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ENCORE Revolutionizing Gaming with UGC: How Mod.io Leads the Way with Scott Reismanis
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User-generated content (UGC) has become a transformative force in the gaming industry, giving players the tools to shape their favorite games and developers new ways to engage their communities. In this episode of the Player Driven Podcast, Scott Reismanis, founder of Mod.io, dives into how his platform is breaking barriers and expanding opportunities for players, creators, and studios alike.
Key Takeaways
1. UGC’s Role in Expanding Gaming Lifecycles
Baldur’s Gate 3 has seen over 50 million mod downloads in its first year, with 40% of its player base engaging with mods—double the industry average. Scott explains that mods keep games fresh, encouraging players to return for new experiences, whether it’s simple cosmetic tweaks or major gameplay changes. Console players, in particular, have embraced mods, often consuming more content than their PC counterparts.
2. Breaking Down Barriers for Console Modding
Traditionally, console ecosystems were closed off to modding due to strict certification processes and security concerns. Mod.io changed the game by partnering with PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo, bringing mods to consoles for the first time. This shift has allowed console players to experience UGC at a scale previously reserved for PC gaming, with games like Baldur’s Gate 3, SnowRunner, and Skater XL leading the charge.
3. The Business Case for UGC
Mod.io collaborated with Simon Carlos of GameDiscoverCo to analyze UGC’s financial impact. The results are clear: games with UGC see a 23% revenue increase over five years, retain 90% more players, and even boost paid DLC sales by up to 26%. UGC not only enhances player engagement but also creates opportunities for studios to better understand what their audience wants through player-created content trends.
4. How Mod.io Supports Developers and Players
Implementing modding isn’t just about enabling creativity; it’s also about maintaining quality and safety. Mod.io offers automated content scanning for malware and inappropriate material, customizable curation settings for studios, and community reporting tools to flag problematic mods. For developers, this means greater control over their games’ ecosystems while giving players the freedom to create and share.
5. The Future of UGC in Gaming
Scott envisions a future where games become platforms for creators, allowing indie developers to launch full-fledged titles as mods within larger games. This approach could solve one of the biggest challenges for indie creators—finding an audience—while providing established games with fresh, high-quality content. As Scott says, “You don’t have to democratize creation—you just have to enable imagination.”
Featured Guest
Scott Reismanis is the founder of ModDB and Mod.io. With over 20 years of experience in the gaming industry, Scott has helped bring UGC to the forefront of modern gaming, enabling players to create and share content across platforms.
Memorable Quotes
“UGC isn’t competition; it’s an opportunity to deepen engagement and extend a game’s lifecycle.”
“You don’t have to democratize creation—you just have to enable imagination.”
Relevant Links
Explore Mod.io: www.mod.io
SPONSOR:
Check out Nexys Mobile and the Red Magic 10 Pro: https://www.nexysmobile.com/redmagic
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Transcript
Introduction and Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey everybody, welcome to the Player Driven Podcast. Here's what you're about to listen to on today's episode. Today we're doing an encore episode. It's Scott Reismanis. He is the founder of Mod.io and we're going to talk about all things UGC. UGC has been such a hot topic for the beginning of this year, all of last year, that we're going to continue to hit on it hard.
00:00:18
Speaker
It's a really great episode. If you haven't been following Player Driven, we've been meeting and talking to all these amazing guests. We highly recommend you check it out at playerdriven.io. We're also an We're also on all the social networks is there, so you can check it out as well.
00:00:31
Speaker
And we have about two and a half months of new content starting next week. We have lots of great podcasts, lots of great images and infographics and content all around us, so be sure to check it out.
00:00:42
Speaker
Keep following, and if there's anything you haven't heard that you want to talk more about, just drop us online and let
Nexus Mobile Sponsorship
00:00:46
Speaker
us know. Before we do jump in, this episode has been brought to you by Nexus Mobile. We love Nexus Mobile. They have provided us with the Red Magic Pro 10.
00:00:54
Speaker
It is a quick... phone for gamers. It has the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 which is the latest version. It does not have any hiccups as you're playing games, as you're doing anything on there whether it be multitasking, gaming, or just playing around.
00:01:07
Speaker
It has built-in cooling with a real fan. It's buttery smooth, the OS, and there's a lot of great stuff on this phone. We highly recommend you check it out. We'll have a link to it in our show notes ah but you can check out the Red Magic Pro 10 exclusively on Nexus Mobile and enjoy today's episode.
What is the impact of UGC in gaming?
00:01:28
Speaker
Welcome to the Player Driven Podcast. Today we have a really fun episode where we're going to be talking about user-generated content and modding. Can you believe that Baldur's Gate 3, which has been out for over a year now, recently has hit over 50 million mod downloads, and this was about two months ago, um using user-generated content to help engage more players and get more people involved in the creative process and and I'm really excited to be talking to someone that helping enable this process today we are talking to Scott Reismanis from mod.io he has a really cool background with UGC and all just modding in general and I'm really excited to be talking more about this and learning more about this so we can talk more about it so Scott thank you so much for joining us today how are you is there anything you want to talk about yourself
00:02:16
Speaker
Hey, Greg, great to be here and very nice to meet you and your audience. um Yeah, so a bit about my background, um which you sort of touched on, I've been in modding now for over two decades. I launched moddb.com way back in 2002.
00:02:32
Speaker
in two thousand and two um Because like many of us, I just love the creativity and everything that the playing community was doing. um At the time, I played a lot of first-person shooter games, um your Dooms, your Quakes, your Half-Lives and your Unreal Tournaments of the world, as well as a lot of um RTS.
00:02:51
Speaker
Starcraft, Warcraft and Age of Empires and Command and Conquer. And I just, just yeah, a really got, went deep into that whole creator scene. I realized that I couldn't mod myself when I failed miserably at making a Doom level.
00:03:07
Speaker
But what I did realize is i had a real passion for um connecting people and um you know sort of enabling and creativity and sharing. And selfishly, i wanted the destination and place where I could find amazing mods and content that was being made because ah yeah the internet was quite a different world in 2002. And so ModDB was born um as a way to sort of bring all those passions together.
00:03:32
Speaker
And yeah, I guess that's still running today and I'm excited to talk about the topic with you more, Greg.
