Mod DB

Last updated

Mod DB
Mod DB logo.png
Type of site
 Game modifications, indie games
Owner DBolical Pty Ltd.
Created byScott "INtense!" Reismanis
URL www.moddb.com
CommercialYes
RegistrationFree
Launched8 June 2002;22 years ago (2002-06-08)
Current statusActive

Mod DB is a website that focuses on general video game modding. It was founded in 2002 by Scott "INtense!" Reismanis. As of September 2015, the Mod DB site has received over 604 million views, has more than 12,500 modifications registered, [1] and has hosted more than 108 million downloads. [2] A spin-off website, Indie DB, was launched in 2010 and focuses on indie games and news.

Contents

History

Scott Reismanis, a website developer from Melbourne, Australia, first pursued web development as a hobby, creating two websites dedicated to video games. Afterwards, he purchased the ChaosRealm.com domain and formed the Realm Network. The network comprised over twenty websites, one of which was Mod DB's predecessor, ModRealm. Launched in 1998, ModRealm was initially dedicated to Counter-Strike cheat codes before becoming a modding website. The website became defunct in December 2001, when its network was shut down after its hosting service, Playnet, filed for bankruptcy. [3]

Reismanis was motivated to start a new website by the difficulty of searching for mods on the then-dominant search engine, AltaVista, much less mods released to the public. He began Mod DB's development in January 2002, following IMDb's structure in the process. The website was launched as Mod Database on 8 June of the same year. It differed from his earlier websites in that its articles were managed by the community, not only the website's founder. Mod DB rapidly expanded its viewership and database size. In 2006, the Mod DB team launched Addon DB, whose aim was to list additional content for games not applicable under the category of game modifications. This includes models, skins and maps. Just one year into service, it was merged into Mod DB. [3]

Reismanis was an information technology consultant at Accenture and intended to keep Mod DB his hobby, but he left the firm to found DesuraNET as the website's hosting company, citing the expense of running the website and his recollection of IGN's 2006 attempt to acquire it. [3] Mod DB was integrated into DesuraNET's Desura, which was a digital distribution service that focused on indie games. The service opened in April 2010 as a competitor to Valve's Steam. [4]

Features

The purpose of Mod DB is to list the mods, files, tutorials and information of any games that are capable of being modded with user-made content. Community involvement is strongly encouraged, and any game mod with a website is allowed to post a screenshot gallery, news, and requests for help. Scott's intentions, from the beginning, were to get the community heavily involved in the creation and development of the website. To this end, the most active members were chosen as moderators and administrators. The core staff generally remain the same, while lower positions are heavily rotated among trainee moderators, and administrator candidates. The site's staff mostly act as chaperones or librarians, keeping appropriate content available to the public and featuring the more exceptional content.[ citation needed ]

Mod DB has a permissive approach to what content is allowed on the website, but the types of content forbidden by its terms of use include pornographic, defamatory, and obscene content, as well as material that incites crime or hatred, violates intellectual property law under the terms of the copyright law of Australia and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or otherwise "brings [the website] into disrepute".[ original research? ] [5] Nevertheless, the website received mainstream media attention when in early 2011 it hosted School Shooter: North American Tour 2012 , a Half-Life 2 mod in which the player assumes the role of a school student with the goal of murdering as many people as possible before being stopped by police and SWAT members. The mod's premise led to a spate of mail accusing the website of being involved in the project, prompting the website to shut it down in March. [6] [7]

Mod of the Year

Mod DB's Mod of the Year competition, the Golden Spanner awards, aim to set the industry standard in awarding inventive and high-quality mods. Mods are chosen via a community vote and are then reviewed by staff to produce the final list of winners. The competition aims to encourage all fields of modding, with different categories such as graphics and gameplay, as well as a traditional 'best mod' winner. Notable winners include Garry's Mod for Half-Life 2 in 2005, [8] Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat for Half-Life 2 in 2007, [9] Black Mesa for Half-Life in 2012, [10] and Brutal Doom for Doom in 2017. [11] Similarly, Mod DB's Mod Hall of Fame retrospectively reviews mods and inducts what it judges to be the greatest mods of the year of their release. Inductees include PlayerUnknown's Battle Royale for ARMA 3 in 2014. [12]

Indie DB

Indie DB is an offshoot of Mod DB launched in June 2010. It is dedicated to indie gaming and serves as a repository for those games. [13] Like Mod DB, the website hosts an annual competition for the best indie game of the year, with the games being voted on in categories and overall. Also like Mod DB, the nominees are selected by the site's editors and voted on by its readers. Winners of the Indie of the Year Awards include Minecraft by Mojang in 2010, [14] RimWorld by Ludeon Studios in 2016 [15] and Ion Fury by Voidpoint in 2019. [16]

Related Research Articles

Video game modding is the process of alteration by players or fans of one or more aspects of a video game, such as how it looks or behaves, and is a sub-discipline of general modding. Mods may range from small changes and tweaks to complete overhauls, and can extend the replay value and interest of the game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Texture artist</span> Digital artist

