Modding and Community Made Content

Noah Barno

More stories from Noah Barno

Rinse and Repeat
August 29, 2016
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(photocredit bethesdagames)

The PC and its potential power are why it is the non-opinionated, best, platform to play games on, spec wise. Video game companies such as Bethesda games are one of the smallest, but biggest video game publishers. Bethesda games are known for some of biggest and fast spread gaming communities out there. The fan base for their games are so big allowing for it to keep growing, and growing allowing for the “hype-train” to build up while gamers wait for the newest titles amongst of the biggest series out there to date.

Bethesda games are known for their RPG games, also referred to as a role playing game. A role playing game explains itself, but a role playing game is a game that allows players to take the role of the protagonist of the game and allows for “role playing” as that character; almost as if the player was that in-game character in real-life. Bethesda is mainly known for their two biggest RPG series Elder Scrolls, and Fallout. Each of these series have at least 5 games in the series and allow for almost infinite play time. RPG games such as these allow player to play a game literally forever with no end. Despite there still being an end to the game, these types of game are made so that they can be played over, and over again. Bethesda has really captured this infinite gameplay element so well in these series, allowing for players to create their own content for the game in the form of “modding.” Modding a game is when the games internal files are changed or edited to allow for something that is not intended in normal gameplay to occur (also known as cheating or hacking in some communities.)

Fallout 4  is one of Bethesda’s newest game that has come out. Bethesda kept players in the dark from information about 9 years since the last game, allowing for a so called “hype-train” to get bigger. Games such as Fallout 4 and Elder Scrolls are so popular that new content is always becoming available with no work or expensive from Bethesda; but how is this possible? Even some of the oldest games in the series, some games that date back in to 2004 still have content coming out thanks to the community, because of the huge fan base these titles have acquired over the years the less work Bethesda has to do. Companies like Valve (who made Team Fortress 2) rely on their community to make content for the game and it be published so that other gamers can experience something that was made by a fellow fan, a system that has been used in a lot of Bethesda’s Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.  Today it seems as if the fans want to make their own content for their own games, so that they can change their experience and warp it to their liking.