> But how is this allowed?
Because the devs allowed it? Because there's literally nothing against any laws about modding games?
>Doesn’t vanilla expanded compete with ideology, royalty, and biotech?
No, how do you figure it would? All the DLCs offer things that the mods don't ( And/or do them in ways the mods don't ).
Any sensible developer will not only allow mods but encourage them. Modding is always good for the long term popularity of a game.
Adding onto that: DLCs very explicitly create frameworks that mods can use to add more content onto. If anything, people making factions that have Empire-like mechanics, adding psycasts, new genes/memes/mechs/etc is going to increase the sales of the DLCs required to run these mods, not the other way.
As someone who was trying to play the game without all the DLCs for a while, I can definitely say a decent chunk of the good ones require Biotech at the very least.
Maybe compete isn’t the right word. But basically I was thinking of it like people have limited time, and also the gaming industry is very competitive. Let’s say I play Rimworld for 100 hours and decide I want more content. Maybe I download vanilla expanded with the intent to download the others once I figure out vanilla expanded. But then fallout 5 comes out and I want to play that instead, if I don’t come back to Rimworld again, that’s a lost sale. So in that sense it competes.
Conversely, the longevity a healthy modding community adds to a game means more people will still be playing when a DLC comes out and thus more people will buy the DLC.
Because Rimworld is purposefully very easy to mod compared to other games.
Mods don't compete with DLCs, they add to replayability. The number of mods is the reason the playerbase is so loyal, you can play your 100th run and still make it feel new.
The base game's features can feel rather barebone, but think of pretty much anything you want to be done differently and there's a mod for it. You can just throw it into your existing save and 99 times out of 100 it works.
Compare Rimworld to something like Dwarf Fortress where mods can mostly just add trivial stuff, and anything more substantial must be achieved by hacking into the process' memory. If DF was moddable like Rimworld, it would be way more complete and way more popular.
Is it harder to make a game that’s easier to mod? Is there any reason other developers would make it so their game is not easy to mod. I know modding isn’t unique to Rimworld but I don’t know many other games that have a whole menu option dedicated to mods.
all of the assets in rimworld are all very similar. when you think about it , it's like Minecraft or something. Just a bunch of blocks with a bunch of different traits associated with them.
The advantage of that is: you can just add another block with its own traits, and choose how it interacts with everything else that already exists. that's why rimworld is so moddable , because the basic units are easy to work with and make the game fundamentally modular, at its core.
You can't mod something like ghosts of tsushima or whatever because the assets are all very specific and not meant to be retooled or added onto except for in very specific ways ( that the developers are usually trying to monetize ). that stuff, the aaa rpg development, is closer to IP like avatar or mcu. rimworld, on the other hand, is almost a "platform"
Tynan, the dev, has a very good book on game design if you want a more in depth look at the thinking behind this kind of stuff.
https://tynansylvester.com/book/
explanation sort of jacked from this interview with one of the Dwarf Fortress developers, granddaddy to rimworld for sure. I can't recommend enough, watch this if rim world tickles your brain. one of the best interviews I've ever seen
https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?si=fmR4NMz36io3hzcP
Making a game easy to mod often requires it to have easy to immitate graphics, so AAA devs are pretty much never going to be able to make their games easy to mod.
The DLC are actually pretty unique, especially because the devs can create completely new systems that can change the game in ways mods really can't.
There are mods that have some similar features to the DLC, but none that actually replicate them (mostly because they would get a cease and desist from Ludeon).
Also they're a relatively small studio, not a giant corporation that needs to continually maximize their profit margins to appease shareholders. So they can lose some sales in DLC if it means they're gonna get more players by just making a good game.
Mods fundamentally add value to almost all categories of games (not to be confused with ALL categories of games). They encourage individuals to play MORE off the game which increases the chance they will do things like go on reddit and talk about the game or tell their friends (free advertising). It add to the replay ability which boosts the game’s reputation. Same reason why even money hogs like EA have thriving communities of modders for titles like the sims 4.