Scott Reismanis' Journey in Modding
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'm fascinated that you're you're you're not the one creating mods, or at least when you started, you weren't creating mods, right? You saw a need in the marketplace when you were playing your games, right? Was there a specific game? I know you had all a whole bunch of FPSs and on RTS games, but was there one that was just like, I need this?
00:03:56
Speaker
Well, for me, it was it was always, um and sorry, it was always Half-Life. um like Like many, like Counter-Strike was probably the the real eye-opener, but back then you Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, um Natural Selection.
00:04:15
Speaker
um Like there was just so many incredible mods been made for that title and total conversions. In fact, like it was it was really the, and you didn't really have good access to engines and you had source code access, you had you know the editor and everything else. like And so people were able to make really amazing things.
00:04:36
Speaker
ah But I guess what blows my mind about modders is just the ability to pick up someone else's bit of technology that isn't necessarily well documented requires a very diverse set of skills from sort of design and 3D work through to 2D huds to programming and pathfinding and everything else for all the characters in the NPCs, as well as the player and animations.
How has modding evolved to consoles?
00:05:04
Speaker
ah For me, it was just mystifying. It was too much. And as much as I am an engineer and developer, um sticking to two d HTML, and CSS and JavaScript was enough.
00:05:15
Speaker
So let's talk about mods. I think mods, I remember maybe it was 15 years ago, I got Skyrim on my Xbox 360 and number of years later, Bethesda opened up modding to consoles. And I think that was mind blowing for a lot of console players because usually mods were reserved for the PC players and all of a sudden it's enabled. to a whole new set of people to create content for players who are playing on console.
00:05:42
Speaker
And i think that's such a cool experience. It improves the engagement, improves the retention because players are coming back. um You know, you mentioned, or it was was mentioned online that 1.7 million mods were downloaded in the first 24 hours of console launch, which is Baldur's Gate 3, which is awesome. That means the the audience was excited for it. They were hungry for it.
00:06:02
Speaker
Why is it such a game changer? What was the biggest hurdle in making it happen? ah Well, I mean, I think really in many ways, the the challenge on console has always been that they're closed ecosystems, right? Like they're not, it's not like PC, which is very open. There's the certification and the security checks and there's all these other sort of systems that consoles require games to go through before shipping.
00:06:31
Speaker
And so those systems unfortunately meant that that just modding was not possible in those worlds. Having said that, ah one of the reasons I think that that PC has been seeing year on year growth now for many, many, many years, whereas a lot of the other platforms are potentially going in the other direction is because the modern consumer is growing up expecting more from their games. Like studios really want to connect more deeply with their players and everything else.
00:07:03
Speaker
um And so Having modern consoles really embrace that has been absolutely amazing. Like we now work closely with PlayStation, Xbox, and um and also Nintendo for the Switch.
00:07:17
Speaker
I think across each of those systems, we have 20 plus games live. And as we saw with Baldur's Gate, we also saw it with Skater XL, SnowRunner, Taliacra Battle Simulator, like a wide range of games.
00:07:32
Speaker
All of those players, almost none of them, um realize that modding is possible when it comes, you know, it goes live in their favorite title. And so there's always this insane reception and it's even dwarfed PC gamers, which has surprised me. Like they're consuming more content than the PC counterparts.
00:07:50
Speaker
um there's There's just like the positivity on socials where it's like, holy holyly cow, you know thank you so much. like This is the best thing ever. you know I love making my character's hair green, whatever it is, even even the most simple content right through to the really advanced ones. It's like amazing. I've now got 20 vehicles in my garage.
00:08:10
Speaker
SnowRunner. um It's just been really, really, really encouraging and and motivating for us. And really, it was it was probably the major thing that led to the formation of Mod.io, and that is modding is fantastic. We think it's going to continue to grow and continue to be more impactful.
00:08:28
Speaker
um And Steam Workshop is an amazing product of doing integrated and accessible modding for Steam players. How can we um expand on that and make it possible for console users, non-Steam users, even mobile users, VR
UGC and Revenue Streams
00:08:43
Speaker
players,
00:08:44
Speaker
um And so really that was the foundation. And then, of course, there's another 20-plus ideas we want to explore. But it's been really, really encouraging to see the Baldur's Gate community um and others like that, like Dying Light and others just respond so positively to it.
00:09:00
Speaker
And we can't wait to continue. We've got a lot of games behind the scenes, so we're going to make this happen to 4 as well. Yeah, absolutely. Following you on LinkedIn and in the news, right? More and more games are adopting this. They're seeing the success that all these games are having with this generated content.
00:09:17
Speaker
Going back to the original question was when you kind of came up with this idea when you were younger, did you see this coming into a business? You basically saw and need in the market for you wanting to download all your mods in a single place, but did you see that blowing up to where you are today?
00:09:32
Speaker
And definitely not. And I've got a perfect story for that. And that is when I founded ModDB, it was purely hobby. And in some ways it was a selfish hobby because I made it because I was inspired inspired by internet movie database IMDB. And that's a location where you can go to find reviews for all your favorite movies.
00:09:52
Speaker
I'm like, you know what? i want to create a location where I can go to play all my favorite mods. I was at the time having to search across file planet and file front and um all of these other various websites and finding mods in a consistent and reliable way to play was kind of challenging.
00:10:11
Speaker
And so ModDB selfishly was a way for me to encourage the community all submit to a location that I could then browse and download and play. And so that was the original, that was it. Like the motivation back then was I wanted i wanted to play this content. My friends wanted to play and we loved consuming it at LANs and just trying heaps of different game modes and ideas out to see what really stuck and resonated with us.
00:10:36
Speaker
Um, but of course what happens is when you do something, when you're, when you're solving a need as we were, I guess the business opportunity kind of follows because, um Naturally, there wass a lot of other people that shared my same passion and desire.
00:10:52
Speaker
And all of a sudden, um within a couple of years, ModDB had millions and millions of ah monthly visitors that were coming to download content for the same games that I loved.
00:11:04
Speaker
um And, you know, asking for a lot more. And um there were games that they were playing that I wasn't playing and things that we started adding to the site. And and the modding and creative community just kept growing and growing.
