Home

 › 

Articles

 › 

Back-off Our Adult Mods Developers!

Back-off Our Adult Mods Developers!

I can understand that game developers put a lot of hard work, pride, and sometimes even a little bit of themselves into their games. It can be really hard to release them into the wild sometimes, because you just never know what someone might say about your work. What if they hate it? What if they say things about it that you never thought you’d hear come from a reasonable person’s mouth? It’s the risk you have to take in the industry. Even as a writer, I have to write what I know, think, and feel knowing that some people will disagree with me. It’s all right to disagree; it’s okay to hate something that other people love. Without those differences in the world, things would be terribly boring.

It’s this same thinking that I really think needs to be applied to video game mods. I know that game developers consider their games their treasures and their magnum opus. They might not want anyone fooling around with it. Or, at the worst, they don’t want anyone violating it with (gasp) nudity! Video game mods almost certainly mean nudity at some point in time. Some of the most popular mods in video game history added nudity or sex to a game that didn’t previously have it. Thus, if your game allows players to create their own mods, you need to come to terms with the fact that some boobs and balls are going to show up at some point.

Repeat readers don’t need to listen to me ramble on again about why sex should be allowed in video games. I’m making a slightly different point this time. If video games have the ability to allow mods, developers need to realize what happens next is out of their hands. Final Fantasy XV ‘s director, Hajime Tabata, spoke at PAX West 2017 about the game’s inclusion of mods on PC. He said that fans will be able to create whatever they want, but Square Enix might reconsider their inclusion of mods in future games if Final Fantasy XV ‘s get out of hand. Why in the world would you allow mods, then plan to take them away before they’ve even been in the hands of players and creators?

In this case, Square Enix is basically admitting that they aren’t ready to include mods in games, because they don’t want user creations to “damage” their image. They most likely are only included mod support in Final Fantasy XV on PC because of community demands. If your player base asks for something over and over again, it’s just good practice to give it to them. But Square Enix is clearly not ready for the tsunami of boobs and balls, because even a game’s director is warning fans to be reasonable. The company probably figures they can justify taking away mods later because they provided them in the first place. It’s easy to say something like, “You all broke the rules, so now we’re taking your toys away.” Not allowing mods at all would annoy fans, but taking it away is probably going to annoy them more.

Back-off Our Adult Mods Developers!

I think Square Enix is making a huge mistake, along with other developers who think they can introduce user created mods and then police them heavily. If players are creating mods that allow them to cheat in a game, then by all means, take them down. But if your users are creating giant boobs and floppy dicks, leave them be. They’re not hurting anyone. The world as a whole needs to come to terms with the fact that while we wear clothing, our bodies are nothing to be ashamed of. Taking mods away or censoring them is just taking your adult players and turning them into teenagers. We don’t need our “mom and dad” to tell us no about a certain mod and slap our wrists. When that happens we just want those mods even more and find less legitimate ways of creating and using them.

There’s a happy medium to be struck here somewhere along the way. Integrating player created mod support is something that should only be added when a company is prepared for the aftermath. There will be some things they don’t necessarily like or agree with, but that needs to be celebrated! Just because you didn’t want to give your character (male or female) a thong doesn’t mean someone else can’t. Let players create what they want to create, and celebrate their ability to think in a way that you don’t want to, or can’t.

To top