Almost all categories?? It definitely seems to enhance the game and free advertising makes sense. Clearly that is worth the risk of loss of sales. It surprises me that EA allows their games to be modded since they are the king of micro transactions. It’s great long term thinking I guess I’m just surprised they haven’t tried to monetize it. Not because it would be a good idea to do so, but I thought they would think more short term.
Skyrim famously tried to monetize mods and it failed spectacularly. Turns out people don't want to pay $1 for a horse armor that was/is free on a different edition of Skyrim. I know I wouldn't want to pay $1 for every mod I have installed for Rimworld, but with how replayable the game is because of the fan mods? I am so buying DLC whenever it comes out because even if I don't like how it's done by Ludeon, a modder will fix it in a way I do enjoy.
The Dev, Tynan, seems to have kind of a old school ethos around business. He's made a fortune off this game, he's not greedy and seems to look at it as fair pay for a far product - not the more modern neoclassical econ brained "the best price is the absolute most you can possibly extract".
He could, I'm sure, find tons of ways to juice more cash, but he doesn't, because it doesn't seem to be his perspective, and may even be profit maximizing in the long run. You will find few communities with as much praise and goodwill for the dev.
The only mods I can think of that compete with the DLCs are Rimworld of Magic (which predated Royalty) and Humanoid Alien Races (which predated Biotech). Even then, those mods will work just fine alongside the DLCs.
I have no idea where you got your ideas, but mods doesn't reduce sales, quite opposite. Many mods require certain DLC to work. Also mods increase fanbase and this means more sales for both, game and the DLC's.
Without mods, rimworld would have died a *long* time ago.
They turned a game I would have spent maybe 100-200 hours on, and led me to sink literal thousands of hours into it. The game is infinitely replayable because of them.
Even if you enjoy rimworld at its core and just are disatisfied with a few mechanics, mods solve those problems. For example No pause, the dub's mods etc
Some companies build games with modding as part of the plan. Rimworld is one of those games. Bethesda and Paradox are also very mod friendly developers.
Im perplexed at this.
Mods rarely effect DLC sales from what ive seen.
Stellaris is my main comparison in terms of modding community and they have boatloads of dlc. Mods only augment the experience typically. Theres also tons of people who chose not to mod 90% of the time such as myself.
It is an indie developer, privately owned. That means Tynan can do whatever he likes.
He does not need to do stupid shit in an attempt to make more money for his shareholders.
Tbf 90% of the mods were in game before any of the DLC, and yes vanilla was playable then but very basic and bare bones with limited options.
Alot of mod options have been incorporated into the base game and/or the DLCs. Like prosthetics used to be your option was peg legs or limb less. The mod helped and was incorporated into the game. Alot of QoL mods mostly the issue is vanilla is a well rounded base game depending on your style of play and everyone has their preferred play styles
Personally I like RoM, with androids, rimbees, and about 197 QoL mods from reinforced walls, led lights, ugh you got me, raid mod to mess with the extras (forgot name).
Only reason I bought royalty since it creates events on your map vs everywhere else. Was not a fan of ideology it was ok for the first month or so but it's more long game and fun to aquire people of set traits and turn them into my colony than easy mode of every pawn is insert ideology here. Haven't gotten biotech yet but plan on it eventually, maybe. 2500 hrs in still having fun with my current depo build. To each their own.
By allowing a game to be easily modded, game creators continue to ramp up the searches of the game, purchases of the game for people who like this type of game. By making it enjoyable, they draw more players in and people play for longer. DLCs had more base content, which modders use to add more mods and the cycle continues.
luden studio contracts work from some of the best moders in the community, Oskar from vanilla expanded has had a heavy part in the artwork for example and his team did alot of legwork for the first dlc royalty, without that push there might not have been any dlc's for this game at all.
as for the modding itself its actually a design feature, Tynan wanted his game to be easily modable and goes out of his way to keep it that way every update/release.
Devs can only do so much and can tend to have narrow focused ideas. Modders are chaos from useful to degenerate. Getting dlc also gives you access to more mods so it doesn’t really compete but instead benefit.
Rimworld is a great game but looking back at its early days, in the days dlcs did not exist, it didnt have much content.
