Triumph of the Mod, Death of the Designer?
From Mod Mania
Triumph of the Mod, Death of the Designer?
In March 2002 Gabe Newell, founder of the American video game developer Valve Software, released his latest “broadband distribution network” – Steam. Simultaneously, Valve released a number of updates and mods for existing Valve, and other company, games. What really got the punters excited was one particular Half Life mod called “Day of Defeat”.
This wholly user based mod, termed a “total conversion”, completely back flipped Half Life’s graphics, game play and scenario, taking it from a First Person Shooter set in the sci-fi future to a team based squad combat stage set at the end of the Second World War.
The simultaneous release of Steam and Day of Defeat was essentially the concrete expression of what gamers had been celebrating since the release of Castle Wolfenstein 20 years ago – the game industry’s willingness to accept completely untrained individuals modding games in their spare time as equals to their highly paid professional counterparts. Valve and id Software (creators of Castle Wolfenstein, Doom, Duke Nukem and then the Quake series) have a long history of embracing user modifications to their games. With Steam this process was made a whole lot easier (“user friendly” even).
Its all very well and good for gamers to be celebrating the day the “wall went down” between producer and consumer of gaming software but what does this mean to program writers and game designers? One could sit on ones moral high horse and say that the inclusion of such a wide range of potential professionals would cause designers to amp up the quality of their designs, thus pushing the industry to whole new gaming heights in terms of sophisticated game play. Or, one could argue that the years of study and experience gained on behalf of game designers and writers has been flushed down the toilet when their careers are being threatened by the 17 year old creating world class mods between English and Maths homework.
It depends from which end you are viewing the situation as to which side is more likely to resonate with you. The consumer, for example, would have no problem letting their peers create every more complex levels for their favourite game. They would no doubt appreciate a bit of variety added to an old favourite. Commercially it makes sense too; with users constantly modifying the “ol’ fav” the game continues to sell even when newer competition is released. Valve, despite seeming to shoot itself in the foot commercially, has seen the value in modding and is employing a subscription fee to keep their profits up. There are also dozens of stories of the basement modder becoming so popular to be hired by the huge software company in some bizarre rags-to-riches scenario.
On the other hand, it can be argued that the basement modder might be sent back to rags due to the popularity of the modding movement. Why hire a team of game designers when, in theory, you can dip into the much wider pool of (perhaps more motivated) game users to design your games. Economically this must be an advantage for the larger game companies, not to mention more efficient.
This leads me to the whole efficiency debate with regards to design. Basically it can be said that Australian (and most first world) society has been gearing towards more efficient production practices in order to produce higher income. In relation to design practices this increasingly means that the designer relies on software to produce slicker, finalised designs faster. All in the name of impressing a client faster the designer often will take “the path of least resistance through popular graphics software” (and here I’m paraphrasing Robert Black’s article which can be found here: http://www.agda.com.au/dm/observations/DeathoftheDesigner.html) . Black argues that “true designers” will be forced away from the quick fix back to the art pad while “filter junkies” flood the design market with pre-packaged software images.
So what does this have to do with modding? Well, the emphasis on efficiency and the rise in popularity of modding essentially spell the death of the designer. Sure, you can hire someone to kit out your car, but why pay that money when someone has already done it and written a how-to on Wikipedia (modding, at it’s most theoretical)? “But we don’t have the time” you might say, so you take your car to a professional to get it done, but you design it yourself, or in the very least you have a vague idea of what you want it to look like. Thus, as Black argues, the designer has been replaced by a skilled labourer. It seems, my friends, that we are a dieing breed.
However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel – laziness and big industry. Yes, in order to keep our profession alive, it could be argued that we designers must rely on the laziness of our consumers. “I could make this computer tower out of timber and add LEDs for effect” might think the typical computer consumer, “… or I could just pop down to the store and get the latest Dell super-awesome design”. I guess it can be said that the future of the traditional designer lies in big industry and mass production. Sad, but perhaps, due to modders and the general drive for efficiency, true?
Personally, I am all for the modding movement and the benefits it brings to the design community. It is interesting to consider, however, how this will impact the industry. Already we have seen several examples of larger companies feeling threatened by basement modders – take the Sony Walkman modder for example. The question is how can such a huge company feel threatened by an individual with a foam pressing machine in his garage? Power in numbers – the potential for every consumer to turn around and become a producer has no doubt given the big bosses something to think about. What a different design landscape we would see if even the slightest percentage of consumers of the iPod, for example, turned around and started making their own, more sophisticated and more stylish (?), mods.
To an extent we have seen this already with the music industry, and the reaction has been an attempt at a total user creativity clamp down. Despite the legions of copyright laws “preventing” users from ripping and remixing music, the popularity of mash-ups is phenomenal. Yet another example of modding. Unlike the game industry, however, the music industry has chosen to cut out user input, pushing the whole thing “underground”. Well perhaps not “underground” and “slightly, not really, kinda just under the surface”. You must have been living in a bubble if you have never broken the downloading laws or have never been to a club whose DJ has. I guess DJs face the same threat as designers – that of the mass market becoming as skilled as the professionals… But that’s a story for another rant.
So, where will modding place the designer? Will modding convert the user to a producer and kill the design industry? I’m not sure, but it will be interesting to see what kind of products will result, and where it will leave me with my degree after 4 years.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_software
http://www.agda.com.au/dm/observations/DeathoftheDesigner.html)
http://blog.tinderboxthg.com/design/index.html I read a couple of articles on this site – defiantly worth a look.
http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/news/2005/07/68284
