I apologize for the long wait, but I have finally finished writing my replies to your posts fellow readers.
Without further delay, I shall now reply to your comments:
Thank you for the compliment sir! I hope you enjoyed it.
Feel free to post more thoughts regarding the study itself, questions and maybe even suggestions.
Like a Fatcat Executive surpassing the annual average wage of his companies employees before the first week of January is over, @web-head91 ; lays claim to the trophy for most outstanding post / submission 2016 already. If no such trophy exists one should be minted in the image of this guy immediately !
I thought it was an excellent analysis with which I can find no fault, and hope it may find itself voluntarily perused by the appropriate REDs, absorbed, deliberated on, and ultimately used as a basis for discussion reviewing the whole matter.
To prove I actually read the thing a few comments from me that are not at all intended to indicate weaknesses in this self-styled, and appropriate, "corporate" perspective, rather just elements of the modding scene i've observed since it began.
Oh thank you very much for the kind words! And I always appreciate the effort of posting a detailed response. And you flatter me way too much by being compared to a “Fatcat executive”
The absence of the necessary momentum to properly energise a modding scene, caused by the late release of the redkit & the imminent release of TW3 was quite obvious at the time, and must've been so to the REDs. I don't know exactly what they expected to happen, or expected to gain, but I have to doubt they believed it would make a substantial impact. I judged they judged (or gambled) they'd get a few determined modders sufficiently up the tools difficulty curve to form a core of experienced people for the main release, i.e. redkit 2.
It is pretty much as you said yes, but I feel as if they intended the REDkit (beta) to be used by the general public, not just by a select few, and that shows in the multiple times they were asked or interviewed. But I can state for certain that the REDkit(beta) is just part of a bigger plan regarding the REDengine release, and the possible release of a better and improved “REDkit 2.0”. (cf. Conclusion page 22 and CD Projekt Capital Group Strategy 2013 – 2016)
Out of such a core group the bulk of the documentation could have been expected. When TES3 kit appeared there was a dearth of information from the devs too, merely a dozen short uneditable webpages if memory serves, explaining just the very basics, and definitely not enough. The modders themselves then helped eachother by sharing their experiments & successes. TES4 kit launched with a wiki, but again a dearth of official information, and what there was had been sourced from TES3's modders. No doubt today the creation kit wiki is highly detailed but realise that took a decade of primarily voluntary work by fans.
I see. The creation kit has a good official page though, but also has a pretty good series of video tutorials. If Bethesda can do it, so can CDPR. A few good videos, published by them and not fans, and a good wiki would do the trick, and that’s part of the reason why modding in skyrim is so popular and attractive.
Personally I'm utterly convinced good modtools injects longevity into games like these which results in more sales. Another benefit to the company is in personnel, many great game designers have utilised this very route into their careers, gaining the knowledge, experience and building a portfolio as it were. In fact CDPR did hire a few of the guys who got to grips with the redkit... I can't put a monetary value on that profit, but I'd be tempted to rate it extremely high.
Yes, very true. I believe @
Benzenzimmern was one of those hired employees back then, yes?
At any rate, The « REDkit project » is more than just advanced modding tools available for the public, but a way to generate profit on currently available products (Tw3) and soon to be released ones (CP2077 and Redengine 3).
Firstly, as a moderator:
@web-head91 - if you're publishing a document that you're claiming as a "semi-formal study" then you need to be prepared for it to be reviewed as such, which means that it is subject to peer review and if there is criticism of it on the basis of methodology, bias, objectivity and so on, any response you give to that should be based on explaining and re-affirming your methodology, not on ad-hominem attacks on the person making the comments.
Yes, I know, otherwise I’d have kept it for myself. But I’m not afraid of criticism, and I have nothing against it. That being said, I honestly thought I was behaving correctly throughout that post.
I know that I can be very passionate about something, and may come out as forceful sometimes. But anyways, If I sounded rude or mean in anyway, then please accept my sincerest apologies, both you and @
Nolenthar .
Chapter 1 - I'm not going to disagree with the conclusions that you reached regarding the three games, but could you explain the rationale for the scoring system being an unweighted multiplier?
I was wondering this too.
@web-head91. @
Dragonbird summarized my view pretty well I have to say. I argue the mathematical formula because it seems extremely simplistic, and you claiming it was studied heavily and that it works doesn't necessarily make it true. You sound more like a politician, claiming facts where they don't have any. Your study would gain from offering sources, and details. E.G : using X formula, used in Product Management and Development, and used to calculate the Y of a product (with a source explaining the formula) [...]
