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Revolutionizing Gaming with UGC: How Mod.io Leads the Way with Scott Reismanis
3 Playsin 9 hours
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
- Connect with Scott: LinkedIn
With UGC continuing to grow, platforms like Mod.io are unlocking creativity and reshaping the future of gaming, one mod at a time.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to User-Generated Content
00:00:01
Speaker
Hey, everybody. 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 helped enable this process.
Interview with Scott Resmanis from Mod.io
00:00:32
Speaker
Today, we are talking to Scott Resmanis 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?
00:00:50
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 um Launchmoddb.com way back in 2002, 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. You're doing your quakes, your half-lives and your Unreal tournaments of the world, as well as a lot of um RTS.
00:01:25
Speaker
StarCraft, Warcraft and Age of Empires and Command and Conquer. And I just just, yeah, I 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. 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.
00:01:49
Speaker
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.
Impact of Mods on the Gaming Industry
00:02:01
Speaker
And so ModDB was born um as a way to sort of bring all those passions together. And yeah, I guess that's still running today and excited to talk about the topic with you more Greg.
00:02:13
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 said all a whole bunch of FPSs in an RTS game. So was there one that was just like, I need this? Well, for me, it was, it was always, um and ah sorry, it was always half-life.
00:02:37
Speaker
like Like many, Counter-Strike was probably the the real eye-opener, but back then you had Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, um Natural Selection. um like There was just so many incredible mods being 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. And so people were able to make really amazing things. ah But I guess what blows my mind about modders is just
00:03:15
Speaker
the ability to pick up someone else's bit of technology that isn't necessarily well-documented, um requires a very diverse set of skills from sort of design and 3D work through to 2D hards to you know programming and pathfinding and everything else for all the characters in the NPCs as well as the player and animations.
00:03:37
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 2D HTML and CSS and JavaScript was enough. So let's talk about.
00:03:51
Speaker
mods. I think mods I remember maybe it was 15 years ago I got Skyrim on my Xbox 360 and a 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. 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
Modding on Consoles
00:04:32
Speaker
awesome. That means the the audience was excited for it. They were hungry for it. Why is it such a game changer? What was the biggest hurdle in making it happening?
00:04:41
Speaker
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. And so those systems unfortunately meant that that just modding was not possible in those worlds.
00:05:11
Speaker
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 ah is growing up expecting more from their games. like Studios really want to connect more deeply with their players and everything else.
00:05:37
Speaker
um and so Having modern consoles really embraced that has been absolutely
Commercial Benefits of User-Generated Content
00:05:44
Speaker
amazing. like We now work closely with PlayStation, Xbox, and um and also Nintendo for the Switch. 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, Tiger Battle Simulator, like a wide range of games. All of those players, almost none of them, um
00:06:09
Speaker
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.
00:06:23
Speaker
um there's there's just like the positivity on socials where it's like holy holy cow you know thank you so much like this is the best thing ever um you know i love making my character's hair um green like whatever it is even even the most simple content right through to the really advanced ones where it's like amazing i've now got 20 vehicles in my garage and SnowRunner. 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. And Steam Workshop is an amazing product of doing integrated and accessible modding for Steam players.
00:07:09
Speaker
How can we um expand on that and make it possible for console users, non-steam users, even mobile users, VR players? um And so really, that was the foundation. And then, of course, there's another 20-plus ideas that we want to explore. But it's been really, really encouraging to see the Baldur's Gate community um and and others like that like dying light. and others just respond so positively to it and we can't wait to continue we've got a lot of games behind the scenes so we're you know going to make this happen to four as well.
00:07:42
Speaker
yeah you following you on LinkedIn and in the news, right? More and more games are adopting this or seeing the success that all these games are having with this generated content. 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 a 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?
00:08:06
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 um I was inspired inspired by internet movie database IMDB. and And that's a location where you can go to find reviews for all your favorite movies. 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 Filefront.
00:08:36
Speaker
um all of these other various websites and finding mods in a consistent and reliable way to play was kind of challenging. And so ModDB selfishly was a way for me to encourage the community to all submit to a location that I could then browse and download and play.
