The following article is on the benefits of making your game an open game rather than a closed game.
The term “open games” refers to games who’s source code and/or engine is made easily accessible to allow for users to create their own projects for the game using the developer’s tools. “Closed games” are games that do not allow this, and instead safeguard their games, often specifically to prevent users from modifying game content. These two contrasting strategies are key when deciding what kind of relationship the developers want to have with their users. Depending on the game, one strategy can be far more beneficial than the other.
Throughout the history of games, the “open” platform has proven to have extremely high potential to help a game gain both amazing player created content, and deeper player communities. One of the first and greatest examples of the “open” model benefitting a game are the Castle Wolfenstein, Quake, and DOOM engines. When developers noticed how badly players wished to modify DOOM, they released the source code publicly to allow players to easily make their own creation. This resulted in a thriving modding community. The developers then released Quake as well as the Quake and DOOM engine to further enable players to create their own content. As a result, “The mod community took off,” id software says, “giving the game seemingly eternal life on the Internet.” Content for the games become as endless as the community’s imagination. As id software explains, this results in the game having an active player base for far longer than initially possible.
The Quake and DOOM examples help demonstrate the incredible benefits that can come from creating an “open” game. The most obvious positive result is the creation of new content and creative creations free of cost for the company. Modders will willingly put in hundreds or thousands of work hours for free in order to create a project that ultimately benefits your company. Depending on how much the modding community grows, the mods will sometimes become more important to players than the core game, becoming a key selling point for the game itself. This was certainly the case for games such as Arma 2, which some purchased solely to play the DayZ mod. Another byproduct of “open” gaming is machinima, or videos created using the video game engine. These videos provide yet another extension to the community, and with the help of video sharing websites such as YouTube, quickly become free advertising for the game. The best example is Rooster Teeth’s Red vs. Blue, which was so popular that “following Rooster Teeth’s machinima success, Microsoft hired it to produce more RvB videos to advertise Halo in game stores.” (Ng, 292). As a result, game companies have moved to make machinima creation easier. Modifications can end up being massively sophisticated. In some cases, mods can be so good that they become entire new games. In the case of Half Life 2’s Counter Strike, a mod was created within Half Life 2 that was so popular that it became its own complete game. Today, that game (Counter Strike) remains incredibly popular with a thriving community.
There remain few downsides to making a game more open for players, with the positives heavily outweighing the extra work. However, there are some circumstances in which “closed” can be a safer option. In specific instances where hacking can become a problem, having a “closed” game can help minimize issues. Additionally, kid friendly games that rely on their positive kid-friendly characters can find user generated content troublesome, as people take it upon themselves to make inappropriate content. This is the case with Nintendo, who is extremely protective of their franchises in order to uphold the image that their company has worked so hard to build and maintain. A mass release of easily accessed inappropriate or violent content enabled by a game company and containing franchise characters can be massively devastating to those character’s image.
Modding remains incredibly prevalent in video game culture today. Vastly popular games such as Skyrim and Minecraft draw heavily from the modding communities. In the case of Skyrim, it is accepted by many that “one of the most attractive elements of the game is that the user can create modification to textures, character models, and gameplay rules through Bethesda’s Creation Tool Kit,” (Postigo, p. 327) and the ability to download other player’s creations from the Steam Workshop. I myself purchased a copy of Skyrim for PC after already owning it for console for the sole purpose of exploring the more than 10,000 mods available to PC players.
Today, building a community for your game is more important than ever. With the power of the internet, dedicated player bases can help keep a game alive for decades. A sense of community encourages players to continue to play and helps spread the game to new players who may otherwise have never heard of the game. Employing the “open” games tactic remains a powerful way to build a thriving community around your game, as well as gaining high quality additional content free of charge. Both an active community and an endless stream of content help extend a video game’s lifetime far beyond the possibilities of the core game.
Works Cited
Ng, Jenna. Machinima, Debugging Game History, London: The MIT Press, 2016
Postigo, Hector. Modification, Debugging Game History, London: The MIT Press, 2016