Since this is a recurring theme, I tried to explain it as best as I could in my studies. I simply omitted this part because I thought it would be too long and a bit hard to explain. i also haven’t detailed the references used due to a lack of time, which is part of the reason why I referred to the report as a “semi-formal” study.
Besides, when making these types of reports, we tend to focus more on the results obtained, rather than the details regarding the method used, Especially when you’re going to show your findings to let’s say… an investor who’s interested in your project or your boss who wanted you to study a certain topic, or even a professor at university who wanted a quickly made report regarding a certain subject. They all want the results found to be explained briefly and maybe mention what references were used, but that’s about it.
Chapter 2 - OK, so this is the "sales pitch". Nicely written, pushing a particular agenda which is OK, so no arguments there.
Thank you. Well i just tried to imagine a possible strategy based on some already known while keeping in mind the priority of reducing the costs as much as possible. I’m glad you liked it.
2. Your second chart is therefore inaccurate, as releasing the REDkit now would not result in a sales boost during the maturity phase, but when it is already in the decline phase.
You are talking about figure 8 P.20, yes? If so, then that graph concerns all CDPR products, not just TW3, and date “T” is a variable i.e not constant. Therefore, depending of the date the release of the product in question (TW3, CP2077, REDengine3), the “REDkit 2.0” could be released at any phase of any product, other than TW3.
In the case of the TW3, its release date would obviously occur at the decline phase as I have mentioned in my study.
"The multiple times TW3 went on sale got ignored (since they increase the sales numbers)." - I don't think you can ignore these. If people have already bought the game despite it NOT having redkit, then they will not be buying a second time.
Well I simply ignored the sales of the witcher 3 in order to simplify the model for the sales curve. Another reason on why I did so, is because the price of a single copy back then dropped up to 50%, and therefore, even if there was an increase in terms of sales, it wouldn’t mean much since the price of a single copy went from 60$ to 30$ unlike the regular sales.
I shall get to the “REDkit 2.0” argument in the following.
Overall, I think that this is the weak point in your assessment. You are attempting to justify the cost of Redkit on the basis of increased sales, but it's missing some vital pieces of data:
- How many people would buy TW3 if, and only if, it has modding tools and/or a large pool of mods?
Ah that is an excellent question!
Well, you have to take into account many different possibilities like for instance that a lot of players aren’t into the witcher franchise or even into RPGs in general. However, with a large amount of mods and proper modding support (advanced modding tools + good documentation/maintenance) they may get curious enough to be willing to buy the game and try it, as well as trying the mods that are existing on the net and mess around with the game.
Another large amount would be interested in buying the game if they released the modding tools would be…the console gamers: they own the game on their consoles but they would be willing to re-buy the game again if there was a “REDkit 2.0”, and even get into modding themselves.
A notable example of this phenomenon is with skyrim and GTA V (just because that game got released on PC): while I don’t have official and exact sources to verify this (I’ve lost them sadly), I’ve seen this repeated multiple times in many gaming forums and polls, modding/hacking forums and even on youtube.
If they have a limited amount of resources, how would "Finishing Redkit" score in terms of sales in comparison to say a third expansion, or an EE? In the short term, I suspect (with no actual data
) that the expansion or an EE would score higher, but in the long term, the REDkit
could be better.
Well you kind of answered the question by your own. I’d just add that the “REDkit 2.0” wouldn’t just increase the sales of TW3 in the very long term but also for Cyberpunk 2077 and for REDengine 3.
Finally, regarding the sandbox argument:
In terms of this discussion, my definition of "sandbox" is a game where the primary attraction for the players is the ability to explore and do your own thing rather than follow a main quest line. (And a subjective comment - the wikipedia definition sucks)
To a certain extent, I'm going to agree with Nolenthar here - TES games are sandbox, TW3 isn't. Subjectively, I also think that this makes a difference in terms of the answer to that question I asked earlier - how many people will buy if and only if there is good mod support. (We're all being subjective on this one).
As i said earlier, the definition itself of what a sandbox game is debatable, but doesn’t follow a rigid construct. The approach of a dev team will differ from another one and this is valid for CDPR’s games and Bethesda games.
TW3 for instance is a sandbox game with certain rules and restrictions in its world without any of the radiant quests and filler content that you would find in other open-world/sandbox games, with a strong emphasis on storytelling. That is their vision of what a sandbox game should be like.
Fallout 4, on the other hand, is a game that allows you to do anything and everything, and therefore have no remarkable strengths, other than its fun exploration which can get old after a while depending of the player. That’s Bethesda’s vision of how a sandbox game should be.
