Poll: Mods: Do They Cheapen a Game?

[Twad]

THere are two questions in there.

No, mods by the simple fact taht you CHOOSE what you download mean you can customise your game experience.
There is only good things with mods, even the crappy ones. Because user-created content is always a way to increase the "life expenctancy" of a game and it create a game modding community.
Plus, mods often fix things that dont quite work in games (heck, Oblivion works BETTER with some mods since they fix a lot of balance issues, bugs and engine problem)

 

[Eduku]

Definitely no. They often fix broken features (e.g. Oblivion's unofficial patch) but more importantly, they cater directly to each user. UI in Oblivion too big? Use a mod to make it smaller. Feel like you don't have enough tactics slots in Dragon Age? Download a mod to give you more. Don't like a mod? Then don't use it.

 

[havass]

Mods are awesome. But only when they aren't multiplayer.
Look at GTA:SA. If I didn't have mods the game would have been a lot less fun. Car spawners FTW.

 

[Yureina]

Moodding allows games to have a much greater exanded lifetime due to having far more things that the player is able to do and experience. It adds replay value to a game that was not there prior to the addition of such mods. Fallout 3, for me, is the best example of this.

 

[barash]

I'm a fan of pc gaming, and have been for a couple of years now, and I have begun to notice that more often than not, for many players the vanilla version of their favorite game is not enough. For whatever reason, be it broken game mechanics or the burning desire to put one's mark on their favorite game, modding is a popular and almost always expected result of a game's being released.

I only really thought about it when I purchased the game Borderlands. For a long while many people I know had played the game and ranted and raved about it, so I eventually caved in and gave it a go during a sale on Steam. However, before I had even booted up the game for the first time, one of these people linked me to a site and told me to download what it provided. They explained that Borderlands, albeit a fun game, was a poorly executed console-to-pc port, and without this particular tool the game would be unplayable and--worst of all--unenjoyable. I found this a bit strange: if the game were so wonderful, why would it take my downloading a whole other device just to be able to play the game? If Borderlands were so broken on its own, were they lying when they were explaining to me just how great the game was?

Not to say Borderlands is an isolated case: the recent Bethesda titles (Oblivion and Fallout 3, in this case) were games I originally played on the console, then bought a while later through Steam. I found fairly quickly that the games, however fun they were when I had first played them on my xbox 360, were not quite so rosy in my eyes anymore. It only took a day or so worth of play with both titles to convince me to go rummaging through the internet for mods; and mod I did, with gusto. Looking at it in hindsight: I had paid to play these games in their original and unadulterated format. but I was modifying them into forms that I seriously doubt Bethesda had ever thought of or intended. With Borderlands, the mod was more of a tool than anything else, but the results are the same: a product changed in some way from its original intent.

So! My question to you, and the TL;DR version of this: Does modding cheapen the purchase of a game by in some way altering the material, or is it more of a tool for enhancing or repairing otherwise 'broken' or 'unfinished' material? Keep in mind: this is a question from the standpoint of a *purchase*, not the playing of the game.

You are asking 2 questions in the poll, with opposed answers. Are you a PR-dude fishing for a gamer-poll to further some nefarious plot? Employed by CommonSenseMedia perhaps, seems like a question they would ask..

Part 1: No, modding does not cheapen anything.
Part 2: Yes, modding is an incentive to purchase the game knowing that however buggy the released product may be, some awesome dudes/dudettes with modder-interests will fix it if the devs/pubs can't be arsed.

 

[KaiRai]

Some mods cheapen a game a little bit, like the Ork Swarm mod for Dark Crusade. But most are there to be fun, kind of mess around mods. Only serious mods I have are the Daemonhunters Inquisition mod, and the Firestorm Over Kronos mod.

 

[omega 616]

I think it leads to people acting like spoiled brats, "I don't like this tiny little aspect of it, so I will change it, otherwise the game is awful and not enjoyable to any degree!" while it is good that you can change stuff, I guess, don't think you HAVE to mod every game to be decent or great.

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

Mods have produced the Freespace 2 Source Code Project and the corresponding Freespace 2 Upgrade Project.

Mods are therefore totally awesome.

[http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=70736.0]
That screenshot (which is also a link to go download the upgraded graphics/assets and install files for the Source Code Project) is from a game that was originally released in 1999. Mods are awesome.