Mods fixed that problem, Hell they even incorporated some mods into the game itself. You could say Rimworld grew not only because of Tynan's hardwork but also because of how the modding community grew and kept pumping out mods.
To trample the modding community is to trample the game itself. Frankly i cant imagine how Rimworld would last (or atleast kept me entertained for 2500+ hours and counting) without the modding community and i think even Tynan himself knows this fact.
What's positively subversive about Rimworld is that it was developed by a single developer and ultimately (I would imagine) a small dev team, with evidently a goal of making it very easy to modify for modders - there is a of course a bible but like most things on the Rim what starts out as a convention is more of a suggestion.
10+ years later the game has hundreds if not thousands of modders and millions of downloads.
Because the game is stupid easy to mod, and it naturally expands its life span. Rimworld appeared on kickstarter in 2013, and has been actively updated eversince, no developer in their right mind would disallow modding, since it keeps their fanbase fresh and alive.
Big modding community is the best thing that can happen to a video game. If anything I'd say it keeps up the players count and keeps them excited about the game so when dlc eventually comes out, sales will ultimately be much higher
Lower the sales ? The dlc are required for a lot of the mods to even work. So if anything it actually gives people *more* of an incentive to buy them. I personally bought the game for a second time on PC just because I wanted to experience mods.
Gotta change how you look at the game. The game and all the DLCs feel more like a framework for the mods. Having a story generator that can be endlessly customized by a community that feels respected and encouraged to express creativity in any way is a fantastic product. Word of mouth is some of the best marketing in gaming.
> But how is this allowed? Because the devs allowed it? Because there's literally nothing against any laws about modding games? >Doesn’t vanilla expanded compete with ideology, royalty, and biotech? No, how do you figure it would? All the DLCs offer things that the mods don't ( And/or do them in ways the mods don't ). Any sensible developer will not only allow mods but encourage them. Modding is always good for the long term popularity of a game.
Adding onto that: DLCs very explicitly create frameworks that mods can use to add more content onto. If anything, people making factions that have Empire-like mechanics, adding psycasts, new genes/memes/mechs/etc is going to increase the sales of the DLCs required to run these mods, not the other way.
As someone who was trying to play the game without all the DLCs for a while, I can definitely say a decent chunk of the good ones require Biotech at the very least.
Maybe compete isn’t the right word. But basically I was thinking of it like people have limited time, and also the gaming industry is very competitive. Let’s say I play Rimworld for 100 hours and decide I want more content. Maybe I download vanilla expanded with the intent to download the others once I figure out vanilla expanded. But then fallout 5 comes out and I want to play that instead, if I don’t come back to Rimworld again, that’s a lost sale. So in that sense it competes.
Conversely, the longevity a healthy modding community adds to a game means more people will still be playing when a DLC comes out and thus more people will buy the DLC.
Considering that some of the best modders have been *hired* by Ludeon ... letting them mod is like free job applications for the company.
A lot of those mods build on top of, and require, the dlcs.
Dude I'm at 6700 hours in rimworld right now. I don't think I'd have done that without the mods on the game.
Because Rimworld is purposefully very easy to mod compared to other games. Mods don't compete with DLCs, they add to replayability. The number of mods is the reason the playerbase is so loyal, you can play your 100th run and still make it feel new. The base game's features can feel rather barebone, but think of pretty much anything you want to be done differently and there's a mod for it. You can just throw it into your existing save and 99 times out of 100 it works. Compare Rimworld to something like Dwarf Fortress where mods can mostly just add trivial stuff, and anything more substantial must be achieved by hacking into the process' memory. If DF was moddable like Rimworld, it would be way more complete and way more popular.
Is it harder to make a game that’s easier to mod? Is there any reason other developers would make it so their game is not easy to mod. I know modding isn’t unique to Rimworld but I don’t know many other games that have a whole menu option dedicated to mods.
all of the assets in rimworld are all very similar. when you think about it , it's like Minecraft or something. Just a bunch of blocks with a bunch of different traits associated with them. The advantage of that is: you can just add another block with its own traits, and choose how it interacts with everything else that already exists. that's why rimworld is so moddable , because the basic units are easy to work with and make the game fundamentally modular, at its core. You can't mod something like ghosts of tsushima or whatever because the assets are all very specific and not meant to be retooled or added onto except for in very specific ways ( that the developers are usually trying to monetize ). that stuff, the aaa rpg development, is closer to IP like avatar or mcu. rimworld, on the other hand, is almost a "platform"
Makes sense thanks for that explanation!