Whether we can agree with a certain vision or another is purely subjective, regardless of the quality of the content present in the game and how it’s presented overall, and I think I explained thoroughly already why in one my previous posts.
However, I'd also accept an argument that good mod support could turn TW3 into a sandbox game, and thus attract those players.
Agreed. In addition, there are already some attempts out there, including in this very forum of making random encounters possible or creating a custom NPC follower by people such as @
erxv and @
skacikpl
Unfortunately all of this requires that hard marketing data, data which CDPR have and we don't. But if you do want to boost your argument with this, I think you need to compare it not to Bethesda games, but to other games that were similar, i.e. story-driven games where a modkit was released during the "decline" phase. (Didn't that happen with DA:O? If it has sales figures, it may be a good place to start)
Well, I tried to find sales numbers and detailed data, not just for the witcher 3, but for other games of more or less the same nature, but without much success
And to make matters worse, other than the sales numbers published by the developers/publishers, the rest are not exactly accurate, since trying to trail digital sales is a very hard thing to do.
And I’d rather compare the witcher 3 to Bethesda’s titles such as skyrim, for the very simple reasons that I’m more familiar with them and their modding scene. Trying to compare TW3 to DA:O would not exactly come out as fruitful, since one is an open world-sandbox and the second is a semi open world-theme park.
However, should I get a new idea, I’ll be sure to add it to my report. But I’m not sure when. Thank you again for the lengthy reply, and I hope I was able to answer most of your inquiring regarding my work.
When it comes to the product life, I also fully agree with Dragonbird. I seriously doubt we can use a standard product life cycle to define video games, which are a pretty unique industry.
First off, @
Dragonbird did admit that the source she posted have almost nothing to do with the life cycle of product.
Second, the model seen in the study is used in almost every distinguishable industry from mechanical engineering to software engineering. As already stated in my study, the duration of each phase will vary, not only by the nature of the product, but also its success commercially, with the user base and critics alike (if they exist in the industry for which the product was released), and how a company more or less planified the life cycle of its product. And for digital products, they never really “die”: they simply have a very long decline phase for decades. (Case and point: the giant library of GOG’s old games)
Thirdly, it is impossible to invalidate a mathematical model used widely on an international level by all fields.
If some games have indeed a very long life span (after all, I have bought Fallout New Vegas this year), the income for gaming companies is largely reduced, as the games are on heavy sales quite fast.
I’m not sure what this statement means, but I shall reply to it nonetheless. People will always buy old games, regardless of the newer episodes, especially when it comes to RPGs. In fact, a new release of a new episode in a game series can encourage the consumer to check the previous ones and even buy them, therefore generating profit for old and new products.
As a consequence, I would also be surprised that bringing a new, AAA quality modding tools would attract so many new players, who missed the game in the first place, or who had no interest in it what so ever and suddenly get an interest in The Witcher 3, because it has a mod tools. Again, I'm not arguing a Mod Kit would be good for The Witcher 3, what I'm arguing is your argument that CDPR should do it for commercial reasons, because it will bring them more money than, let's say, a third expansion, an EE, or a richer CP 2077.
I believe I already answered this when I replied to @
Dragonbird ‘s post.
Cause yes, as a relatively young company, CDPR must use its resources to the best of their interest. Irrelevant of Mod Kit, non Mod Kit, EE, non EE, TW3 is a game on the decline commercially.
Modding tools tend to be released during the decline phase of the game in question, so it’s alright. And yes CDPR should make the best of the resources they have, but what has been found during this study proves that it is more than doable. I mean the REDkit 2.0 is pretty much an improved version of the REDkit beta, and is kinda what they used for the development of the game as that leaked dev kit confirmed. Besides
Forking off a million dollars or even half a million dollars would more than enough to make the “REDkit 2.0”, especially when you consider that the budget used for the game is of 80 million $ and that cyberpunk 2077 would surely be around that interval (let’s say 100 Million dollars), a measly 1 million dollars would be around 0.55 % of both games budget combined.
So Yes, CDPR is a young company. Yes, its resources are limited and have to make the best of it, but making “REDkit 2.0” is not impossible, and would be in its interest in the long term, as I have proven in chapter 2 and 3.
That's a frequent mistake, taking your wish for reality. I believe you should have studied the modding community in The Witcher 3 more closely, because it would have revealed to you that technically, The Witcher 3 is a game where modding has not caught a huge interest by the community. By adding the total unique downloads of the 3 most downloaded mods on the nexus (which will very likely bring MORE users than actual), we reach ~350 000 unique download. I'd expect we are about 7 000 000 copies sold (I can't say if your Sales Chart are real or made up?, so you may have more accurate numbers).
