40 min
Podcast: Mod.io's Scott Reismanis on the impact of UGC in games Tales From GameDiscoveryLand
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- Technology
Welcome to the fourth Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode - recorded a few weeks back - we talk to Scott Reismanis, founder of platform-agnostic game mod host/platform Mod.io about the evolution of UGC (user-generated content), the impact of this content in games, and the future of the space.
Presented by Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, this bi-weekly, limited series podcast features conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast.
Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening.
Podcast transcript: Scott Reismanis and Mod.io
Simon: Have you heard all the fuss about user-generated content for games in recent years? If your game supports UGC or mods, it can significantly boost its virality and discovery. Which is why we were so excited to catch up with Mod.io founder Scott Reismanis for our latest podcast.
Scott was also the founder of ModDB and IndieDB, and has been involved in the mod scene for more than 20 years. His new VC-backed company, which helps run cross-platform mods for games like Snowrunner, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Deep Rock Galactic & Skater XL - is doing some interesting work to make mods available multi-platform.
So let's hear all about the benefits and pitfalls of making modding a discovery engine for your games. I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast.
[music]
Simon: Okay, so I'm here with Scott - How's it going, Scott? Are you having a good day?
Scott: It’s going well, thank you. Just wrapped up a successful trip to GDC, and it's great to be talking today.
Simon: Awesome - we've certainly known each other for a while. We did some work together back in the day on things like the Indie Royale bundles but obviously I'm very interested to hear about your latest project Mod.io.
I was looking at the progression, and you noted on your blog that you had 12 million mods downloaded in 2019, 70 million in 2020, and 208 million in 2021. So clearly, the service - which provides mod support and a kind of centralized [hub] for a bunch of different games - is going quite well.
Can you talk about what particular games your growth has been led by? I'm interested to hear like the three or four games that you feel that people are really, really getting going on Mod.io.
Scott: So Mod.io and modding in general has typically spanned many genres of games, whether it's open world RPGs, like your Skyrims and your Cyberpunks, through to simulation games - we always said if it has a bus, trains, cars or planes in it, it's suitable. Right through to the multiplayer first person shooters and competitive games - where just customizing your avatar or changing the level can have a big impact on gameplay.
For us, our growth has been driven by, probably, all of those genres. But in particular simulation titles, for whatever reason. We've got a lot of truck and bus and car related games on the service. And they're just extremely popular with the players because once you've tried the 5 to 10 vehicles available to you, naturally you want something that's faster, bigger and got more wheels - whatever it might be.
So they've really driven it . But it's definitely a diverse bunch, because we've got games like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator that kind of break the mold. It’s in physics simulators that people are dropping-in characters, and they've submitted 1.5 million pieces of content - and driven a lot of downloads.
Simon: Can you talk about the broad type of mods that you're seeing? I think people have different opinions of mods based on what they think ‘mods’ means - and it's everything from cosmetics to kind of total conversions. C
Welcome to the fourth Tales From GameDiscoveryLand podcast in Season 1. In this episode - recorded a few weeks back - we talk to Scott Reismanis, founder of platform-agnostic game mod host/platform Mod.io about the evolution of UGC (user-generated content), the impact of this content in games, and the future of the space.
Presented by Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, this bi-weekly, limited series podcast features conversations with smart people in the video game industry on how games get discovered and played. Below is a lightly edited full transcript of the entire podcast.
Reminder: you can get hold of episodes via our official podcast page, and also via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher and Pocket Casts. If you need it, here’s our podcast RSS feed. And thanks in advance for listening.
Podcast transcript: Scott Reismanis and Mod.io
Simon: Have you heard all the fuss about user-generated content for games in recent years? If your game supports UGC or mods, it can significantly boost its virality and discovery. Which is why we were so excited to catch up with Mod.io founder Scott Reismanis for our latest podcast.
Scott was also the founder of ModDB and IndieDB, and has been involved in the mod scene for more than 20 years. His new VC-backed company, which helps run cross-platform mods for games like Snowrunner, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Deep Rock Galactic & Skater XL - is doing some interesting work to make mods available multi-platform.
So let's hear all about the benefits and pitfalls of making modding a discovery engine for your games. I'm Simon Carless, founder of GameDiscoverCo, and this is the Tales From Game Discoveryland podcast.
[music]
Simon: Okay, so I'm here with Scott - How's it going, Scott? Are you having a good day?
Scott: It’s going well, thank you. Just wrapped up a successful trip to GDC, and it's great to be talking today.
Simon: Awesome - we've certainly known each other for a while. We did some work together back in the day on things like the Indie Royale bundles but obviously I'm very interested to hear about your latest project Mod.io.
I was looking at the progression, and you noted on your blog that you had 12 million mods downloaded in 2019, 70 million in 2020, and 208 million in 2021. So clearly, the service - which provides mod support and a kind of centralized [hub] for a bunch of different games - is going quite well.
Can you talk about what particular games your growth has been led by? I'm interested to hear like the three or four games that you feel that people are really, really getting going on Mod.io.
Scott: So Mod.io and modding in general has typically spanned many genres of games, whether it's open world RPGs, like your Skyrims and your Cyberpunks, through to simulation games - we always said if it has a bus, trains, cars or planes in it, it's suitable. Right through to the multiplayer first person shooters and competitive games - where just customizing your avatar or changing the level can have a big impact on gameplay.
For us, our growth has been driven by, probably, all of those genres. But in particular simulation titles, for whatever reason. We've got a lot of truck and bus and car related games on the service. And they're just extremely popular with the players because once you've tried the 5 to 10 vehicles available to you, naturally you want something that's faster, bigger and got more wheels - whatever it might be.
So they've really driven it . But it's definitely a diverse bunch, because we've got games like Totally Accurate Battle Simulator that kind of break the mold. It’s in physics simulators that people are dropping-in characters, and they've submitted 1.5 million pieces of content - and driven a lot of downloads.
Simon: Can you talk about the broad type of mods that you're seeing? I think people have different opinions of mods based on what they think ‘mods’ means - and it's everything from cosmetics to kind of total conversions. C
40 min