Are Game Mods Unethical?
Playing video games has become one of the most popular hobbies for many people in the modern era. These games have provided many people with a community that they can hang out with online while staying in the comfort of their homes.
Video games have also provided gaming enthusiasts with countless hours of fun as they try to beat their own high scores or play with other people. But if you’re a gamer, you know that no matter how good a game might be, it can get boring as time goes on.
If you’re playing the same game over and over again, things can start to get repetitive despite different outcomes for each game. But thanks to mods, games have become interesting again.
Even old games become popular again if there are new mods released that enough gamer find interesting. And you’ve surely heard of total conversions that were later released as new games in their own right.
Truly, game mods have shaped the game development industry. They’ve also provided game developers with ideas about what they should work on when creating new games to keep up with the impressive mods that modders release from time to time!
The Ethics of Game Modding
Although it’s something that many modders love doing as a hobby, game modding has also become the subject of controversy as some developers question the ethics of this practice.
Considering that copyright for the video game is owned by the game company, not the game designers or developers who work for the company to create the game, it’s understandable that several companies question the ethics of modders claiming copyright to their mods.
As the copyright owner, the gaming company also ownsallintellectual property rights to the game.
However, most companies don’t explicitly state in their policies that no one is allowed to modify their games. Thus, modders have found a loophole there.
That’s why Blizzard changed its Acceptable Use Policy to ensure that all mods derived from any of their future games will be the company’s property, not the modder’s.
The reason for this is that the company had actually lost rights to Dota, a mod derived from their game, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
Another game developer, Valve, had been working with long-time Dotadesigner IceFrog. But Valve shocked the gaming community and Blizzard, most definitely, when it trademarked Dota in 2010.
Blizzard clearly thought that the modder’s and Valve’s actions were unethical. Many people agreed.The gaming company sued Valve, but their rights were later confirmed in an out-of-court settlement in 2012.
Dotaremains one of the most popular games to this day, with international tournaments held each year. Blizzard missed out on that one due to the ethical issue.
What do you think about this? Clearly, that was unethical for both to take advantage of the company’s intellectual property!
Why Gaming Companies Support Modding
But modding isn’t entirely bad. In fact, modding is good and has helped many companies relaunch their games and bring these to fame again.
That’s actually the essence of modding, yet that’s lost on many modders who are not just doing this as a hobby but also to earn money.
Many long-time modders assert that modding has lost its true meaning. They argue that it’s supposed to be something one does for fun and to improve the game experience, but not to earn money from.
When Modding Becomes Unethical
Some modders begin the hobby just to have fun making tweaks to games they own for a better gaming experience. Many don’t mind downloading software or using various platforms to create the mod they want for a particular game.
In fact, many of them are spending money to mod but not earning anything in return!
We’re not saying that you should do that, but this simply shows their dedication to the game. They’re true fans who want to make sure that the video game they love so muchruns smoothly, becomes more fun to play with,and never dies a sad death as abandon ware.
Although modding touches on a subject that’s long-debated to be legal or not, modding has been around for so long that gaming companies are actually adapting to the changes and are releasing games with modding tools or open-source codes.
Many modders insist that what they’re doing isn’t unethical. They’re just there to make the game better.
After all, those new skins and digital fashion items you’ll find on DIGITALAX made your game become more fun, right? Those funny changes to the scary zombie characters or the upgrades in the graphics of a certain game or even the bug fixes to some games without official patches were really quite helpful, huh?
What modders find unethical is when others take their work and pass it off as their own. That happens frequently, especially considering that the modding community thinks of these game mods as open-source materials that should really just be shared.
Moreover, many frown upon the practice of modders selling their mods, especially for a good deal of money. After all, these modders didn’t create the game. They were just modifying it!
Others think it’s unethical that there are modders who are selfish about their work, despite getting help from others, particularly when they were starting out.
For the modding community, the act of modding itself isn’t unethical but, for them, the issue of ethics focuses on what the modders do after creating the mods.
Some claim that modding is unethical because it lets the gaming enthusiast cheat on the game with unlimited lives or upgraded weapons.
But that depends on the type of mod done on the game – and modders agree that as long as the player wasn’t really doing it to earn money or harm someone else, then they’re cool with that. After all, that’s the goal of modding: creating a better game experience.
Mods are important in developing games because developers are now trying their best to make game products that are both a challenge to the gamers and a creative tool for the modders. Mods are also influencing or inspiring developers to create new games that they haven’t thought of before.
Whether moddingis unethical or not remains a subject of online debate, but it’s good to know that it has made gaming more fun and has given many people have a better gaming experience.
Do you agree that modding is great?
