In a recent Capcom R and D presentation, Capcom has clarified that it Capcom considers mods equal to cheating, and is worried that "mods that violate public order or morals" will cause them PR damage
Ok if mods are cheating, that's fine. Who cares if people cheat on their own experience of a game they bought? Oh no, someone is "cheating" at Megaman 🙄. Someone is cheating at Resident Evil. So what, Capcom? Why does it matter? Who are they impacting besides themselves?
Online issues? Different story, so just make sure those people can't play online. Gotta tell ya, though, the overwhelming majority of mods don't do that, and when they do, the devs have already put something in there to deter it. Most mods on multiplayer games are model swaps and reskins (really, it's all just big titty mods)
Instead, Capcom, give us mod tools. Do what Bethesda does and give us a whole-ass creation kit, that way, your game can remain relevant for over a decade and make bank every couple years when you rerelease it. Skyrim isn't beloved for the vanilla experience
-Sincerely, a Monster Hunter modder
Ok if mods are cheating, that’s fine. Who cares if people cheat on their own experience of a game they bought? Oh no, someone is “cheating” at Megaman 🙄. Someone is cheating at Resident Evil. So what, Capcom? Why does it matter? Who are they impacting besides themselves?
Yeah, unless it's multiplayer, a gamer should be permitted to cheat however they want. Adult gamers need to take care of stuff and don't have time for such eccentricities. It's not only big publishers like Capcom, though. The indie developer of Project Warlock likened quick saving to cheating and his artistic intend was not to allow that. Die in a map and start from the beginning. WTF. Those publishers/developers need to realize that gamers are paying customers and need to treat them this way.
Who cares if people cheat on their own experience of a game they bought?
Yep, that's me.
I have a family, a job that burns my brain out most days, and other hobbies. When I play games, I like to just turn off my brain and shoot bad guys with impunity. I don't have time to actually Gut GudTM, so I often cheat a bit and never play multiplayer.
It works for me and anyone bothered by that, including Capcom, should fuck off and worry about their own lives.
Skyrim isn't beloved for the vanilla experience
I beg to disagree.
Not saying there aren't people who don't like the vanilla experience, but it's success would be nowhere near as huge if not for the modding community. Skyrim is the two biggest mod communities one Nexus, and the top 5 are all Bethesda games. In the top 8, 6 of them are Bethesda games. Skyrim has been on top since I've been using nexus, and I've been using it for a decade or more, and that's to say nothing of the other sites out there. Clearly modding is a tremendous part of Skyrim's appeal
I haven’t been interested in playing vanilla Skyrim since 2011. I still fuck around with mods every year or so. The game is somehow incredibly simplistic while also super clunky and every character has one of four voices.
Mods are the only reason Skyrim stood the test of time so far because my position is very popular.
game modification is a felony crime in japan and sk (i dont know the specifics too well, but i believe they are fairly vague laws too)
No, it isn't. Some poor journalism half a decade ago based on bad translations and hearsay led to some bad articles. You added the felony bit, tho so the story unravels more.
"Felony" isn't really a thing in many places outside the USA anymore, and I'm not aware of it ever being a thing in Japan
game modification is a felony crime in japan and sk
One big problem is that almost everything can be called a mod. Modification and distribution of modified copyrighted content, if not permitted, can be a copyright violation, unless jurisdictions have some sort of Fair Use system (small tangent: with all the shit DMCA brought, Fair Use is actually awesome).
That said, embracing most kinds of mods should be in the self-interest of game publishers. They are basically free labor, be it by fixing bugs the publisher should fix (see Starfield) or just by extending the life span of a game in general and thereby increasing lifetime sales.
Mods that violate public order and morals cause PR damage.
Counterpoint: literally nobody is blaming Bethesda for the stuff you can find on Loverslab.
16 times the genitals
16 times the niche restraints
16 times the preggo mods (Why are there so many? How many do you need?)
16 times the sex animations (FNIS says theres a few thousand animations for the lewd mods alone)
16 times the weird masochistic mods
16 times the really creative unironically good mods
16 times the non-adult mods (why would you upload normal mods to LL? I don't get it.)
Welcome to 2004. This is where they source both their opinions and their artwork.
drawing moustaches on pictures of people is basically murder
though seriously due to mods being third party content there is some real damage, but thats actually solved by better mod support and providing a trusted store(like steam) rather than cracking down on mod scene and forcing people to visit shady websites to get them. but the csuits are probably way too good at their jobs to get that
Maybe I'm misremembering because it was a while ago, but I remember a time in the early 00's when it seemed like mod support was practically the norm. It's when I switched to PC gaming, and WHY I switched to PC gaming. Games used to specifically have mod sections in their main menus. It was encouraged. RTS' especially were great with that, coming out with map-makers and creation kits. Mod support keeps games alive, and I can't believe how game devs haven't looked at the financial success of Skyrim and not realized it's because the player base gave everything bigger titties and skimpier outfits
It is in Thailand. Draw a mustache on a picture of their king and your ass goes straight to jail
Maybe he shluld grow a mustache to get people to stop.
Fuck, I've committed genocide then.
Here is some free PR damage courtesy of me, for Capcom having a shit take
"When asked about the success of games like Skyrim due specifically to the wide variety and quality of mods Capcom responded: What's a Skyrim?"
Capcom doesn't even need to look at Skyrim, Monster Hunter World and Rise are modded to hell and back and it really does improve the experience.
Even resident evil and devil may cry have decent mods. They are mostly visual (costumes, vfx, stuff like that) but I still enjoy them a lot
You know what actually has quite a lot of porn made about it btw?
Mods that violate public order and morals.
Looking at you „Turning Mr X into Pikachu“ Resident Evil 2 mod.
This is the downfall of civilization as we know it. Turning Pikachu into Ganondorf in Smash was the early warning sign
100% they're doing this to set up for selling cheats as microtransactions.
Some of their points are technically correct, e.g. that mods can increase the support workload if they don't work properly.
Then again, even rudimentary mod support can mitigate that simply by displaying the fact that the game is modded in an appropriate place (like the start menu, log files, or the launcher if present). Then support can ask for that first and tell people to disable or uninstall their mods and call again. Boom, support workload reduced.
This is less possible with competitive multiplayer games but even there you might get away with something like a Stellaris-style checksum system. Simply declaring mods to be bad is just lazy.
that mods can increase the support workload if they don't work properly.
What grognard goes to the game's official support when a mod doesn't work?
Plenty of people do. Especially since broken mods can cause problems like unexpected crashes that might not be easy to trace back to the mod. If the game automatically sends in crash reports, a popular mod becoming unstable might generate significant work for a while.
A mod-aware game wil usuallyl point out right in the crash log that it's modded and might even enumerate the mods. Makes it real easy to find out that "Jake's Improved Graphics for 2.3 Continued" is the shared culprit.
This is the same Capcom that published Neverwinter Nights? The game that still lives on because of mods and fan made expansions?
Atari.
Just checked the box. I'll see myself out.
You know what causes PR damage? This bullshit.