00:11:15
Speaker
And really
From Hobby to Business: ModDB to Mod.io
00:11:16
Speaker
the catalyst for it becoming a business was um IGN reached out um and this is going way back to 2006. And they said, Hey, we're, we're interested in modding. You know, was already a big part of file planet and planet half life and all their various sites.
00:11:35
Speaker
ah Can we acquire more, more DB from you? And so I went and visited them and they made an offer ultimately. Um, you know, i didn't accept the offer.
00:11:47
Speaker
Um, and ModDB was not making any revenue at that time. It was purely a hobby, but I thought, look, if, if they see a business and an opportunity here, then, uh, there must be something here. And so I quit my job and, took a huge risk and spend the next few years, um, going ModDB.
00:12:06
Speaker
Uh, and, um, yeah, it was, it was probably the best decision I made because naturally that's led to mod.io and it's really been a defining part of my journey. um And yeah, know i'm I'm still excited 20 years on for what's coming next. Like I still think we've barely scratched the surface.
00:12:24
Speaker
That is such a cool story. I mean, I imagine you're basically a kid, you are a kid 20 years ago, you get a call from IGN, right? When you're a kid but back then, the internet wasn't as huge as it is now, right?
00:12:35
Speaker
IGN is the staple video game website there. And they want to acquire your your your passion project that you're building that's making no money and you still had the the balls, for lack of better word, to be like, no, you know what?
00:12:46
Speaker
If you see this, there's something there and you want to go in it. And I just love the courage it takes to just kind of follow that dream. you know you you You had it now, but you said, no, you know what? I want to keep going higher. And that truly ah shows your love and dedication for it, right? It's not just a business. This is ah a true passion project that you're building out. And I think that's so cool.
00:13:07
Speaker
I really appreciate that. And yes, it was, IGN was enormous. They owned half of the gaming sites on the planet at the time. and they, even after I turned them down when I tended to make a competitor. So, um, like it, uh, it was, it was a big decision.
00:13:24
Speaker
Um, but yeah, when you believe in something, uh, you gotta go for it.
00:13:29
Speaker
So I want to talk about UGC in general and kind of the developer and the business side of it. Right. Uh, user generated content has the ability to create additional revenue streams for your game.
00:13:40
Speaker
um there's been You've been talking about a 23% increase in consumer spending ah for companies that are leveraging UGC. Can you kind of talk a little bit about how this does enable those additional revenue streams at and what's the risk, if any, to developers for incorporating stuff like this?
00:13:58
Speaker
Yeah, so UGC is really interesting because anecdotally, um the evidence is really strong to suggest it's it creates really great success. Because if you look at the most enduring brands in in gaming, um there's a very high chance that there's there's a strong UGC element.
00:14:18
Speaker
Either it's still strong today or it was very strong in their formative years where they really built their audience and reputations. um And so you know when I talk about Half-Life as an example of the game that motivated me to start and was the very first game listed on ModDB, they just released what the the Valve just released a massive modding update and 50,000 concurrent users returned to the game. And that title um and our is is probably it's half our age, if not more.
00:14:45
Speaker
like it's It's phenomenal how strong it is and can be over a very long journey. So the business... But it's all anecdotal, but the business case for UGC. And so we wanted to try to put actual real um numbers behind this anecdotal evidence. And so it's not just UGC is good because it creates connected ecosystems, players and community and creativity and things like the content side.
00:15:12
Speaker
What does it actually achieve for studios? And so we work with Simon Carlos from Game Discover Co newsletter. If not subscribed, it's a fantastic um injury industry analysis newsletter where he looks at all of the trends on all the various platforms and analyzes various things and what they do.
00:15:28
Speaker
um And through Simon, um we we we know we We said, hey, can you research the topic of UGC and the impact it's had on the industry um using Steam data over a five year period with like a thousand plus games so that we could get a really good cross section of the industry.
00:15:45
Speaker
um And so so Simon went away with his data analysts and and sort of looked at um a normalized version of games without UGC. and looked at a normalized versions of games with UGC to compare the difference.
00:15:57
Speaker
And um using the the the the metrics that they've estimated from the Steam data that's available, ah They were sort of able to determine a bunch of things and the the key ones, um but I mean, really it massively exceeded our own expectations, but the key ones were one, um as you said, 23% more revenue over a five year time, over that five year timeframe appeared to occur for the gains of UGC. So that's material, like a quarter more revenue, like that's quite incredible to consider that UGC can sort of create that.
00:16:30
Speaker
um Two, when trying to determine The reason for that revenue, I mean, there's probably a lot of things that you can attribute to it. um but But the main one was the CCU, like the average CCU count of players over that timeframe was 90% higher in the games that you see than those without.
00:16:50
Speaker
So they retained close to twice as many players as titles without that equivalent, I guess, content um you know cycle and and sort of you know flywheel that that community is providing.
00:17:02
Speaker
um And then finally, probably the other, i guess the counterpoint to all of this is um what if I, and and a lot of studios ask us this, if I add free content in this UGC community to my title, yeah, I want that sort of,
00:17:19
Speaker
engagement for my live service game, but isn't this going to compete with my business model of content updates and DLC and season
Does UGC complement DLCs?
00:17:26
Speaker
passes? So we had a, we did our best to explore that question. and While the data on Steam is a little bit hard to estimate the changes, um I think the median showed that At the low end, you still see a 4% uplift in those sales and at the high end you see like a 26% uplift. So UGC even helps sell through of DLC and that's I suspect because you have a larger player base to to sell through and and we have talked to partners um like Sabre and Focus and SnowRunner who's been one of the longest games on mod.io and has us on pretty much every platform under the sun um about
00:18:02
Speaker
what they you know what they want to reveal and share. And then they validated that story. Like they said that, you know, modding in their title has allowed it to, you know, go for 13 seasons where if if that if it didn't have all that content from the community been made in between those passes, maybe it wouldn't have been viable to continue shipping such um for such a long period of time.
00:18:23
Speaker
And so that's, that's amazing validation like and and so good for them. um So I think I think it's been good to put some of that anecdotal evidence that f free modding can have a real strong commercial impact.
