Latest news with #SummerfallStudios
Business Insider
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Video game mods are wildly popular — and it's easier than ever for modders to turn their hobby into a career
Ironically, the more popular a video game is, the more effort fans invest in changing it. The International Trade Administration valued the video game industry at $184 billion globally in 2023. As it continues to grow, user-created game modifications — more often called mods — are rising in popularity, too. Mods are files or code inserted into a game to add new features, alter the graphics, or improve performance. Nexus Mods, one of the web's most popular mod-sharing platforms, told Business Insider that the website has added about 40 million users since 2020, and now hosts mods for nearly 4,000 different games. While mods are traditionally released for free and created solely out of passion, many players use their modding projects and skills to get jobs in the video gaming industry. And with the rise of the creator economy — a $250 billion industry based around independent creators who deliver content directly to their audiences — a growing number of modders are turning their hobby from a career starting point into a lucrative stand-alone business as well. Modding can build skills for game development jobs Modding requires skills, like coding and project management, that can be vital for professional programming and game design jobs. Liam Esler, managing director and cofounder of Summerfall Studios, started modding the simulation game "Creatures" when he was 10 years old, creating new biomes with unique plants and animals. By age 15, he was managing modding teams across the world. Modding taught Esler how to code and let him practice skills, such as 3D modeling, art, and sound design. "It was a really incredible introduction to the world of making video games," he said. Around this time, he also began modding the role-playing game "Baldur's Gate II," which later led him to apply for a volunteer quality assurance role helping to test the 2012 remaster of the original "Baldur's Gate" before release. He then turned this gig into a full-time developer job for the sequel, "Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition." Modding "Baldur's Gate II" helped Esler master the Infinity Engine scripting language, which the "Baldur's Gate" games were built with. It was a niche skill, but one that paid off. "I basically sent them an email saying, 'Look, I'm an expert in these things. I suspect you're going to need those skill sets.' And they sent me a contract two days later. I had the skills and all of that thanks to modding." Several of his employees at Summerfall Studios are former modders as well. "A lot of them have seen 'behind the curtain' as gamers," he said. "I find, as someone who hires, it's such a critically underappreciated skillset." For modders applying to game studios, he recommended building a varied portfolio of both mods and short games, and emphasizing to hiring managers "that you can learn new engines, you can learn new skills, and you can practice all the things you've learned in a different context. That's the thing that's going to get you hired." Websites like Patreon let modders monetize their work Some modders prefer to be their own boss, and monetization platforms like Patreon have given them ways to accept donations directly from players to support their craft. In return, modders can offer their patrons perks, including early access to new mods. Asking for donations instead of mandatory payments lets modders profit without violating most games' end-user license agreements, giving them the freedom to focus on the hobby they love. Ilja Jusupov, the third biggest creator on Patreon, started out by modding the shooting game "S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl," adding texture packs and menus to configure other mods. He already had some programming experience, but modding is what turned it into a career. A few years later, after he started making mods for the racing game "Assetto Corsa," he put his projects on Patreon, where he's since found success. Jusupov's Patreon brings in nearly $50,000 a month, which he attributes to the passionate fan base for "Assetto Corsa" and the consistency of his work. Jusupov said the most challenging parts of running a successful Patreon as a modder are consistently preparing new updates to satisfy subscribers and responding to the feedback those subscribers give without sacrificing independence. "We wouldn't want to create an impression that we're not addressing our patrons' demands, but also still want to pursue new horizons and bring something new on a semi-regular basis," he said. For other modders looking to find independent success, he recommended targeting "niche" games and taking on projects that you're passionate about. "A modification for 'GTA 5' would guarantee a large user base, but I imagine something smaller could have a lot more unsolved demands users would love to find a solution to." Viktor "NSGolova" Radulov, a Ukrainian modder for the virtual reality rhythm game "Beat Saber," similarly said creators should "focus on helping players first and monetize later. If people are happy with your mods, they'll be happy to donate." Radulov's Patreon projects, which include mods to add cosmetics and a leaderboard to the game, earn him over $4,500 a month. He began his programming career developing add-ons for Mac and iOS, and his interest in "Beat Saber" led him to take on modding as a hobby. While modding is currently a side hustle for him, he hopes to eventually turn modding into his sole career. Other monetization platforms include Ko-fi and Nexus Mods. The latter lets modders earn "Donation Points" that can be redeemed for gifts or cash. Nexus Mods told BI that it has paid out over $12 million to its top creators since 2018. Some modders, like Dream and DougDoug, create content as well, using platforms like YouTube and Twitch to upload videos showcasing their mods, which can also earn them money. "Modding forces you to learn a huge variety of skill sets, but the most important of these is 'just work it out,'" Esler said. "You don't have the virtue of an engineering team who can make new features or update existing ones, so you have to work out how to work within the confines of what's already there to make something new."
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Mass Effect And Dragon Age Teams ‘Didn't Get Along,' According To Ex-BioWare Dev
David Gaider, the co-founder of Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical developer Summerfall Studios, has opened up a bit more about his time at BioWare, where he served as the original lead writer on the Dragon Age series. Taking to social media, he chose to explain more about his decision to leave the studio in 2016 and the apparently tense relationship between the Mass Effect and Dragon Age teams within the company. In a lengthy Bluesky thread, Gaider described BioWare's years under co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk as 'the height' of the studio's time, though he also says he recognizes that issues like crunch and mismanagement were worse than he realized until after he left the company. He describes frustration with his own lack of upward momentum, as he was passed over for the role of Dragon Age's creative director in favor of Mike Laidlaw. He says he was eventually won over by Laidlaw's leadership and that the fantasy series benefited from it, but after he left the series to work on something else, things started to change. Gaider asked to move on to something else within BioWare after Dragon Age: Inquisition's launch in 2014, and it was between either Mass Effect: Andromeda or 'Dylan,' the game that would become Anthem, the studio's ill-fated loot shooter. Opting to work on the latter, he says the experience illuminated tensions between the different BioWare teams and that he felt the Anthem team didn't want him there. 'You see, the thing you need to know about BioWare is that for a long time it was basically two teams under one roof: the Dragon Age team and the Mass Effect team,' Gaider wrote. 'Run differently, very different cultures, may as well have been two separate studios. And they didn't get along. The company was aware of the friction and attempts to fix it had been ongoing for years, mainly by shuffling staff between the teams more often. Yet this didn't really solve things, and I had no idea until I got to the Dylan team. The team didn't want me there. At all.' Gaider says that some of his conflict with the Anthem team came from higher-up instructions to write something more 'science fantasy,' similar to Star Wars, whereas the original concept had been more of a 'beer & cigarettes' sci-fi world similar to Aliens. According to Gaider, he was frequently given feedback that his ideas were 'too Dragon Age.' 'I won't go into detail about the problems except to say it became clear this was a team that didn't want to make an RPG,' Gaider wrote. 'Were very anti-RPG, in fact. Yet they wanted me to wave my magic writing wand and create a BioWare quality story without giving me any of the tools I'd need to actually do that.' After it became clear that that the project wasn't a good fit for him, Gaider told BioWare's bosses that he'd stick with it if there was some kind of promotion on the other side, and when he was turned down, he quit and went on to co-found Summerfall Studios. The studio's first game, Stray Gods, is a musical game following a modern version of the Greek god pantheon. It launched in 2023, and a DLC focusing on Orpheus was released the following year. BioWare has been going through a lot of turmoil in the past few months. After the underperformance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard, the studio was restructured, resulting in layoffs of veteran talent and a company-wide pivot to focus solely on the fifth Mass Effect the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