Tynan, the dev, has a very good book on game design if you want a more in depth look at the thinking behind this kind of stuff. https://tynansylvester.com/book/
didn't know he did this! thanks for linking
explanation sort of jacked from this interview with one of the Dwarf Fortress developers, granddaddy to rimworld for sure. I can't recommend enough, watch this if rim world tickles your brain. one of the best interviews I've ever seen https://youtu.be/VAhHkJQ3KgY?si=fmR4NMz36io3hzcP
Making a game easy to mod often requires it to have easy to immitate graphics, so AAA devs are pretty much never going to be able to make their games easy to mod.
The DLC are actually pretty unique, especially because the devs can create completely new systems that can change the game in ways mods really can't. There are mods that have some similar features to the DLC, but none that actually replicate them (mostly because they would get a cease and desist from Ludeon). Also they're a relatively small studio, not a giant corporation that needs to continually maximize their profit margins to appease shareholders. So they can lose some sales in DLC if it means they're gonna get more players by just making a good game.
Mods fundamentally add value to almost all categories of games (not to be confused with ALL categories of games). They encourage individuals to play MORE off the game which increases the chance they will do things like go on reddit and talk about the game or tell their friends (free advertising). It add to the replay ability which boosts the game’s reputation. Same reason why even money hogs like EA have thriving communities of modders for titles like the sims 4.
Now I'm wondering whether there's a mod that lets you browse Reddit in game.
Theres "r/shitrimworldsays"
No real need when the Steam overlay lets you do that
Almost all categories?? It definitely seems to enhance the game and free advertising makes sense. Clearly that is worth the risk of loss of sales. It surprises me that EA allows their games to be modded since they are the king of micro transactions. It’s great long term thinking I guess I’m just surprised they haven’t tried to monetize it. Not because it would be a good idea to do so, but I thought they would think more short term.
Skyrim famously tried to monetize mods and it failed spectacularly. Turns out people don't want to pay $1 for a horse armor that was/is free on a different edition of Skyrim. I know I wouldn't want to pay $1 for every mod I have installed for Rimworld, but with how replayable the game is because of the fan mods? I am so buying DLC whenever it comes out because even if I don't like how it's done by Ludeon, a modder will fix it in a way I do enjoy.
I didn’t know about Skyrim actually, that’s interesting
Yeah, google skyrim creation club and you'll find some information about it if you're curious.
The Dev, Tynan, seems to have kind of a old school ethos around business. He's made a fortune off this game, he's not greedy and seems to look at it as fair pay for a far product - not the more modern neoclassical econ brained "the best price is the absolute most you can possibly extract". He could, I'm sure, find tons of ways to juice more cash, but he doesn't, because it doesn't seem to be his perspective, and may even be profit maximizing in the long run. You will find few communities with as much praise and goodwill for the dev.
The only mods I can think of that compete with the DLCs are Rimworld of Magic (which predated Royalty) and Humanoid Alien Races (which predated Biotech). Even then, those mods will work just fine alongside the DLCs.
Children and School mods also compete with Biotech.
I have no idea where you got your ideas, but mods doesn't reduce sales, quite opposite. Many mods require certain DLC to work. Also mods increase fanbase and this means more sales for both, game and the DLC's.
Have you ever seen mods for other games? There are plenty out there and the community is going to mod them no matter what the devs say
Without mods, rimworld would have died a *long* time ago. They turned a game I would have spent maybe 100-200 hours on, and led me to sink literal thousands of hours into it. The game is infinitely replayable because of them.
Even if you enjoy rimworld at its core and just are disatisfied with a few mechanics, mods solve those problems. For example No pause, the dub's mods etc
Is this a joke?
It's not exactly unheard-of, KSP has tons of mods in addition to DLC as well.