00:18:35
Speaker
But of course, there's obviously more than that for you to see like there's other areas that you can pursue to create opportunity. And we see that in Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft and Fight Simulator and Counter-Strike that all have sort of creator various versions of creator economies enabled within their games.
00:18:53
Speaker
Do you think, I mean, are there actually still studios out there that are looking at UGC as potential competition for their own developers? Or do you think we're at a time where people have kind of embraced it and taken a look and say, hey, you know what? A lot of people like this car that they're downloading in this game. Maybe we should look to create some content pack for that.
00:19:10
Speaker
I don't think they see it as competition, um but they see it as we already have a really good go-to-market motion and we don't necessarily want, we we know what we're doing. We know what the returns are.
00:19:22
Speaker
The returns are good. um And so let's not rock the apple cart. And so that's why i think you still don't see UGC in free to play games, even though yeah yeah i'd almost say it feels like the perfect fit, right? Because they're live service. They're all about player engagement and retention.
00:19:40
Speaker
um and you would assume that, hey, adding UGC, like that's what it's really strong at. It's really good at community and connectivity and everything else. But those games have a really big, you know, content team. They have a proven way of doing business.
00:19:55
Speaker
um EDC is a bit of an unknown and, you know, potentially a risk. And so it hasn't really emerged there. So I think they and don't really, but that they they they but the engagement is so critical. Like we're in the attention economy right now. It is so hard to,
00:20:13
Speaker
get, you know, like, like fortnight is just trying to become bigger, ah bigger and bigger and bigger Goliath. And, um, you know does such a good job of serving, um, I guess so many different needs of its playing community, um, that studios, I think kind of almost need to consider, do they have to do that to, to probably survive in, in the modern economy. But, um, yeah, like there's, there's very big pockets of the industry where it still doesn't exist.
00:20:44
Speaker
Yeah, but I think we're starting to see a little bit of a change there. And maybe not, you know, I say that, but I think about like games that typically locked down, but you see Cyberpunk has some sort of DLC built into it. Again, Boulder's Gate, right?
00:20:56
Speaker
I feel like there might be genres that are off limits to DLC, but it doesn't seem like that's really the case anymore. It seems like even single player games are starting to embrace this a little more. And and I think it's good because I think it's going to continue the engagement, continue players coming in into you to what you said earlier, right? Like players probably like to see what they create and see people using it. So they're going to keep coming back and they're going to keep coming back. And I think it gives these games such legs that they haven't had before and they can keep them running for years and years. I mean, you mentioned at some point that over 2000 mods have already been created for Baldur's Gate 3 and it's been out for a little over two months now at this point, right?
00:21:33
Speaker
Like that's nuts. People must've been itching for this, waiting for this. I mean, this game's gonna be relevant for years it's the player over player growth from from last year to this year and last year it was the game of the year so i mean i think this is an amazing thing you've created for the community obviously the community is creating it for themselves as well but i think you're helping enable that i think that's awesome yeah i think i absolutely it is really changing and we see that firsthand we have the benefit of seeing it um and And a lot of that, unfortunately, i can't share, but there's some amazing things. but But the ones that are public, for example, is like we worked with Ubisoft for Anno for the 25th anniversary of that title.
00:22:14
Speaker
um And I'm not sure that they've really done UGC in any game ever before. um And they wanted to give something back to the community. And so... We released it and the reception on Reddit and elsewhere was just overwhelmingly positive. They're like, thank you, devs. This is incredible. um you know like This is one of the greatest features. It's never been so easy.
00:22:37
Speaker
like It's amazing. And so that's a major AAA studio that has thought you know we'd like to dive into UGC more. I mean, Andrew Wilson at EA has been talking on their investor calls for a while now, the importance of um, creation within their future, and things.
00:22:58
Speaker
So, know, there a point in time where battlefield two was the most influential game on, um, on mod DB. If we go back, you know, 12, 15 years and it had some of the most incredible bots because, you know, it, it, it could create these 256 player, you know, like these massive sort of, um, scale engagements through it that, that no other game really could, could do.
00:23:22
Speaker
um And, and the battlefield really hasn't had UGC back in it for a very long time, but now they started, like there is UGC sort of, you know, back in battlefield and I suspect, you know, they're looking at their other franchises in the same way.
00:23:36
Speaker
So I think for the players, like that should be, that should be really exciting. Like that, that these massive studios, uh, acknowledging how important it is for their for their survival and opportunity and um future growth. and And I think it's going to deliver massively for them and for the community.
00:23:57
Speaker
From the developer side, what's it like implementing Mod.io, right? is it Are they overseeing everything? are you just the framework? like My next question is going to go into kind of this gray zone. How do you prevent cheaters? How do you prevent bad content, right?
00:24:13
Speaker
But the question is, where does that responsibility sit, right? Is it on the studio itself? Yeah, so um I'll tackle this in two parts because one of them is just the implementation, which is sort of the almost the development side. And then one is the operation, which is sort of the gray that you were describing.
00:24:30
Speaker
um So if we look at the first part, ah integration, um really the first step for a studio is how do I make my game mod-able?
Technical Insights on Modifying Games
00:24:41
Speaker
And that is what sort of content that we want the playing community to be able to make. Um, are they making, um, skins and emotes and liveries like, you know, more sort of cosmetic and simple sort of content? Are they making,
00:24:56
Speaker
levels and, you know, new worlds to explore? Or are we going to allow them to go to really deep and almost create total conversions and things which bring new game plan elements in? So the first thing for the studios to solve is, is that part of the equation?
00:25:09
Speaker
um Historically, we haven't really helped to that because it's a very game. It's a very personal game design decision. Like what do what do you want your community to to do? What do you want to see? um That's game development work and and gameplay work to make that all run and and work easily.
00:25:25
Speaker
We do help a lot more now because one of the common traps that we see on engines like Unity and Unreal, your studios will um work, you know, build in mod support in a way that doesn't work on consoles because consoles can't quite work in the same way as PC. You can't sideload content, you can't load DLLs, you can't run scripts, you can't override and move files around.
00:25:48
Speaker
So you have to think a little bit more about your modding loading structure. to ensure that you have that console compatibility, which is so important today. So we do help students a little bit, but ultimately that's the first thing they need to solve. But once they've solved that, the actual mod.io side, like we're getting better and better and better at onboarding games, at plugins, like we provide a plugin for Unity, Unreal and custom engine titles.