00:08:54
Speaker
And so that was the original, that was it, like the motivation back then was I wanted i wanted to play this content and my friends wanted to play it 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. 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 was a lot of other people that shared my same passion and desire. 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. um And, you know, asking for a lot more and the games that they were playing that I wasn't playing and things that we started adding to the site. And and the the morning and creative communities kept growing and growing.
00:09:49
Speaker
And really the catalyst for it becoming a business was IGN reached out, um and this is going way back to 2006. And they said, hey, we're we're interested in modding. It was already a big part of File Planet and Planet Half-Life and all their various sites. Can we acquire more DB from you?
00:10:13
Speaker
And so I went and visited them and they made an offer. Ultimately, um you know, I didn't accept the offer. 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 ah there must be something here. And so I quit my job and took a huge risk and spent the next few years um going ModDB. It was probably the best decision I made because naturally that's led to Mod.io and 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.
00:10:58
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 that back then the internet wasn't as huge as it is now, right? 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 like a better word to be like, no, you know what?
00:11:20
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. 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 they attempted to make a competitor. So um like it yeah it was it was a big decision. um But yeah, when you believe in something, you got to go for it.
00:12:03
Speaker
So I want to talk about UGC in general and kind of the developer and the business side of it, right? User-generated content has the ability to create additional revenue streams for your game. 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 the end? What's the risk, if any, to developers for incorporating stuff like this?
00:12:32
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. Either it's still strong today or it was very strong in their formative years where they really built their audience and reputation.
00:12:59
Speaker
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 bonding uptake and 50,000 concurrent users returned to the game. And that title, um, you know, is, is probably, it's half our age, if not more, like it's, it's phenomenal how strong.
00:13:23
Speaker
it 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.
00:13:42
Speaker
Ecosystems players and community and creativity and things like the content side, what does it actually achieve for studios?
User-Generated Content in Major Studios
00:13:48
Speaker
And so we work with Simon Carlos from Game Discover Co newsletter if you're not subscribed. It's a fantastic um injury industry analysis newsletter where he looks at all of the trends and all the various platforms and analyzes various things and what they do.
00:14:02
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. 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. 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
00:14:42
Speaker
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 games in UGC. So that's material, like, a quarter more revenue, like, that's quite incredible to consider that UGC can sort of create that. um Two,
00:15:05
Speaker
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 time frame, was 90% higher in the games that you see than those without. So they retain close to twice as many players as titles without that equivalent, I guess, content um you know cycle and and sort of fly wheel that community is providing. um And then finally, probably the other, I guess, the counterpoint to all of this is,
00:15:42
Speaker
um what if I and and a lot of students ask us is if I add free content in this UGC community to my title yeah I want that sort of engagement for my live service game but isn't this going to compete with my business model of content updates and dlc and season passes so we had a we did our best to explore our 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. say So you see even help 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 Saber 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
00:16:36
Speaker
what they you know what they want to reveal and share and and they they validated that story like they said that 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.
00:16:57
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 free modding can have a real strong commercial impact. 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 Flight Simulator and Counter-Strike that all have sort of creator various versions of creator economies enabled within their games.
00:17:27
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. I don't think they see it as competition.
00:17:47
Speaker
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. The returns are good. um And so let's not rock the apple cart. And so that's why.
00:18:02
Speaker
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 servers, they're all about player engagement and retention. um And you would assume that, hey, adding UGC, that's what it's really strong at. It's really good at community and connectivity and everything else.
00:18:22
Speaker
um But those games have a really big, you know, content team. They have a proven way of doing business. UGC is a bit of an unknown and and potentially a risk. And so it hasn't really emerged there. So I think they They 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 get, you know like Fortnite is just trying to become bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger Goliath and um you know does such a good job of serving, I guess, so many different needs of its playing community.