A texture artist is an individual who develops textures for digital media, usually for video games, movies, web sites and television shows or things like 3D posters. These textures can be in the form of 2D or (rarely) 3D art that may be overlaid onto a polygon mesh to create a realistic 3D model.

bit-tech is an online magazine for computer hardware enthusiasts, gamers and case modders, based in the UK. It was founded in 2000, became a fully professional online publication in 2005, and announced its acquisition by Dennis Publishing in October 2008. Dennis Publishing then partnered the site with existing monthly publication Custom PC magazine, making Bit-Tech the online version of the magazine. At this point the two editorial teams were totally integrated. However, due to a restructure in January 2012 the website and magazine had separate editors again, although several of the writers still contributed material to both publications. It is owned by The Media Team.

<i>Dystopia</i> (video game) 2007 video game

Dystopia is a team-based, objective-driven, first-person shooter video game, developed as a total conversion modification on the Valve's proprietary Source engine. It is based on the cyberpunk literary and aesthetic genre; it is somewhat based on popular role-playing game Shadowrun, created by an amateur development team and released to the public for free. Its first playable build was released on September 9, 2005, after a year of planning and nine months of development. The first full version of Dystopia, Version 1, was released after 3 years of development on February 25, 2007.

<i>Garrys Mod</i> 2006 video game

Garry's Mod is a 2006 sandbox game developed by Facepunch Studios and published by Valve. The base game mode of Garry's Mod has no set objectives and provides the player with a world in which to freely manipulate objects. Other game modes, notably Trouble in Terrorist Town and Prop Hunt, are created by other developers as mods and are installed separately, by means such as the Steam Workshop. Garry's Mod was created by Garry Newman as a mod for Valve's Source game engine and released in December 2004, before being expanded into a standalone release that was published by Valve in November 2006. Ports of the original Windows version for Mac OS X and Linux followed in September 2010 and June 2013, respectively. As of September 2021, Garry's Mod has sold more than 20 million copies. A successor, Sandbox, has been in development since 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wildfire Games</span> Video game developer

Wildfire Games is an independent free software video game developer, originally founded as a modding team in 2001. The logo is the Chinese character "火" (fire). Wildfire Games is currently developing 0 A.D., a real-time strategy game. In addition to game development, Wildfire Games has developed the Pyrogenesis game engine used in 0 A.D. and separate mods.

<i>Black Mesa</i> (video game) 2020 video game

Black Mesa is a 2020 first-person shooter video game developed and published by Crowbar Collective. It is a fan-made remake of Half-Life (1998) made in the Source game engine. Originally published as a free mod in September 2012, Black Mesa was approved for commercial release by Valve, the developers of Half-Life. The first commercial version was published as an early-access release in May 2015, followed by a full release in March 2020, for Windows and Linux.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Desura</span> Digital distribution platform

Desura was a digital distribution platform for the Microsoft Windows, Linux and OS X platforms. The service distributed games and related media online, with a primary focus on small independent game developers rather than larger companies. Desura contained automated game updates, community features, and developer resources. The client allowed users to create and distribute game mods as well.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nexus Mods</span> Website for sharing computer game modifications

Nexus Mods is a website that hosts computer game mods and other user-created content related to video game modding. It is one of the largest gaming mod sites on the web, with 30 million registered members and 3146 supported games as of October 2024, with a single forum and a wiki for site- and mod-related topics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamer Network</span> British digital media company

Gamer Network Limited is a British digital media company based in London. Founded in 1999 by Rupert and Nick Loman, it owns brands—primarily editorial websites—relating to video game journalism and other video game businesses. Its flagship website, Eurogamer, was launched alongside the company. It began hosting the video game trade show EGX in 2008. ReedPop acquired Gamer Network in 2018 and sold it to IGN Entertainment in 2024.

<i>Grand Theft Auto</i> modding Modification in the video game series

User modification, or modding, of video games in the open world sandbox Grand Theft Auto series is a popular trend in the PC gaming community. These unofficial modifications are made by altering gameplay logic and asset files within a user's game installation, and can change the player's experience to varying degrees. Frequently created by anonymous modders, modifications are presented in the form of downloadable files or archives. Third-party software has been indispensable for building Grand Theft Auto mods, due to the lack of official editing tools from the developer, Rockstar Games. Mods for Grand Theft Auto are generally developed for use on the PC versions of the games, since the platform does not prevent modifications to installed software; however, similar content for console and mobile phone versions does exist to an extent.

A Minecraft mod is a mod that changes aspects of the sandbox game Minecraft. Minecraft mods can add additional content to the game, make tweaks to specific features, and optimize performance. Thousands of mods for the game have been created, with some mods even generating an income for their authors. While Mojang Studios does not provide an API for modding, community tools exist to help developers create and distribute mods. The popularity of Minecraft mods has been credited for helping Minecraft become one of the best-selling video games of all time.