00:26:13
Speaker
And those plugins now feature what we call a component UI. which is a very modular, unopinionated framework for changing the look and feel and the layout of how consumers will and access, you know, content and gain.
00:26:28
Speaker
So can much higher quality, bespoke, very personalized version of all the up and running. um And we always say to companies, you'll get that prototype running in anywhere from two days to two weeks, like you will have that mod content distributing through your title in a very short frame, you timeframe.
00:26:45
Speaker
It's the polish and the, you know, going through the console compliance and setting up all the authentication systems where there's a bit more, you know, nitty gritty to kind of, you know, work through.
00:26:59
Speaker
um But ultimately, like studios do get more dirty up and running with one to two engineers in anywhere from two weeks to two months. And then there's a little bit of extra time depending on how, what do you want to change and and do differently.
00:27:13
Speaker
and And our team helps throughout that process. We'll set up a Slack channel behind the scenes and we'll be available for questions and things to do it. So on the technical side, I feel like we'll get a really good grip and we're getting better and better and better.
00:27:25
Speaker
um and Our tooling is getting better and better. our dashboards and our documentation is. And we have a lot of great games onboarding now without even talking to our team through mod.io, which any studio listening today could could go and experiment and do.
00:27:38
Speaker
um So that's that side. I'll stop for a minute in case you want to ask some questions about the operations and the gray side, but otherwise I can carry on with that thought. my My only question would be, I guess, you know, you get approval from the consoles, right? I know when you release a true DLC, Microsoft's got to sign off on it. PlayStation's got to sign off on it or whatever. They got go through the approval store.
00:27:59
Speaker
Once mod.io is approved by the, again, I know it's not you being approved. It's the game being approved, right? At that point, it's almost like, all right, We got approved for the modding stuff.
00:28:11
Speaker
Anyone could submit stuff now. Right. It's like basically like I say open door, right. But it allows them the flexibility of basically releasing stuff at a quicker pace than if they, if it was official, don't know if that's makes sense or if that's accurate.
00:28:26
Speaker
Yeah, it does. And that's probably the most amazing thing because right now every game update that gets shipped onto a console platform, goes through a certification process that um takes time and and money.
00:28:41
Speaker
um Whereas modding is a feature that once permitted um and you've got your approach greenlit, doesn't need to really go through certification at that point. The studios are allowed to send content through that pipeline and live into their game immediately.
00:29:01
Speaker
ah The major caveat here is that each studio that does console monitoring, we're not privy to this, but they will talk to their Sony or their Microsoft representative or their Nintendo representative, and they will say, we want to have UGC as a feature in our game. We think it's gonna be really powerful.
00:29:20
Speaker
Here's how it's going to work. And Sony and Microsoft and Nintendo will say to that studio, that's fantastic. We're really really excited for this. Hopefully they'll say, Modaro is a great partner, you know, and and you should be talking to them about it because they've done it with a lot of games. But um ah here's the rules that we need to ensure that you follow because that content isn't going to go through a traditional certification loop.
00:29:45
Speaker
um And so they might say no scripting, no shaders, um and other things, but provided the studio follows those rules and can design their system or sandbox it in a way that that meets whatever requirements there are gets a sign off. Once they've done that, it's it's amazing. Like, yeah, you can you can now um let your creative community create and and release onto platforms and follow you know the pre-described rules in place.
00:30:13
Speaker
So yes, there are some. sort of little barriers there, but I can say that the, the, all the platforms that we're working with are seeing fantastic results from UGC. Um, like they're seeing really good player engagement and,
00:30:31
Speaker
um passion around it and response on socials. um And that's really important for their business. um So ah they've been very active in working with us on what our best practices and how can we allow studios to do more and more and streamline this process and get it better and stronger. and And to their credit, we've been 100% taking active steps, you month on month, year on year to continue to do that. And so um Yeah, like like these days it's the number one reason that studio has talked to us for sure.
00:31:07
Speaker
So I love that because you know you get the approval, you got stay within your boundaries, you get the approval from Microsoft or PlayStation or Nintendo because they don't want to be the only console out there without modding because then all of a sudden people are going to go play the game on another console.
00:31:22
Speaker
So that comes into the kind of that gray zone, right? How does the developer themselves oversee the content that's being submitted? Yeah, so there's there's a, again, it's one of those things where there's a bunch of different ways that it's been done historically, there's best practice, and then there's what studios want to do.
00:31:40
Speaker
and So at mod.io, we've got like a four-layered system to sort of help with content management. um So there's the automated layer. So every time a piece of content comes into the system, it runs through all these automated checks and that's looking you know at at the the content itself, the images, the words, the metadata attached to it.
00:32:00
Speaker
um Does it pass various checks?
How is user content moderated safely?
00:32:03
Speaker
We also have a system we call the rules engine, which allows studios to plug in their own checks and things that they might want to do to validate the schema to scan that content.
00:32:14
Speaker
We also scan it for malware and these sorts of things. So there's the automated side of it that occurs and we're looking at how can we continue to strengthen that? How can we use AI to identify does it contain adult themes whatever it might be?
00:32:28
Speaker
um to try to um at least pre-moderate and manage as much content as possible. that's That's step one, that's layer one. Layer two is um really, and sorry, layer one is the the automated part that we have. that Layer two is sort of the rules engine that studios can define, which again is still automate.
00:32:48
Speaker
So the layer three is really the curation and studios can control how they want this to work. And the curation is, um what checks does that content need to go through to go live?
00:33:01
Speaker
um And um in some games where you're making that content using an in-game editor um and it's all very sandboxed and sanctioned, that content may go live immediately um because it's like a save file, right? Like, you know, it'd be very weird to say save files need to go through a yeah moderation check.
00:33:23
Speaker
So that content goes live immediately. um, you know, because of the design game. But then you also have games where it's like, no app content is made in blender. Um, it requires three d assets.
00:33:36
Speaker
It requires, you know, all this weird and, know, complex creation processes external to the game using external editors. And in which case with the first party platform, like the consoles or, you know, just with that studio's own quality controls, they like, no, we want to check and approve each content.