00:19:00
Speaker
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 this and there's very big pockets of the industry where it still doesn't exist. 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 think about like games that are typically locked down, but you see Cyberpunk has some sort of DLC built into it. Again, Baldur's Gate, right? I feel like
00:19:32
Speaker
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 I and i think it's good because I think it's going to continue the engagement, continue players coming into 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 2,000 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? That's nuts. People must have been itching for this, waiting for this. i mean
00:20:12
Speaker
This game's going to be relevant for years. It's player over player growth from last year to this year. And last year 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.
00:20:36
Speaker
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. 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. Like it's amazing.
00:21:13
Speaker
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. So and there was a point in time where Battlefield 2 was the most influential game on um on ModDB if we go back 12-15 years and it had some of the most incredible mods because it could create these 256 player, plot you know like these massive sort of um scale engagements through it that that no other game really could do.
00:21:55
Speaker
um 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. So I think for the players like that should be that should be really exciting like you know that these massive studios are acknowledging how important it is for their for their survival and opportunity and um future
Integrating Mod.io in Games
00:22:25
Speaker
growth. and And I think it's going to deliver massively for them and for the community. From the developer side, what's it like implementing mod.io, right? Is it?
00:22:38
Speaker
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 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 almost the development side. And then one is the operation, which is sort of the gray area that you were describing. um So if you look at the first part,
00:23:06
Speaker
ah Integration, um really the first step for a studio is how do I make my game moddable? And that is what sort of content do 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 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 gameplay and elements in? So the first thing for the studios to solve is is that part of the equation. um Historically, we haven't really helped with 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.
00:23:59
Speaker
We do help a lot more now because one of the common traps that we see on engines like Unity Unreal is 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. So you have to think a little bit more about your morning 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
00:24:37
Speaker
at onboarding games, at plugins, like we provide a plugin for Unity, Unreal, and custom engine titles. 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 in-game. So you can get a much higher quality, bespoke, very personalized version of all the way up and running.
00:25:07
Speaker
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 know time frame. 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. Um, but ultimately like studios do get more data 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?
00:25:47
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 get a really good grip and we're getting better and better and better. um And our tooling is getting better at 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. So that's that side. I'll stop for a minute in case you wanted to ask some questions about the operations and the gray side, but otherwise I can carry on with that thought.
00:26:21
Speaker
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 to go through the approval of the store. 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.
00:26:44
Speaker
stuff, anyone could submit stuff now, right? It's like basically, like I say, an open door, right? But it allows them the flexibility of basically releasing stuff at a quicker pace than if they if it was official. I don't know if that makes sense or if that's accurate. 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. 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. ah The major caveat here is that each studio that does console modding
00:27:41
Speaker
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 going to be really powerful. 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 excited for this. Hopefully they'll say more that I was 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. 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 and gets a sign off. Once they've done that, it's it's amazing. Like, yeah, you can you can now,
00:28:39
Speaker
um let your creator community create and and release onto platforms and follow the pre-described rules in place. So yes, there are some sort of little barriers there, but I can say that the but all the platforms that we're working with are seeing fantastic results from UGC.
00:29:01
Speaker
Like they're seeing really good player engagement and passion around it and response on socials. And that's really important for their business. um So i they've been very active in working with us on what are 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 know, month by month, a year on a year to continue to do that. And so, um yeah, like, like these days, it's the number one reason that she has talked to us for sure. So I love that because, you know, you get the approval, you got to 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.
00:29:55
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. um So at Mod.io, we've got like a four-layered system to sort of help with content management.
00:30:22
Speaker
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, um does it pass various checks. 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. We also scan it, you know 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 our themes or wherever it might be 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
00:31:14
Speaker
really, and sorry, layer one is the automated part that we have, that layer two is sort of the rules engine the studios can define, which again is still automated. So the layer three is really the creation, and studios can control how they want this to work. And the curation is what checks does that content need to go through to go live? And in some games where you're making that content using an in-game editor,
00:31:43
Speaker
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, yeah it'd be very weird to say save files need to go through a yeah moderation check.
