commercial mods?

nubnub

My friend here gets alot of job offers featuring mods that have high expectations to become fully commercial games.
But how realistic is it ? i mean they use top AA game engines like unreal 3 cryengine2, assuming it will cost couple million bucks to start with.



Sounds like a wish come true, but how realistic is it ?

katzeimsack

winning the lottery is more realistic..

nubnub

katzeimsack , the statement from you means something.
I totally believe you

Farfarer

He's probably right. I've been on a couple - some even getting to the point of having money put in from investors - but they've all fallen through.

Minos

Stay away from such mods. If their primary goals is to get rich and famous then they are in the wrong path. Mods should be about improving your portfolio and having fun, not pretending you are the next Counter-Strike. Hell, some mods even start a website before having any actual content.

Justin Meisse

You do mods for fun don't expect to make any money out of it, even when you've got a "publisher" saying "yeah kid, we'll publish your mod and give you a cut".

Rox

I don't have any experience in modding, myself, but that sounds about right from what I've heard. You can use them to show off your game design skills, your level design, artistry, scripting or whatever. And if you're lucky someone might say "Dude, you're good. Do this and this instead, and we'll pay you for it."

But I think the chances of getting a mod out into the open, like what happened with CS, are microscopic. It's not something you can or should aim for. If you wanna make a mod, make a mod with the intent of practicing your skills and showing off what you can do, and leave it at that. Mods will be mods.

odium

It’s not impossible. I've worked on a few mod’s in the past that have gone retail, and our current game (which is more game than mod, as it’s a total engine), OverDose, has already had a retail offer which we declined due to reasons I can't really go into here. So it’s not impossible.

But if your mod isn't really doing something different, i.e. its another CS clone, looks sub par and could of been done over a weekend, then chances are you really will be setting your hopes far to high for retail.

But quite a few mod’s have go retail. The best examples are Counter Strike, Killing Floor, Red Orchestra and Team Fortress. With today’s online based systems, if you make a game for the Pc, you have every chance in the world of getting it sold online, thanks to something really, really awesome for modder’s... Steam. With steam, you can release a game online for a price as long as it meets a certain check list of things, and you can cut out 90% of the usually trouble you would get with going full retail.

So yeah, while the chance of most people getting to the stage they get a deal from a developer isn't huge, it’s still very, very possible, and all it takes is hard work and dedication.

AstroZombie

It seems like Source mods are probably the best bet for going commercial, eventually. Still, it's a long shot and mods are probably best approached from a hobbyist / getting experience point of view rather than to go commercial and "get rich."

odium

I would say really that mods are a great door opener more than anything else, simply because it allows a person to show off ones own skill level.

So its all a moot point really... If a person, or a team, are skilled enough, they WILL get offers, simply because they have the skill set needed. But the key point to that is that the skill set needs to be there in the first place, so that people can see what you are good ar, more than anything.

Lee3dee

Successful mods gone commerical

Red Orchestra (Unreal Engine 2)
Damnation (Unreal Engine 2/3)
Counterstrike (Source)
Day of Defeat (Source)

There are probably more gone commercial but out of those few, hundreds of thousands have come and gone without hitting retail. Mods are great for working with others, learning new tech, getting some experience.

Best thing a mod will do should it go out to the masses is boost your portfolio

AstroZombie

Lee3dee wrote: »

Successful mods gone commerical


Damnation (Unreal Engine 2/3)

Just a note on that: Damnation was started for the MSU contest with the intent of winning the grand prize UE license to develop it into a commercial game. So it wasn't just a bunch of folks putting a mod together, it was actually funded and did have some people with professional experience working on it from the start. The full game was actually fairly well in development when it was shopped around to publishers and eventually picked up by codies.

leilei

Back in the day modders modded for the fun of the game. Since Counter-Strike's buy up though motives have twisted more common to 'be big, get valvessimilated, make money'. Even worse, some modders (not the legit retail ones) treat it like another form of commercial business where the EULA is violated on all counts. Which is sad.

KillingFloor went retail too. OH AND THE SHIP

Justin Meisse

leilei wrote: »

Back in the day modders modded for the fun of the game. Since Counter-Strike's buy up though motives have twisted more common to 'be big, get valvessimilated/QUOTE]

nahh, it was that way pre-CS as well, I think it was because of all the Quake Map Packs and the like getting sold in the bargain isle at Wal-Mart. I think I even remember buying Doom PWAD packs from software catelogues before that. I'm pretty sure all this stuff was shady