00:33:54
Speaker
to make sure that it's compatible with the game. It doesn't cause crashes. It follows our you know acceptable use policy and content guidelines. And which case through mod.io, they can turn on those settings. they can choose how strict it is. Like, are they checking everything? Are they checking only certain platforms um and various things? And then that just populates a queue behind the scenes that they see, all right this is all the content. Their moderators and community managers need to approve that content.
00:34:22
Speaker
And the best practice and the best studios actually um use this requirement as a way to excite and engage their audience by saying, all right, let's know try to do this on a schedule. Like every week, let's drop new content from the community. And then that gives the, you know, playing community a reason each week to re-engage with their title.
00:34:41
Speaker
And they leverage that through their socials and their marketing channels to make um that curation flow really strong for their title And then the final thing is once that content is live, um It's the discovery systems and community reporting.
00:34:54
Speaker
um So the discovery systems are, it's all about servicing the best content, not the wrong content. And how do we continue to improve those algorithms? um And the community reporting stuff is, and this is a requirement of all platforms and mod.io that i owe you must make all content reportable at all times.
00:35:12
Speaker
This allows rightho rights holders um and around allows players to flag content as, you know, this is my content. It shouldn't be up here. in which case we will take action and remove it. Or it's like this content is not working for me, in which case the creator yeah can be made aware of that and can fix that content.
00:35:29
Speaker
So there's sort of like the fully automated the curated and then the reactive sort of community-based moderation. Like they're the key layers that we put in place to try to create and encourage a healthy ecosystem of content.
00:35:42
Speaker
And then it's the studio's own guidelines. And then it's, do they want us to apply and enforce those rules for them? Or do they want to be you know close and connected to their community and drive their own dashboards?
00:35:53
Speaker
We give them the option of both. Like we we see our role as, um like where we see our sales being unique is we are the service provider. We don't want to, we we we provide recommendations and best practice, but we don't necessarily want to prescribe. If the studio wants to do something a particular way, we want to support it, make it as good as we possibly can, and then get out of the way and let them do that.
00:36:16
Speaker
And so as much as possible, we try to live that sort of ethos.
00:36:21
Speaker
I really like how you, I mean, I know it's up to their strategy, but I love the idea that you could basically create like a drip marketing content release ah with all this stuff coming in, right? If you get a lot of users creating this content and you want to put it out slowly, so it's not like a all hits you at once type of thing, you can create this, you create a crazy longevity to the game, right? By saying, hey, every week we're going release a new update like and it's user created content. I think that's such a great way to keep things fresh, keep people logging in. I mean, I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty recently, and it seems like every time I turn it on, there's an update and something new that I'm just like, all right, look what's new now? and you kind of go searching through the menus for what's new. So I love how you're enabling these studios to have the ability to do that if they're putting that content in their games.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's actually awesome for the creators too, because as much as I think everyone wants their content to go live, it brings attention to it. It's like, oh man, what's new this week? Oh, amazing. I'm going to try that out.
00:37:19
Speaker
In the world, ah i mean, I don't know mod.io, do you have your own little community, but like, are there top creators that create across all the games? ah There are very, very, very talented creators out there that do create content through a variety of different systems.
00:37:39
Speaker
But um we've we've polled creators a lot of times. Like we've said, hey, what is your motivating force for creation? Um, and the vast majority it's for the love of the game.
00:37:51
Speaker
And when it's for the love of the game, you're modding content for the game that you're playing because you almost see yourself more as a creator and not a consumer. Um, and that's what we always say to studios too. Like the beauty of modding is that you're unlocking the full potential of your entire audience because your consumers are getting more content to play and your creators and your creative people have an outlet.
00:38:12
Speaker
um you know, for that creativity. And so um the answer there is that like if I'm making mods for Baldur's Gate, I'm not going to necessarily be like, oh, I'm going to suddenly just start making mods for SnowRunner because I can and it's also on mod.io. Like that's just, it's just not how they think. It's the game that they're playing in that moment and they're loving and enjoying in the moment that they're engaging with and modding for.
00:38:38
Speaker
um So the the that cross-pollination is certainly important. And it's really important that we have a really strong relationship with creators, the studios that work with us, we can help give them a really accelerated head start and connection. And we've got all these systems like preview systems and betas and ways in which we we really, events and promotions and you know other means in which we can really help them connect with that creator community, seed their initial content and hit the ground running with some amazing
00:39:10
Speaker
Sample mods and stuff for their players to consume and then massively build on that base. Like we really consider that to strengthen it's a really key focal point for us. ah But at the same time, um and creators, they, they, you know, they're like their motivating forces varied and it's the game is ah is a key component for that of that, which which I think makes sense.
00:39:34
Speaker
yeah Like it's basically passion of the game is the fuel that kind of creates great content. A true player really knows what they want to add. And ah I love how you put that. one Just one thing I'll add to that though, just quickly, if you don't mind, is that um there's a big push right now towards democratization of creation.
00:39:53
Speaker
And I think it's valid. Like if you're creating a game like Super Mario Maker, you want it to be easy. Like the whole point of the game is creation. So you don't want it to be hard to make content. You know, like you want everyone to be able to make and share.
00:40:05
Speaker
um But when you look at Baldur's Gate 3 or other titles that we've got live, like they have um probably 10 million plus, you know, of 10 million players.
00:40:19
Speaker
And they've got all this incredible content. You only need a very small percentage of your audience to actually be modders to create, you know a really impactful material thing. Like their top mods have millions of downloads at this point, have been loved and enjoyed by many, many, many people.
00:40:34
Speaker
um That's coming from a smaller subset their community. So they're very small but mighty group and you don't um have to democratize creation. You just have to enable imagination really.
00:40:47
Speaker
um i so So yeah, a lot can be done with a small ah small and passionate player base. That's the beauty of it. Yeah, you know, and it's funny. In a similar way with all these new AI tools coming yeah out, it allows the imagination of people to kind of do some crazy stuff and create some crazy content.
00:41:08
Speaker
But you kind of start to learn that just because I can make something creative with AI doesn't mean it's special, right? And I think when you're a true player of a game and you truly love a game, right, there's, again, that passion inside of you that...