00:31:57
Speaker
So that content goes live immediately um you know because of the design of that game. But then you also have games where it's like no app content is made in Blender. It requires 3D assets. It requires you know all this weird and complex creation processes external to the game using external editors, and in which case,
00:32:20
Speaker
but the first party platform like the consoles or you know just with that studio's own quality controls they're like no we want to check and approve each content to make sure that it's compatible with the game it doesn't cause crashes it follows our um you know except we use policy and content guidelines and in which case through mod.io they can turn on those settings so they can choose how strict it is like Are they
Motivations and Tools for Creators
00:32:42
Speaker
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.
00:32:55
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 playing community a reason each week to re-engage with their title. 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,
00:33:24
Speaker
um It's the discovery systems and community reporting. 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. This allows rightho rights holders um and route allows players to flag content as, you know, this is my content, it shouldn't be up here.
00:33:54
Speaker
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 you know can be made aware of that and can fix that content 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 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 we give them the option of both like we we see our role as
00:34:33
Speaker
um like Where we see ourselves 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 a studio wants to do something in 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. And so as much as possible, we try to live that sort of ethos.
00:34:55
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, I'll hit you at once type of thing, you can create this.
00:35:13
Speaker
You create a crazy longevity to the game, right? By saying, hey, every week we're going to 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 was 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.
00:35:41
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. In the world, ah I mean, I don't know if Ma.io, do you have your own little community, but like are there top creators that create across all the games? ah There are.
00:36:04
Speaker
very, very, very talented creators out there that do create content through a variety of different systems. But um 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. 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. 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 um know for that creativity. And so um the answer there is that
00:36:53
Speaker
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.
00:37:12
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 beaters 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, see their initial content and hit the ground running with some amazing
00:37:43
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 ah creators, they they you know theyre like their motivating force is varied and and the the game is ah is a key component for that of that, which which I think makes sense.
00:38:08
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. 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. 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, north of 10 million players.
00:38:53
Speaker
And they've got all this incredible content. You only need a very small percentage of your audience to actually be modest, 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.
00:39:08
Speaker
um That's coming from a smaller subset of their community. So they're a very small but mighty group and you don't have to democratize creation. You just have to enable imagination really.
00:39:21
Speaker
um
00:39:23
Speaker
so so yeah A lot can be done with a small ah small and passionate play. it That's the beauty of it. Yeah. you know and It's funny. In a similar way with all these new AI tools coming out, it allows the imagination of people to do some crazy stuff and create some crazy content. 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
00:39:54
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. 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 Those ones that are special are special because they care they put that love and feel into it I think it's important in it 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 the end of the day I suck at it I just don't have that creativity side to actually make it low really well But then you see some people that are building some crazy stuff out there like
00:40:44
Speaker
It's like a, it's like a, 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 again, AI and and tools will help you get there, but to make it sing is something that's special. Yeah. You really feel the passion for sure. Completely agree with that sentiment.
Tracking UGC Success and Trends
00:41:04
Speaker
From, uh, again, from the kind of public or the developers perspective, what are some of the key metrics that studios should be looking at once they implement something like this?
00:41:15
Speaker
I'd say the key metric is um how what percentage of their player base is engaging with GC? 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. 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% or the likes. So you know like they're double the norm, which shows how insane their player base is.
00:41:44
Speaker
but um So yeah how what percentage of your players? How much content is each player consuming? like Is the average user downloading? um one mod a month or eight mods a month. What sort of mods are they downloading? Like I think one of the most amazing things about UGC 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 and often it's not what you expect um because um I saw a great quote from a studio
00:42:17
Speaker
who's and this individual called Anton has been working on this mobile um title with UGC. 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. If you have to wait for a studio to respond to something that's currently trending in the industry,
00:42:43
Speaker
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. And so the best thing actually is probably the insight. Like it is, what is the type of content that peer 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, who are the most influential and top creators in my game and should they be working for my company?
00:43:11
Speaker
um The amount of people where 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.
00:43:33
Speaker
and everything to be able to ship a mod. I think that's a phenomenal accomplishment and it's a really strong ballet to the studios. So 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. What has the most downloads, the most subscribers is highest rated, like look a bit the link to service and there's a lot of value there.