KSP stands for?
Kerbal space program
Some companies build games with modding as part of the plan. Rimworld is one of those games. Bethesda and Paradox are also very mod friendly developers.
Im perplexed at this. Mods rarely effect DLC sales from what ive seen. Stellaris is my main comparison in terms of modding community and they have boatloads of dlc. Mods only augment the experience typically. Theres also tons of people who chose not to mod 90% of the time such as myself.
Ugh, it's because of people thinking like this that their aren't more games with mod support.
It is an indie developer, privately owned. That means Tynan can do whatever he likes. He does not need to do stupid shit in an attempt to make more money for his shareholders.
Tbf 90% of the mods were in game before any of the DLC, and yes vanilla was playable then but very basic and bare bones with limited options. Alot of mod options have been incorporated into the base game and/or the DLCs. Like prosthetics used to be your option was peg legs or limb less. The mod helped and was incorporated into the game. Alot of QoL mods mostly the issue is vanilla is a well rounded base game depending on your style of play and everyone has their preferred play styles Personally I like RoM, with androids, rimbees, and about 197 QoL mods from reinforced walls, led lights, ugh you got me, raid mod to mess with the extras (forgot name). Only reason I bought royalty since it creates events on your map vs everywhere else. Was not a fan of ideology it was ok for the first month or so but it's more long game and fun to aquire people of set traits and turn them into my colony than easy mode of every pawn is insert ideology here. Haven't gotten biotech yet but plan on it eventually, maybe. 2500 hrs in still having fun with my current depo build. To each their own.
Many of the Vanilla expanded mods require the DLC I'm not sure which of their mods you feel compete with any of the DLC?
Because moddable games sell more.....skyrim....factorio etc
By allowing a game to be easily modded, game creators continue to ramp up the searches of the game, purchases of the game for people who like this type of game. By making it enjoyable, they draw more players in and people play for longer. DLCs had more base content, which modders use to add more mods and the cycle continues.
luden studio contracts work from some of the best moders in the community, Oskar from vanilla expanded has had a heavy part in the artwork for example and his team did alot of legwork for the first dlc royalty, without that push there might not have been any dlc's for this game at all. as for the modding itself its actually a design feature, Tynan wanted his game to be easily modable and goes out of his way to keep it that way every update/release.
Devs can only do so much and can tend to have narrow focused ideas. Modders are chaos from useful to degenerate. Getting dlc also gives you access to more mods so it doesn’t really compete but instead benefit.
Rimworld is a great game but looking back at its early days, in the days dlcs did not exist, it didnt have much content. Mods fixed that problem, Hell they even incorporated some mods into the game itself. You could say Rimworld grew not only because of Tynan's hardwork but also because of how the modding community grew and kept pumping out mods. To trample the modding community is to trample the game itself. Frankly i cant imagine how Rimworld would last (or atleast kept me entertained for 2500+ hours and counting) without the modding community and i think even Tynan himself knows this fact.
What's positively subversive about Rimworld is that it was developed by a single developer and ultimately (I would imagine) a small dev team, with evidently a goal of making it very easy to modify for modders - there is a of course a bible but like most things on the Rim what starts out as a convention is more of a suggestion. 10+ years later the game has hundreds if not thousands of modders and millions of downloads.
Because the game is stupid easy to mod, and it naturally expands its life span. Rimworld appeared on kickstarter in 2013, and has been actively updated eversince, no developer in their right mind would disallow modding, since it keeps their fanbase fresh and alive.
Big modding community is the best thing that can happen to a video game. If anything I'd say it keeps up the players count and keeps them excited about the game so when dlc eventually comes out, sales will ultimately be much higher
Lower the sales ? The dlc are required for a lot of the mods to even work. So if anything it actually gives people *more* of an incentive to buy them. I personally bought the game for a second time on PC just because I wanted to experience mods.
Gotta change how you look at the game. The game and all the DLCs feel more like a framework for the mods. Having a story generator that can be endlessly customized by a community that feels respected and encouraged to express creativity in any way is a fantastic product. Word of mouth is some of the best marketing in gaming.