Modifying video games has become an integral part of gaming on the PC. Some mods even knew their genre or revolutionized the entire industry. The first Sunday question in February 2023 deals with whether and how the community mods games on ComputerBase – or why not.
Table of contents
- Mods as an integral part of PC gaming
- Modding is easier than ever
- Legendary Mods and Recent Developments
- (How) does the community mod?
- How do you deal with mods?
- Free entries or paid enrichment?
- Do you create mods yourself?
- Participation is expressly desired
- The last ten Sunday questions in the overview
- Motivation and data usage
Mods as an integral part of PC gaming
In the context of video games, mods – i.e. modifications – are usually free extensions or changes to games from other publishers created by independent developers. For example, you can change textures, improve graphics, change balancing, add new gameplay content, or just fix simple bugs that the developers overlooked. Producing such content is a hobby for most modders and started as early as the 1960s. Since then, mods have conquered numerous game genres on the PC and some titles can no longer be imagined without them. The Wikipedia article Mod (computer games) provides a detailed history of game modding.
Modding is easier than ever
While mods used to be painstakingly compiled from a wide variety of sources and had to be installed using manual processes that were sometimes complicated for less experienced users, PC gamers can now fall back on a few specialized and centralized modding platforms. Worth mentioning are, for example, the Steam Workshop, NexusMods or Mod DB. Users can sometimes easily install modifications with just a few mouse clicks – and the risk of unwanted by-catch, which is associated with sometimes ominous download websites, is largely eliminated.
In any case, mods have become an integral part of hobby gaming, which some games and players can no longer do without. Modifications often offer long support beyond the actual lifetime of a game, provide new content apart from paid DLCs and allow video games to be adapted to one's own needs and preferences. This is usually not possible on game consoles and is therefore a frequently cited plus point for the PC as a platform for computer games.
Legendary modifications and the latest developments
Some legendary mods even had a revolutionary impact on individual genres or even the entire video game industry. Counter-Strike, for example, is familiar to almost every PC gamer and began in 1999 as a modification to Valve's iconic first-person shooter Half-Life. And the team shooter Team Fortress also started out as a mod for Quake. A more recent example is the survival game DayZ, which emerged from the Arma 2 modification of the same name.
And in the last few months, the modding scene has also unearthed some interesting experiments. Classics like Doom or Quake, for example, are illuminated using ray tracing, which Nvidia supports with a corresponding modding tool. Since the end of June 2022, FSR 2 mods have also been shooting up like mushrooms, which have been adding AMD's open source upscaling algorithm to numerous games, sometimes with exciting insights. Co-op mods for Elden Ring and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim also attracted attention last year.
(How) does the community mod?< /h2>
But does the ComputerBase community actually use all of this? Or does excessive modding ultimately only represent annoying work for you that can be stolen from you in hobby gaming? The first question is: have you played a game with mods installed in the last 12 months?
Have you played a modded game in the last 12 months?
- Yes – and not just one!
- Yes, I can actually think of a game…
- No. I play on the PC, but I don't have any mods installed at the moment.
- No – I'm already failing because I'm not playing on the PC.
- Abstain (Show result)
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And for those readers who don't have any mods installed, the next question is: why not? Are there simply no modifications that interest you? Or don't you want to deal with the mess that can result from incompatible mods and new patches?
Why don't you mod?
- I don't play on PC, so it's much more difficult in this respect.
- I don't play games that are easy to mod or I just don't know of any mods that would interest me.
- Modding is too complicated for me and takes too much time – I want to play and not work!
- In principle I would like to use mods, but I'm afraid of potential conflicts and problems with my saved games.
- Abstain (Show result)
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The modders among you are asked: Is there perhaps even a game that you would prefer not to play at all without mods? For example, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is known for its distinctive modding culture, whose graphics are no longer recognizable when using over 1,000 different mods. For example, Cities Skylines, the Fallout series, the Civilization series and numerous simulation games are just as frequently modded. But games like Minecraft or Stardew Valley also enjoy extensive mod support.