I beg to differ. Modding for TW3 isn’t working well because of the wavering interest in it, but rather because of how terrible the Modding support (Modding tools + documentation/maintenance) for that game have been, And I already proved it in my newly updated report. (cf. chapter 1, p 13)
As for the sales numbers, they’re based on the official announcements made by CDPR regarding sales and pre-orders and using the mathematical model of the life-cycle product in terms of sales. So it’s more or less correct. The numbers for 2016 are just predictions on how the sales could evolve, and they too are based on the life-cycle product’s sales graph.
In addition, another thing worth considering is that the attitude of consumers is changing. The fact that TW3 won 222 GOTY, which includes 69 to be made by readers/gamers, proves this (
http://gotypicks.blogspot.com/), when compared to more popular games such as Fallout 4, which won only 49 GOTY awards, with 14 readers picks.
In short, this shows a change in consumers’ trends, and proves that TW3, an open world-sandbox game with a different approach to the sandbox concept than Bethesda, got the upper hand: in the eye of the General public, CDPR is now the new king of RPG makers.
So when you say this "Thus meaning, that the only plausible reason that people could have lost interest in the game is because of the shoddy modding support that the TW3 had, thus confirming my findings in Chapter 1." I cannot see where you base this assumption.
By comparing the 3 cases for TW1, TW2, and TW3, that is the only possible explanation of why modding isn’t going well, and the numbers also show this. (cf. chapter 1)
The Witcher 3 is a heavy story driven cRPG. It's my favourite game of 2015, yet I'm no longer playing it, not because I'm unhappy of the modding support, but because like a good book, I won't read it 3 times in a row. I'll gladly replay it with Blood & Wine comes, fully, but TW3 is not one of those games where you roam all day doing "stuff".
Isn’t that the same for other open world-sandbox games?
Take FO4 or skyrim for instance: you’ll do all the guild quests, the random encounters quests, the regular quests in cities, on the road and so on, and the main quest.
Once that’s done, what’s left exactly? Radiant quests, Generic random encounters (whether with enemies or regular peaceful NPCs), maybe take a follower on an adventure to clear a random dungeon?
After a while, no matter how much a player would enjoy it, he/she is bound to get bored since it’s pretty much the same thing over and over again and they’ll move on to the next big thing…
unless there are mods to make them stick around.
TW3 may not have those “radiant/generic activities”, but that doesn’t make its modding potential weaker. So the argument of giving the player to do “stuff” isn’t exactly enough to make him stay and play.
Which brings us back to our sandbox argument : again, I fully agree with Dragonbird, and I'm quite happy to see that I'm not the only one who expects a bit more than an open-world to tag a game a Sandbox. I've browsed Steam for Sandbox (I'm sorry, but I consider Steam a higher gaming autority than Wikipedia - keep in mind Wikipedia is a user driven encyclopedia, the popularity of articles make them more reliable. Also, I keep being unable to point your definition to wikipedia in any way, looking for sandbox points me
here which points me
here for video games. Look carefully at the brackets, clearly stating than neither your "open world" article, neither the video game glossary are up to wikipedia standards, making your argument than wikipedia can be trusted invalid.
I rest my case on to why TW3 is an open world-sandbox game, and I think I talked well about this so far.
In addition, TW3 is widely considered to be a sandbox game by many players but also many critics such as Super bunnyhop. Also:
Just saying, since you consider Steam to be a trustworthy source.
Thus rendering the argument of TW3 not being an open world-sandbox game to be invalid yet again.
So, why does it matter what a sandbox is, in relation to The Witcher 3 ? because it clearly affects the modding capability of the game. The fact than you can't play a woman for instance, already heavily affects the willingness of players to "customize" this woman, generally into a sex muse. The fact that you don't have followers, or companions, remove one additional layer possibility out of you. The fact that you can't "own" a property, further reduce the possible mods. I could go on a long time, but I neither have time, nor will to do so. As part of your study, this is something you ought to study, to better understand the modding capacity.
This has nothing to do with what is a sandbox game, and I already proved why.
However most of the “issues” you mentioned can easily be solved by a “REDkit 2.0”, as @
Dragonbird stated in one of her replies.
In fact there are already projects going on like making a custom made NPC follower, changing the gender of geralt (yes, blasphemous), the ability to customize certain NPC characters including their bust size and so on, in-game housing and so on. Ofcourse all of these are “work in progress”, but worth mentioning nonetheless.
