- Aug 9, 2016
- 9
- 33
I firmly believe in the spirit of cooperation between developers and their player base. Most of my favorite games, games I consider to be among the greatest of all time, have only reached their full potential and lasting reputation through the hard work of both the developers and groups of dedicated fans who have created things like essential patches/fixes that the developers were unable to implement because of budget/time constraints, ports to modern systems to keep the game alive long after its release, mods that add completely new gameplay systems or content to fully flesh out an already great experience or massive total conversions that create their own unique worlds in the spirit of the original game.A company has to give away their source code to appreciate their customers?
For me, it is the hallmark of a truly great game to leave such a legacy and inspire hundreds of new creations and lasting support from a fanbase, not only in terms of mods but also community content like wikis/guides/stories/art/even memes.
This doesn't mean that everyone has to lay open their complete source code and there is no need for that in the first place. Just extending a hand by providing documentation/modding tools or not needlessly hardcoding/obfuscating content goes a very long way. What I see in their approach and communication instead is an active dislike of anyone meddling with their creation, a common way of thinking for creators, but one that I ultimately consider to be misguided and fueled by pride rather than practicality. In a medium like video games, true greatness can most often only be achieved through cooperation.