such a stupidly large amount of mods that you can litterly play a different game, i mean i recall a mod that changed max into a polar bear, thats right a polar bear with guns, i was like what the hell is this nonsense and why do i want to try it??? i guess point is modding is good and although it somtimes takes away from the original experiance, that can be a good thing somtimes it can be better than the original.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Mods, such a complex topic. It depends on the mod, and it depends on the game.

Unofficial Patches are mods used to mostly fix bugs. Sometimes they can add content, or make content better, but generally they just make a game more playable.

Overhaul Mods are mods that change just about everything possible in a game. An example would be counterstrike.

Piecemeal mods are mostly whats being talked about here. Things like adding a dungeon or store to a game, or changing the way a single aspect works, those are piecemeal mods.

The last mod I'm going to talk about is the User Interface(UI) mod. A UI mod is used to change the way a game displays, or to add new displays to a game. Most commonly used in MMOs to make the game seem better, they can also be used in single player games for the same reason(I know of at least one for Oblivion inventory).

 

[DannyJBeckett]

A mod only detracts from the artistic merit of the game if it's a mod that adds content that's out-of-context to the game, like gun mods for Oblivion.

 

[Gill Kaiser]

I assumed we were discounting Total Conversions from this discussion, as they clearly don't fit with the OP's points.

However, if TCs are included, I can't help mentioning Nehrim, Counter-strike, and the Third Age: Total War mod for Medieval II.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

Well there goes my answer for this thread.

 

[Twad]

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

Spot on.

And just like fanfic, 90% of it is crap, but 10% of it is pure gold wich equals or surpass the original. And just those 10% make it completely worth the trouble imho.

And its an outlet for people's creativity, and its always nice to see what people come up with.
Other times, mods are used to fix some things that the devs didnt bother with (for any reason, balance, performance, bugs or otherwise), and its helpfull for everyone.

edit- heck, if a game is good enough that it got a strong mod community, its all the better for it. Whatever artistic merit the game have is creating more because it capture people's creative impulse.
Plus mods are always optionnal if someone doent want them, so the choice is in the hands of the player.

 

[zehydra]

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

absolutely. I've used this analogy quite a bit.

I'll say it, most mods are junk compared to the original (with the exception of some Minecraft mods).


Few are spectacular.

 

[Project_Xii]

I never use mods, cause I like to see what the developers intended the game to be. At least the first time around. A lot of the time, I think mods DO overwright the intended artistic view of the creators. Depending on the game though, this can be a better or worse thing.

The main reason I don't use mods is cause I don't need to. Mods are the best way to extend a games life, or fix problems that the developers just never get around too. But they're really for people who buy/play one game for a very long time, and don't have or want to play anything else. I have 900 or so games. I don't need mods. Finish one, move onto the next.

 

[Irridium]

Keep in mind, I'm not saying mods are bad and shouldn't exist. I'm just wondering what they mean in the context of games as an artform. What do you think?

As others have said, mods to games is pretty much fanfiction to books.

Most play the game as it was intended first, then mod it. And even if they mod it first, it's their game, their experience to do with what they wish. That is one of the things that makes games truly special, the ability to make them our own.

Also, some mods make the games what they truly meant to be like.

Prime example is the Kotor 2 restoration mod. All the stuff it adds is stuff that's already in the game, it was just cut out when Lucasarts cut the development time by about a year. It makes the game what it was intended to be. And what it was intended to be is truly amazing, and if Obsidian was given the time it needed to implement it all at the start, the game would have easily surpassed Kotor 1 on all fronts.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

Mods are not complete shit.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

No, mods are independent endevours and reflect on the personal artistic merit of the modder.

But providing a sandbox for that is amazing anyway.

If you want to compare video games to books, then mods are the fanfictions of books.

Mods are not complete shit.

Mods vary substantially in quality, they can be shit, or they can be awesome.


Especially graphical upgrade/optimization mods which can make games much more approachable well after it would normally be dead.



And with a good modding community, good ones receive press, bad ones are ignored.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

snip

first off in my opinion games are not "art" i wish people would stop fooling themselves and trying to put video games up on the art pedestal(true,now to some degree they are protected by the first amendment) but they they are entertainment no more no less and to this day I've not heard any arguments that convince me otherwise and i wait to hear yours.that being said the only games that I've mod'ed have been The Elderscrolls series and i don't see it as rewriting segments of a story,since games are more fluid obviously the books.and unless you add a mod that's basically a game breaker(you know what i mean making it where you have access to nearly unlimited amounts of gold and the most powerful weapons in the game)when mods are done right more often then not they are able to add to the players experience.in some games missing or locked content is able to be restored and in other cases the changes are merely for aesthetic value(honestly you know you want to be able to dress like Deadpool in Fallout 3). some for technical reasons such as graphics overhaul mod's.face it not everybody has a top of the line computer and the graphics mod's allow them to play game like Oblivion.

You're in the wrong discussion if you don't think games are art, because then the answer is an obvious no because they have no artistic merit either way, and discussing whether or not they are art period is beyond the scope of this discussion.