Importance of moddable games

I recently bought StarCraft 2, a game synonymous with online dueling, and a game built almost purely around the attraction of it's deep strategy mixed with fast gameplay. However, since getting it I've probably spent less than half my time ingame actually playing StarCraft 2 as it was designed by Blizzard, the rest of my time has been taken up with player created custom games.

One of the attractions of a game like SC2 is the incredible wealth of custom maps and game modes that get churned out by enthusiastic amateurs. A lot of them are buggy, uninspired or just plain boring, but there are a lot of exceedingly fun ones as well.
The best example of a Battle.net based custom game exploding is the Wacraft 3 custom game: 'Defence of the Ancients' or DOTA as it's now known. DOTA basically invented a new genre of strategy game, and in some respects has become more popular than the game it was created inside. It is featured in international tournaments with thousands of dollars of prize money, the designer now works at Valve developing a sequel, and there are 3 fully released clones of it available for PC and consoles( DemiGod, HON and LOL), and .

Of course, as far as mods go, DOTA is one of the largest, but the most famous game modification (or mod) of all has to be Counter-Strike. A mod for the original Half-Life, developed by two amateurs, at it's peak it had three times as many players as it's nearest (studio created) competitor. Professional teams sprung up, earning their livings from tournament winnings and sponsorships, the most popular players began to release their own lines of mousemats and headphones, and matches were televised across the world. CS was bought by Valve, the developers of HalfLife, and republished and updated with their new 'Source' engine. However at the time of writing, the original CS is still the most played game on Steam, with more than even the record breaking Call of Duty: Black Ops:

Counter-Strike and DOTA are not the only games to have lead to commercial releases. Valve also released 'Team Fortress 2' a sequel to the incredibly popular Quake mod 'Team-Fortress' (which already has 2 other fan-made sequels), user made mods were shipped with the Civilization IV expansion pack, and Unreal 3 Mod "The Ball" was released on Steam as well.

Custom games and an active modding community can be one of the most important things I look for in a game these days. I know first hand that using mods can improve the life of a game, and also changes the prospects of buying a sequel. I asked a friend of mine if he wanted to play some 'Left for Dead 2', fully expecting him to have this classic game, but he replied that he had never bought it, he didn't really like the original due to it's short storyline and lack of replay value. "Lack of replay value? Did you not see how many custom maps, scenarios and entire campaigns were available, FOR FREE, all over the internet?" Granted the original game could be played through in probably under 10 hours, but with five minutes of searching you could add easily 10 times that amount of gameplay time. This was one of the reasons I enjoyed the first game so much, and was definitely one of my biggest considerations when deciding to purchase the sequel.

Sites such as moddb.com have risen out of the need for aggregators of this custom content, with rating systems to ensure that the best mods get the most recognition and downloads that they deserve, and now entire games are created with the explicit aim of allowing the player to create their own content. The most well known example of this is 'Little Big Planet' and it's sequel. These are essentially game creation toolboxes, with simple controls and a very powerful interface that let players make just about anything they want.

Mods are increasingly affecting the game industry, with entire amateur teams being hired by studios, mods being shipped with official expansion packs, and new commercial games being based on popular mods more and more often. This wide-stream acceptance of game modding can only be good for the industry as companies now have a proving ground for new designers and developers, where the best and brightest can be clearly seen. The amateur creators also profit from the experience they gain and from the satisfaction of playing a critical role in a games development long before they ever join a full studio. And most importantly, gamers in general benefit from the wealth of extra content that becomes available for their favorite games. I hope that more and more companies encourage and allow people to add to their games, as it's one of the best things about the industry at the moment.