MODIFICATIONS



So far most purely explorative forays into game design have been made by altering either the artwork [textures, sounds and models] or manipulating the engine of existing commercial games. These are called modifications or 'mods'. 50 of the 51 projects in our International Game Art Archives 4 are mods. Nearly all the 'game-art' found in electronic arts festivals are also in this format. Modifications are made using standard code development environments and 'level editors', art-creation software shipped with a game to encourage the user to develop new content for the community that plays that game. The rationale for supporting a 'modding' culture is that users will continue to buy the product as long as there are new games or game environments to play within. Unreal Tournament, NeverWinter Nights, Half-life and Quake III Arena are all examples of these. Making a mod costs only as much as buying the commercial game, and labour if applicable.

Due the the prevalence of 'moddable' games, it's modding that has given artists an entry point into game design altogether. Artists like Brody, Stephen Honnegger, Eddo Stern and Tom Betts have all built an impressive career as artists by working almost purely as game modifiers.

While the modification of existing games is a comparatively easy and near free alternative to the design of a stand-alone, project-specific game-engine, concerns of owner copyright and distribution often come to the fore early on. Exciting multi-user modification projects like Fuchs Eckermanns, virtual knowledge-space 'Expositur' 5 for instance, have a greatly restricted distribution because the project is innately reliant on the proprietory Unreal Engine; in order to play the multiuser game each user is legally required to own a copy of the compiled engine and game-data (Unreal Tournament). Imagine, for instance, not being able to distribute a film made using a certain brand of film stock or a particular camera. This is perhaps a useful analogy for understanding the work that needs to be done to free up the medium of the game to artists.

Modding offers the artist an accessible entry point into game-development practice with the important advantage of a critical framework that is already grouped around a known game or game form. However, the point at which the artist seeks to extend upon functionalities and features inherent to that particular engine difficult arise; due to technical limitations relating to the extensibility and flexibility of engine architecture itself the engine can only be developed to a point...

Secondly an engine is generally designed with a specific game-title in mind and so the designer finds him or herself working with givens conducive to making a certain kind of game. The task of making a second person goat-farming game using a first-person shooter engine would be reasonably impossible for this reason.

At this point the artist looks toward making their own engine, and it's here we find the reason why so little truly independent game-art exists.