These two days, an interesting piece of news caught my attention: Bethesda’s “Starfield” has not yet been released, but the folk mod community is already ready to fix the bugs.
Specifically, a group of “Starfield” fans and mod creators have jointly formed a team, planning to deal with various possible bugs after the game’s release. They also posted a special page on the Modding.wiki website, inviting players to participate in this event.
At first glance, this “fan-initiated bug-fixing” event does indeed demonstrate the enthusiasm of “Starfield” players. But on second thought, I noticed a strange problem: Although Bethesda’s games have always been inseparable from mods, it should be the developers’ responsibility to fix bugs. Why doesn’t the official team fix the bug themselves? Why do the mod authors from the public have to step in to solve it?
In fact, an increasing number of mod authors have been involved in the construction of the game itself. Shorten the loading time of “GTA Online”; Improve the experience of Cyberpunk 2077; Improve the picture resolution of “Dark Souls”… All these improvements can be achieved by “playing mods”.
When it comes to the question of “the official team can’t handle it themselves”, many people would give these several answers: either the game engine is too bad; Either the QA work was not done well; Either the production team slacks off on their own. However, a discussion on this issue on the foreign Reddit forum has revealed some more complex causes to us.
When making games, one must consider “priority”.
To clarify the above issue, a foreign netizen asked on the Reddit community. He expressed confusion over the matter of “the mod author fixing the 3A game” and tried to understand the reason behind it.
Interestingly, although the questioner questioned himself, “Is this a stupid question?”, this question post quickly caught the attention of players and even developers, and everyone expressed their opinions on “Why can’t developers do better?”
DuranteA, one of the discussants, has a somewhat special identity. He is both a mod author and a developer of PC ported games. This enables him to view the issue from both positive and negative perspectives.
In DuranteA’s explanation, “development priority” is a very important concept. The development priority of many PC games is relatively low. Compared with the console version, creating a PC version will encounter completely different challenges. Fixing bugs may not be achievable at all during the development process and can only be resolved through subsequent mods.
DuranteA particularly emphasized the problem that exists: specific functional attributes or bugs are given a lower “priority”, and then fall into an endless waiting period because “more important” matters always keep emerging. He also believes that many companies do not do a good job in overall planning, and many decision-makers are unable to break free from the “curse” of the priority list.
Another netizen, hughnibley, has experience in managing projects. He said that a phrase he often said was, “Even an idiot can come up with good ideas.” The meaning is that as long as the producers are given sufficient time and resources, anyone can come up with some really cool ideas. But the reality is that there is often not enough time and resources when developing games. At this point, project managers need to abandon some fanciful ideas.
In contrast, mod creators undoubtedly appear to be more “free”. Netizen BeholdingBestWaifu stated that mod authors who want to fix a game have nearly “unlimited” time. They can act completely at their own pace and there is no deadline. Game developers don’t have such leeway. The questions they think about are basically all “When will my game be finished?”
There are really not many people who are lazy
Given that many industry insiders have shared their experiences in the original post, I often come across such a joke: Developers are not unwilling to fix bugs, but they “really have no time”.
Dreadgoat, a developer from a large company, wrote in the comment section that many developers are tormented by heavy workloads and low salaries. On the eve of the game’s release, the members of the studio had to endure weeks or even months of overtime. Under the influence of this experience, Dreadgoat developed a strong sympathy for game programmers.
He also gave a specific example: For mod creators, fixing bugs in the game only takes them three hours of free time. But for programmers, this period of time means working an additional three hours of overtime on top of the 12-hour workday. Although the time it takes to fix the bug is the same, these two situations cannot be compared at all.
Like Dreadgoat, discussant wahoozerman has also been involved in the development of 3A games. In his view, many players have misunderstandings about the developer community: most people who make games are not lazy, and many game studios are not incompetent.
On the contrary, game developers are all very busy. The production cycle is tight, the marketing date has been determined, and the budget sheet has also been submitted. In this case, the game producer has to arrange which tasks to complete, when and who should handle them most appropriately.
If players have feedback, such as complaining about the game’s loading time being too long, the producer should also first consider: Which is more important, improving the loading time or adding new features? How much impact will these issues have on the benchmark quality of the product? How much time does the studio need to spend solving the problem? Developers often have to view problems from their own perspective rather than that of players.
However, mod authors have no such restrictions. They can do whatever they want anytime and anywhere. Don’t worry about time or financial issues. wahoozerman also mentioned that the number of mod makers is much larger than that of full-time developers. As long as they are willing to unite and invest enough in a certain link, it will be very easy for them to discover the hidden bugs in the game.
Although the discussants of the post have different attitudes towards mods, they all share a basic consensus: the difficulty of editing mods is not on the same level as that of developing games. This is not only reflected in the game production itself, but also in the communication and negotiation outside the game.
Fix bugs? It’s not that easy
The netizen ContributorX_PJ64 stated that the workload of mod authors and game developers is completely different. The former only needs to add new text strings to the game code, while the latter needs to translate them into multiple different languages and also ensure that these codes can run normally.
If the developer intends to fix the problems in the game by himself, he still needs to inform his colleagues and management.
Netizen Interrupt mentioned that there is a huge convenience for mod creators when editing games, that is, the framework of the game has already been determined, and mod authors only need to make local patches. However, when developers are making games, they have to deal with many uncertainties. Anything they come into contact with will involve the work of others, so the entire production team needs to communicate more effectively.
Another discussant, backalleyMongoose, has a more direct view. He said that most mod authors tend to showcase their talents in games with high popularity, but developers cannot predict whether their games will succeed. So some developers will consider saving resources, which at least ensures their survival after failure.
Moreover, even if all the members of the development team agree to “fix bugs first”, they may still spend a lot of time searching for problems.
AlisaTornado shared an anecdote with everyone: A certain game encountered a serious problem. A system architect, a senior programmer, and a regular programmer took turns to work around the clock in a “round-robin” manner to troubleshoot. Eventually, they found that a trigger was missing from the file. Dramatically, it only took 30 seconds to add the trigger back.
However, some netizens raised doubts. soaring_raccoon mentioned that 72 hours after the PC version of “Dark Souls” was released, a mod author released the graphics enhancement mod DSFix. Since folk creators can release new content so quickly, why don’t the official side improve the picture quality from the very beginning?
hughnibley, who has been involved in project management, replied that there might be communication problems within the official team. Even if developers are meticulous, they may still overlook certain special adaptation scenarios. That is to say, by the time players discover areas for improvement, developers have already thrown themselves into the next project and have no spare capacity to make improvements.
Conclusion
After reading the discussion post, I roughly had an answer in my mind.
Having mod authors fix game bugs may seem to benefit developers, but in fact, it precisely reveals the developers’ own helplessness. Although game developers are the “creators” of the virtual world, they are just ordinary workers in reality and sometimes struggle to deal with unexpected situations. At such times, the support of mod authors can provide greater guarantee for the quality of the game. It would be a good thing for all parties if developers could cooperate with mod authors.