00:41:20
Speaker
you know exactly what to create, how it works, the way it fits in. Like, it's hard to put into words, but like, I always tell people to keep playing around with ai but it's very obvious when people just copy and paste AI stuff into whatever it is, because it looks it, it feels it doesn't have that human element. But when you have someone that's passionate about it, creating a mod, even if it's, again, a small subset of users, that like the fact that they're taking the time to build a mod for a game and maybe, I'm sure people create crap mods. We've all been there. We've all played them before, right? But like,
00:41:50
Speaker
Those ones that are special are special because they care. They put that love and feel into it. I think it's important. and and Mario Maker is a great example because anyone can make a level of Mario Maker. right I remember messing around with stuff and you know what?
00:42:01
Speaker
the end of the day I suck at it. I just don't have that creativity side to actually make it flow really well. But then you see some people are building some crazy stuff out there like... It's like a symphony, right? Everything just kind of sings when you're playing it, when you know what they're doing. And I think it takes a special person to be able to create something like that. i think, yeah again, AI and and tools will help you get there, but to make it sing is something that's special.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, you really feel the passion, for sure. Completely agree with that sentiment.
Key Metrics for UGC Success
00:42:31
Speaker
From, again, from the kind of public or the developer's perspective, what are some of the key metrics that studios should be looking at once they implement something like this?
00:42:41
Speaker
I'd say the key metric is um how what percentage of their player base is engaging with UC. And so um like Baldur's Gate recently talked about 40% of their player base engaging. Like that's insane. That's very, very, very high.
00:42:57
Speaker
um So if you're doing something like that, you're doing it very, very, very well. um The norm is probably closer to 20% the So, you know, like they're double the norm, which shows how insane their player base is.
00:43:10
Speaker
But so what percentage your players, how much content is each player consuming? Like is the average user downloading one mod a month or eight mods a month?
00:43:23
Speaker
What sort of mods are they downloading? Like I think one of the most amazing things about UDC is yes, it gives you content. like Yes, it gives you player engagement, but also gives you insight. You can see what it is that your players want.
00:43:35
Speaker
And often it's not what you expect. um Because um I saw a great quote from a studio who's and this individual called Anton who's been working on this mobile um title with UGC.
00:43:49
Speaker
And he said, the best thing about UGC is that the players will react to industry trends and memes and desires almost in real time. And that will get litmus tested and they'll see if it sticks and if the community really likes and it resonates.
00:44:04
Speaker
If you have to wait for a studio to respond to something that's currently trending in the industry, you're waiting months or years for that to go through their development cycle and pipeline. And by that point, we've moved on to the next thing.
00:44:17
Speaker
And so the best thing actually is probably the insight. Like it is, what is the type of content that players are consuming? And and then finally, I think the most amazing thing, and I've heard this story so many times through ModDB and Mod.io, um, who are the most influential and top creators in my game and should they be working for my company?
00:44:37
Speaker
Um, The amount of people who I've said, like I've talked to and they say, Hey, through ModDB, I, I started creating games and I got my first job at X. And I'm like, it is the best thing you could possibly have on your resume. Like the fact that you've shown the aptitude, the knowledge, the ability, the interest, the self motivation, um, and everything to be able to ship a mod.
00:45:02
Speaker
I think that's a phenomenal accomplishment and it's a really strong ballet to the studios to then be like, you know what, we want to work with this person. So there's a lot of key metrics that are really important as well as just purely consumption metrics like the obvious ones.
00:45:16
Speaker
What has the most downloads, the most subscribers is highest rated. Like look a bit the length of service and there's a lot of value there.
00:45:24
Speaker
I think that goes for almost any industry. And I love how you brought, hey, if if you want to get into the industry and you can start modding, just start modding, throw it on your resume. Same thing with artists. If you want to be an artist, just start drawing, to put some stuff out there, right? Like do it, don't just talk about it. And I think doing it will show studios, will show anyone, not just studios, employees employers that this person is hungry for this. They're willing to just do it. And I think that...
00:45:50
Speaker
goes beyond school and education and says, hey, this person is working towards it. And I think that's a quality that everyone who's listening or everyone general should just be doing. Like if you're hungry for something, go get it.
00:46:01
Speaker
It's not going to come to you. Yeah, 100%. Two too quick, easier questions for you. ah What game are you playing now? And what is the most mind-blowing mod you've seen? The most mind-blowing mod I've seen.
00:46:19
Speaker
Well, that's a good question.
00:46:24
Speaker
You can tell me something you came up with during half life. Not even remotely close. um I'm trying to think of like something obscure that no one's heard of because I've seen just so many amazing ones.
00:46:35
Speaker
um Like yeah one that's always stuck in my mind um and I really should know the name. this is It's just that I'm going back like 16 years.
00:46:47
Speaker
But this one just really stuck with me. And someone completely changed the rendering engine, I think for Unreal Tournament, but I might be wrong here. And they made it into Papercraft. So like the characters were like paper animated. So they looked like paper. And I think they brought in like hand animation into the game. So the entire world was now like cardboard characters, but it looked really, really, really good.
00:47:10
Speaker
I'm not even sure if they ultimately shipped it. So I might be saying something here that you can't even play I'm way off base. But for whatever reason, that one's just stuck with me forever. And I think no one's probably ever heard of it. So I thought I'd give you a creative story rather than just probably answer in a more predictable way.
00:47:26
Speaker
um we will try and find it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's definitely on ModDB somewhere and it may have never shipped. And I'd love to look at it now because maybe I'm like, geez, I was way off base.
00:47:40
Speaker
um But the the the game that's got me fascinated at the moment, um just because I just want to learn, like, motivating how how different people play in react and react. And that is, it's a title, you won't even know it's a VR ah title called guerrilla tag.
00:47:55
Speaker
um They launched on mod.io only a month ago, Um, and they're doing absolutely insane numbers. Like they're doing 200,000 plus UGC installs daily of these levels.
00:48:08
Speaker
Uh, it's played by, you know, a younger audience. Um, you've got no legs, you just swing around, uh, in this VR space. Um, and so it's, it's the reason why it's fascinating for me is I just think that younger demographic, like,
00:48:25
Speaker
I think that the entire industry talks about Roblox because it's so significant. It's impossible not to, but no one plays it and really understands it. And so I really want to understand it because yes, like, yes, I'd love to play, you know, Boulder's Gate and Transport Fever and Dining Light. Like these are all the games that I know and familiar with and consume.