Brutal Doom is a video game mod for the 1993 first-person shooter Doom created by the Brazilian developer Marcos Abenante, known online as "Sergeant Mark IV." It adds numerous gameplay elements and graphical effects. The mod has been in development since 2010, and continues to receive new updates.

Based on id Software's open stance towards game modifications, their Quake series became a popular subject for player mods beginning with Quake in 1996. Spurred by user-created hacked content on their previous games and the company's desire to encourage the hacker ethic, Id included dedicated modification tools into Quake, including the QuakeC programming language and a level editor. As a game that popularized online first-person shooter multiplayer, early games were team- and strategy-based and led to prominent mods like Team Fortress, whose developers were later hired by Valve to create a dedicated version for the company. Id's openness and modding tools led to a "Quake movie" community, which altered gameplay data to add camera angles in post-production, a practice that became known as machinima.

Skyrimmodding refers to the community-made modifications for the 2011 fantasy role-playing video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. One of the most modded video games of all time, it has nearly 70,000 mod submissions on Nexus Mods and 28,000 in the Steam Workshop. Many of these mods were created for utility reasons, patching numerous bugs left in the game by Bethesda Softworks, while also improving the game's usability and character movement. Other mods add new quests and characters, or update the game's graphics and animations. As the vanilla game has a reputation for outdated mechanics, it is common for players to mod Skyrim even prior to their first playthrough.

Playbour is a hybrid form of play and labour, specifically in the digital games industry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cacowards</span> Award for Doom game modifications

The Cacowards are an annual online awards ceremony which honors the year's most prominent "Doom WADs", video game modifications of the 1993 first-person shooter Doom. Such modifications may be single levels, level packs, or "total conversions" featuring gameplay that significantly diverges from traditional Doom. Although generally focusing on classic Doom games, modifications for other Doom-engine based games such as Heretic, Hexen and Strife have also been featured. Since 2004, the Cacowards have been hosted at doomworld.com, a Doom fansite.

Bloom is a modification for the video game Doom II, originally developed by id Software. The mod, created by the Spanish indie studio Bloom Team, was released via Mod DB on October 31, 2021. Bloom combines elements from Doom II and Monolith Productions' Blood, merging enemies, weapons, and environments from both games into a crossover experience.

Skyblivion is an upcoming open world action role-playing video game. It is a fan remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (2006) developed in Bethesda Game Studios' Creation Engine as a total conversion mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011). It is scheduled to be released in 2025.

References

  1. ↑ "Mods for Games". www.moddb.com. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  2. ↑ "Downloads". www.moddb.com. Retrieved 18 January 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "About Us". Mod DB. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
    Henley (29 July 2012). "A 10 year history of ModDB". Mod DB. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
    Moss, Richard (18 December 2012). "DesuraNET's quest to make a better indie community". Polygon .
  4. ↑ Denby, Leeis (8 March 2010). "Desura: ModDB Takes On Steam". Rock Paper Shotgun . Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  5. ↑ "Terms of Use". Mod DB. 25 May 2018. Archived from the original on 4 October 2021. Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  6. ↑ Tito, Greg (28 February 2011). "Inside the Sick Mind of a School Shooter Mod". The Escapist . Retrieved 4 October 2021.
  7. ↑ McWhertor, Michael (23 March 2011). "Hyper Violent School Shooter Mod Yanked From Mod Hosting Site". Kotaku.
  8. ↑ Mahood, Andy (1 May 2006). "Modify - Issue 18: Extending the Life of Half-Life 2". GameSpy . p. 2. Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  9. ↑ Sarkar, Samit (1 June 2013). "From mod to game: Insurgency devs turn pro, but maintain community origins". Polygon . Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  10. ↑ Corriea, Alexa Ray (27 December 2012). "Half-Life's Black Mesa project leads ModDB's favorite mods of 2012". Polygon . Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  11. ↑ Donnelly, Joe (3 January 2018). "ModDB names Brutal Doom Mod of the Year 2017, Skyblivion as Best Upcoming Mod". PC Gamer . Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  12. ↑ Donnelly, Joe (19 May 2017). "The mod responsible for Playerunknown's Battlegrounds gets inducted into Mod Hall of Fame". PC Gamer . Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  13. ↑ Devore, Jordan (21 June 2021). "So much indie: ModDB's latest creation, IndieDB". Destructoid . Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  14. ↑ Tan, Maurice (26 December 2010). "And the best indie games of 2010 are…". Destructoid . Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  15. ↑ Donnelly, Joe (30 December 2016). "STALKER: Call of Chernobyl wins ModDB's Mod of the Year, Rimworld grabs IndieDB's top prize equivalent". PC Gamer . Archived from the original on 3 October 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2021.
  16. ↑ "Players Choice - Indie of the Year 2019 feature". Mod DB. 28 December 2019. Retrieved 24 May 2022.
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