Are there any games that you would actually not play anymore without mods?
- Yes, a whole list comes to mind.
- Yes, there are already one or two titles.
- No – I can do without mods.
- Abstain (Show result)
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If you have a specific game to think about, feel free to share it in the comments and name your favorite mods.
How do you deal with mods?
The next three questions are about how you deal with modifications. If you don't use mods, you should abstain accordingly. However, if you modify games, the question arises as to how you proceed: Do you collect the mods individually and install them manually? Or do you conveniently rely on modding portals with automatic installation routines?
How do you install mods?
- The main thing is that the mods are installed – how, I don't really care, I just go by the game and the modification.
- I only use automated installation processes, such as those associated with the Steam Workshop. Installing mods manually would be too much work for me.
- I only manually install mods the classic way, moving files around in folders or using proprietary installers.
- Abstain (Show result)
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And which mods do you primarily use? Do you see the mods as a tool to improve a game's graphics, such as the HD Reworked Projects for The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 promise? Are you tweaking balancing or are you particularly looking for gameplay enhancements?
What type of mod do you primarily use?
- Game texture improvements and adjustments
- Other technical mods that improve graphics or performance
- Balancing mods that make a game easier, harder or just more balanced
- Gameplay mods that revamp or add elementary game mechanics
- Story mods that complement or modify a game's storyline as I wish
- Quality-of-Life mods that offer detail improvements, save time, bridge boring activities and make playing easier for me
- Cheat mods, i.e. those that allow console input or unlock cheats
- Bugfixing mods that fix bugs the developers missed
- Abstain (Result show)
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If you install too many mods, you can sometimes quickly lose track. It can then often happen that individual modifications are not compatible with each other or that a new game update leads to numerous conflicts, which in the worst case can make saved games unplayable until the chaos has been painstakingly eliminated. Have you ever been at a point where you lost interest in a game due to the complications that arose?
Have you ever lost interest in a game because of modding issues?
- Yes, that has definitely happened to me before.
- No – I use mods, but it never happened.
- Abstain (Show result)
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If that's the case, tell the story in the comments! What game is it about and what happened?
Free extras or rewarded enrichment?
The final question is whether modifications are a are a free bonus or you have already found a mod so good that you have paid the corresponding creator financially. Although mod development is a hobby for most modders, it is very time-consuming.
Do you support particularly good mods financially?
- Yes, I've often paid modders who I think have done a particularly good job and helped me enjoy the game more.
- Yes, I rarely do, but usually not.
- No, never.
- Abstain (show result)
Please log in to vote! Update 2023-02-05 5:07 pm
Do you create mods yourself?
Some community members stated in the comments that they not only often play with modifications, but even create them themselves – and a relevant survey was still missing in this Sunday question. Until now.
Do you make modifications yourself?
- Yes, I also publish the developed modifications.
- Yes, it does happen, but I usually only mod for myself – my mods are not published.
- Well, I tried it once but didn't pursue the mod development any further.
- No, but I have modified an existing mod to a small extent for my own use.
- No.
- Abstain (Show result)
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If you create mods yourself, you are invited to tell us about your projects in the comments: Which games are being modded, what are you trying to implement and how do you go about it?
Participation is expressly desired
As always, the editors are happy to receive well-founded and detailed reasons for your decisions in the comments on the current Sunday question. If you have completely different views that are not covered by the polls in the article, please post them in the comments. Ideas and suggestions for additions to the content of the current or future surveys are also welcome.
Readers who have not yet taken part in the past Sunday questions are welcome to do so – the surveys always run for a period of 30 days and the only requirement for participation is a free ComputerBase account. In particular, there are still exciting discussions going on in the ComputerBase forum about the last Sunday questions.
Overview of the last ten Sunday questions
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Motivation and data usage
The data collected as part of the Sunday Questions is used solely to provide a better understanding of the mood within the community and the hardware and software preferences of the readers and their development close. There is no financial or advertising background and there is no evaluation for market research purposes or the data is not transmitted to third parties.
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