00:48:47
Speaker
um And modding for that is really familiar, but I really want to get into the headspace of like, you know, things that I can't understand. uh, and, and experience it. So, you know, putting on the VR ah headset and just seeing this and seeing the content and how it's consumed and enjoyed, um, is is something that sort of, I'm trying to, uh, to make myself, you know, become more, you know apt at.
00:49:12
Speaker
It's awesome. Uh, you know, I'm looking at your library of games, right? Guerrilla tag is first. I remember talking about it last time and checking it out. Like, I love that idea of like, Hey, what, what are kids playing these days? Cause you know, I know what I know, but like,
00:49:24
Speaker
What don't I know? What else is happening? I think it's amazing. they're there what what people won't know is they're a hundred person studio. They've, like enormous, like absolutely enormous, um, doing incredible things. And it's just, yeah. So I think understanding that is super important.
00:49:44
Speaker
Uh, so taking a look at kind of the games, right. That you guys support on our final question. My final question is going to be about kind of the future of UGC. Where's it going, but you're already in such amazing games like drill attack, like you mentioned, boulders gate sins of a solar empire, transport fever, dying lights, no runner, Anna,
00:49:59
Speaker
There's so many cool games that if people are playing with mods, you may not even know that that's powered by mod.io. In this awesome creator content world where people are creating content, where do you see the industry going with UGC?
00:50:14
Speaker
Very loaded question for the last one, I'm sorry. No, absolutely fine. I think that there's going to be really, really significant change. Like I believe that, um I mean, the the really big vision of mine is that we've kind of we We go through cycles and we've gone through this cycle back in my day, like if I go back 20 years when I first started, where you didn't have access to engines and technology.
00:50:41
Speaker
And so because you didn't have access to engines and technology, if you're an amateur or indie game creator and you wanted to make your content, you had to mod Half-Life and StarCraft. But that's how you had to make a game, by modding one. Then Unity Unreal kind of gave equal access to engines and technology that AAA studios have.
00:50:57
Speaker
So all these indie creators started shipping games using an indie Unreal and total conversion mods have largely sort of faded away. And now they're sort of, generally speaking, more on the the maps and the cosmetics, like the smallest scale of things.
00:51:10
Speaker
But I actually think that we're coming full circle now, um which is really exciting to me. And that is, I think the hardest thing for an indie creator is access to an audience.
00:51:21
Speaker
Like there is so much content releasing through Steam and Xbox and iOS. um You can make an incredible game, but then never rise above the noise that exists on those platforms because it's just so competitive.
00:51:38
Speaker
And so how do you create opportunity for yourself? And so I think games that do an incredible job of enabling their creative community um they that in turn, they then think about maybe the commercialized side of UGC, and that is how can they let their creators make a living
Future of UGC in Gaming
00:51:57
Speaker
out of this? And I think we'll see a fair bit more of that.
00:52:00
Speaker
And all of a sudden you have a situation where if I'm an indie creator, rather than starting from scratch, I can make a triple A level quality game by modifying someone else's.
00:52:11
Speaker
I can ship it immediately to a large and engaged audience. I can run it. i can i can solve really complex technical problems like run it cross-platform. um And I can, um ah you know multiplayer and other systems that are really hard to operate and, you know, live service and and scale and have cost.
00:52:34
Speaker
like Like this game gives me the foundation for all of that. And I can do that and, you know, create a business for myself. like I think that's really exciting. Like that's where I think UGC is heading, where these games become these amazing platforms for creations and like,
00:52:48
Speaker
That's what we want to unlock at Modelo. We want to make that possible for studios to have a turnkey solution that enables them to pursue this opportunity, grows their game, grows their audience, you know, grows, you know, the success of their, the commercial success of their title and then can, you know,
00:53:05
Speaker
almost just become like this rolling snowball, it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger um as we've seen others that have done this well do. So I think that's a really significant change and shift that's going to happen over the next couple of years um because um of what you know we're working really hard to do and and um studios are really keen to do because it's just, they see it as so important for the success. They've realized that,
00:53:31
Speaker
that that UGC is just fantastic at all their key metrics and the things that they value and now they want to dig deeper than they probably historically have.
00:53:41
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, you're enabling new content to keep these games going, not just on PC anymore, but on console as well. And I think you're creating a win-win-win solution for both studios, players, and creators. You give them all access to a tool set where it, again, is a win for everyone because the more they play the game, the more content creators get to strut their stuff, the more players are involved in having fun with this stuff. So I think...
00:54:06
Speaker
you are enabling this next generation to use their imagination to build something awesome and be in a triple A game and get that note notoriety of having that. So I think it is awesome. I think you guys are, are primed for success. ah And I loved your story, uh, from, from IGN time to acquire you to just building out your passion project to being in the game of the year now. So congratulations to all that.
00:54:32
Speaker
Before we go, Scott, can you tell us where we can find you? and yeah. Yes. Um, so, uh, well, you can find me on, um, social media at Scott Race Minus, if you can spell my name, ah LinkedIn as well. LinkedIn um is the place to find me. If you want to connect and talk about UGC strategy and theory for your own game, very, very happy to share knowledge at any point in time.
00:54:58
Speaker
um Otherwise, we always love to attend GDC and Gamescom and all the major trade shows. That's always a fantastic point um to reach out. I'm scott at mod.io. um So, yeah, please don't hesitate.
00:55:11
Speaker
Love to ah to chat and and hear what you have in mind. Yeah, we'll have links to Scott. We'll also have links to mod.io so you can check them out, see what's available there.
00:55:21
Speaker
Scott, I really appreciate your time and your patience with all this. It took us a while to connect because of everything that happened, but I appreciate this. I've learned a lot about UCC. I think you guys are really creating something great and i'm looking forward to seeing it. So thank you for your time today. It's early. Scott's all the way in Australia.
00:55:37
Speaker
So I hope you have a great day today and thank you again. Yeah, thank you too, Greg. It's been an absolute pleasure talking about it. I've enjoyed it greatly.