00:43:58
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 goes beyond school and education. It says, hey, this person is working towards and I think that's a quality that everyone who's listening or everyone in general should just be doing. Like if you're hungry for something, go get it. It's not gonna come to you.
The Evolution of User-Generated Content
00:44:37
Speaker
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? Well, the most mind blowing mod I've seen
00:44:53
Speaker
Wow, that's a good question. um
00:44:58
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. 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 16 years. 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.
00:45:42
Speaker
characters but it looked really really really good i'm not even sure if they ultimately shipped it so i might be saying something here that you can't even play and 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 um we will try and find it yeah Yeah, it's definitely a mod DB 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 um base.
00:46:13
Speaker
um But the the the game has got me fascinated at the moment, um just because I just want to learn, like, motivating how how different people play and react. And and that is it's a title you won't even know. It's a VR ah title called Gorilla Tag. um They launched them on .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. ah It's played by you know a younger audience. um You've got no legs. You just swing around in this VR space.
00:46:50
Speaker
um And so it's it's the reason why it's fascinating for me is...
00:46:56
Speaker
I just think that younger demographic, like 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, bolder's game, transport fever and dying light. Like these are all the games that I know and familiar with and consume. um And modding for that is really familiar, but I really want to get into the head space of,
00:47:27
Speaker
like, you know, things that I can't understand 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 to make myself, you know, become more you know apt at.
00:47:45
Speaker
It's awesome. And, you know, I'm looking at your library of games, right? Gorilla tag is first. I remember talking about it last time and checking it out. Like, I love that idea of like, Hey, well, what are kids playing these days? Cause you know, I know what I know, but like, what don't I know? What else is that? And I think it's amazing.
00:48:01
Speaker
they're there what What people won't know is they're a 100 person studio. They're like enormous, like absolutely enormous, um doing incredible things. And it's just, yeah. So I think understanding that is super important.
00:48:17
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 tag, like you mentioned, Baldur's Gate, sins of a solar empire, transport fever, dying lights, no runner. And 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?
00:48:48
Speaker
Uh, sorry. um No, absolutely fine. I think that there's going to be really, really significant change. Like I believe that, um, I mean the, 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.
00:49:15
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 a 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. 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 smaller scale of things.
00:49:44
Speaker
But I actually think that we're coming full circle now, um which is really exciting to me.
Conclusion and Final Thoughts on UGC
00:49:50
Speaker
And that is, I think the hardest thing for an indie creator is access to an audience. 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.
00:50:12
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 out of this? And I think we'll see a fair bit more of that.
00:50:34
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 AAA-level quality game by modifying someone else's. 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.
00:50:54
Speaker
um And I can, um, uh, you know, multiplayer and other systems that are really hard to operate and, um, you know, live service and, and scale and have cost. 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 right. I think UGC is heading where these games become these amazing platforms for creations and like.
00:51:22
Speaker
That's what we want to unlock in the other area. 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, and grows you the success of their the commercial success of their title, and then can you know almost just 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 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 their success. They realize that
00:52:05
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.
00:52:15
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 toolset where it, again, is a win for everyone because the more they play the game, the more talented creators get to strut their stuff, the more players are involved in having fun with this stuff. So I think 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.
00:52:53
Speaker
You guys are our prime for success. ah And I loved your story 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. Before we go, Scott, can you tell us where we can find you? And yeah.
00:53:12
Speaker
Yes. Um, so, uh, well you can find me on, um, social media at Scott race minus, if you can spell my name, uh, LinkedIn as well. LinkedIn, um, is the place to find me. If you want to connect and talk about your DC strategy and theory, uh, for your own game, very, very happy to shed knowledge at any point in time. Um, otherwise we always love to attend GDC and games common, all the major trade shows. That's always a fantastic point.
00:53:39
Speaker
Um, to reach out I'm Scott at mod.io. Um, so yeah, please don't hesitate. Love to, love 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. Scott, I really appreciate your time and your patience with all this. Uh,
00:53:59
Speaker
It took us a while to connect because of everything that happened, but I appreciate this. I've learned a lot about UGC. 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. 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.