 

[kidwithxboxlive]

Some games are only good thanks to mods, and if a mod doesn't improve the game, don't use it. Modding = Good

AKA fallout 3. this makes the game just hilarious

 

[Wolfram23]

Generally I think mods are great. I know for sure some do cheapen the game, specifically I've seen mods for STALKER, as an example, that give you all the guns or make everyting available right off the bat, that sort of thing. That's certainly going to cheapen the experience, much like running around in God-mode with infinite ammo.

However, there's also a ton of mods that counter this. Makes a game more complete sometimes, some mods are enhancements only so you still get the main feel of the game but maybe it adds better textures, or new weather effects, or better AI. Other mods do change the game, adding new characters, new quests that sort of thing. I think the only problem I have is that it's tough to sort the good from the bad, and also it can be a challenge to combine a few different good features of different mods.

On the whole, tho, I'm very happy when modding is supported in a PC game.

 

[Super Toast]

I don't think so. If anything, they enrich the experience.

 

[Pingieking]

Modding is the best feature a game can offer.

This. Mods are awesome. It extends the game to it's fullest potential; potential that even the developers didn't have the resources to take it to.

 

[dawdarsd]

I'm a fan of pc gaming, and have been for a couple of years now, and I have begun to notice that more often than not, for many players the vanilla version of their favorite game is not enough. For whatever reason, be it broken game mechanics or the burning desire to put one's mark on their favorite game, modding is a popular and almost always expected result of a game's being released.

I only really thought about it when I purchased the game Borderlands. For a long while many people I know had played the game and ranted and raved about it, so I eventually caved in and gave it a go during a sale on Steam. However, before I had even booted up the game for the first time, one of these people linked me to a site and told me to download what it provided. They explained that Borderlands, albeit a fun game, was a poorly executed console-to-pc port, and without this particular tool the game would be unplayable and--worst of all--unenjoyable. I found this a bit strange: if the game were so wonderful, why would it take my downloading a whole other device just to be able to play the game? If Borderlands were so broken on its own, were they lying when they were explaining to me just how great the game was?

Not to say Borderlands is an isolated case: the recent Bethesda titles (Oblivion and Fallout 3, in this case) were games I originally played on the console, then bought a while later through Steam. I found fairly quickly that the games, however fun they were when I had first played them on my xbox 360, were not quite so rosy in my eyes anymore. It only took a day or so worth of play with both titles to convince me to go rummaging through the internet for mods; and mod I did, with gusto. Looking at it in hindsight: I had paid to play these games in their original and unadulterated format. but I was modifying them into forms that I seriously doubt Bethesda had ever thought of or intended. With Borderlands, the mod was more of a tool than anything else, but the results are the same: a product changed in some way from its original intent.

So! My question to you, and the TL;DR version of this: Does modding cheapen the purchase of a game by in some way altering the material, or is it more of a tool for enhancing or repairing otherwise 'broken' or 'unfinished' material? Keep in mind: this is a question from the standpoint of a *purchase*, not the playing of the game.

depends on the game, borderlands gun modding is just cheap and not even fun to play with the most powerful weapons ever then to find stronger weapons as you procede through out the game.
now on games such as oblivion,fallout 3 modding is adding new content,by a trillion miles NO it's not cheapening the purchase.After i finished the last fallout 3 expansion(point lookout the fifth one and the most awesome one)i had nothing to do anymore since i already explored absolutely every area in fallout 3, so mods to me on fallout 3 are like expansion packs it gives me new armor,weapons,locations,characters,quests it's awesome

 

[Jupsto]

FAIL POLL

does X do A or B?

Yes
Quite a bit
A little
Not much
No

anyway. modding makes PC gaming superior, although only a few games really support it. but honestly no way I can play half my favourite games on console without mods. some of them are gameplay fixes like the always +5 attribute mod for oblivion, some are major enhancements or things the developers should have added like the sprint mod for fallout 3. others are just huge content or complete remakes which make a game fun to play again, like mount and blade mods.

 

[Private Custard]

It depends what sort of mods.

At the moment, I'm really into Flight Simulator X, and have been adding various mods, from improved engine sounds, right through to extra aircraft, water texture modifiers and whole airports. They only serve to improve the whole experience.

But God-mods, they can be fun, but at least try to beat the game properly the first time around!