And all of this was made possible with just the modkit, the GUI modkitchen and @
Sarcen ’s Mod editor.
Surely, a Red Kit will bring possibilities we don't have, such as creating quests, which by itself may be enough to entertain the community, but you have to keep in mind that this kind of mods represent a huge amount of work, and thus are less likely to be done by the community. Things you would know by studying other gaming community. Is Skyrim offering many "new quests", "dunjeons", and areas as new content ? Was Dragon Age Origin offering this often ?
It is true that quest mods and so on represent a huge amount of work, but without the right tools, they wouldn’t even happen.
As to answer how mods are generally categorized, I made this simple graph, which pretty much says it all:
In other terms, if you are to build a study than you estimate to be unbiased, and to "make authority", you must not attempt to bring the message you want it to bring, but you must study it from an unbiased perspective. What would the Red Kit really bring, and not what you want it to bring.
The study that I made is based on already existing facts and Logic that led me to the conclusions present in the report that I published online. It is not what I wish would happen; it is more of what happened, what could happen and what consequences it could have. I simply posted this study because I felt I was onto something, and despite the lack data to do something that would be more “convincing” as you have suggested, I’m confident in the accuracy of those findings.
OK, I'm going to disagree with this. Yes, I think the study was biased, but I don't consider that a criticism. It doesn't have to be unbiased, but it does need to be factual in certain places.
I may not have been biased when trying to write the study, but those were the findings and interpretations I have come to based on the existing data. So who knows? Maybe CDPR will release more juicy bits of info ready to be grabbed and exploited for the report.
Chapter 1 was the "where we are". As I said earlier, I'm not comfortable with some of the details in the methodology, but the final conclusions seem accurate enough.
Chapter 2 was the "where I think we should be". This is, again as I said earlier, a sales pitch*. The OP wants a particular outcome (REDkit), so clearly this is what the study says. It's subjective and it's biased, but that really doesn't matter.
Chapter 3 is the important one, as this is where the reader needs to be convinced that the wishes expressed in Chapter 2 are viable and desirable. So, unlike Chapter 2, this DOES need to be objective. I believe that the OP has achieved that objectivity, I just think that it's not complete, and that the omissions may significantly change the conclusions.
Well you pretty much nailed it. And yes, after re-reading chapter 3, it could benefit from more additions in order to make it more solid. I’m not sure what I may need to further validate those findings, but maybe I shall find it in due time.
*Maybe that's why I'm OK with it being biased. I'm more used to reading sales pitches and business propositions than formal academic studies
Ah I see! That explains why you more or less got what I meant. Well we engineers can approach any problem from multiple perspectives, including economic/marketing ones. And I do have an OK experience with it. Anyways, I’m glad you found my work interesting and that you managed to understand most of what was written.
Well, let's agree to disagree then. I believe Op wants to convince people, and more important, convince people who are not convinced. Who cares about preaching the converts?
Well as i said earlier, i published it because i thought i was onto something and that what I found is worth sharing with the rest of the community.
By making biased argument, this falls short of convincing people. I still truly believe this is a good piece of work. I however would like a more complete studies, because I find that extremely interesting, and oppositely to what OP may believe, I'm 100% behind him and the Red Kit. I'm just placing myself in a position where I accept that my wishes may not be the best interest for CDPR, and I'd thus be happy if OP can prove me wrong than they really are, without any concern.
When you look back at everything that CDPR did so far from 2013 till now and their Strategy for the duration of 2013-2016, you’ll see that their plan is that it was to release a REDkit (beta), then later on a release a more polished and advanced version of it aka “REDkit 2.0” and then the REDengine 3.
The “REDkit 2.0” would serve as a demo of some sorts for the REDengine 3, and be used to mod TW3 and CP2077. In short, it is a long term strategy in order to promote their REDengine 3. Or at least that’s one way of looking at it.
However, you may debate on whether they should continue the project at all, and you are right. It is common for projects to be cancelled in order to “cut short the losses” and avoid minimal financial damage.
The “REDkit 2.0” has tremendous potential to be successful and be the next big thing for CDPR (before cyberpunk 2077), introducing new innovations and god knows what.
They could make it compatible with both CP2077 and TW3 allowing cross-game modding. Maybe promote it as an educational tool in IT universities in order to attract students to use it and therefore bring more interest towards the adoption of the REDengine 3 by devs, veterans and new alike.(kinda like what the Nevigo company did with IT universities in Germany).
And even more. I could talk for hours on the countless possibilities on how to approach the “REDkit 2.0” and make it profitable in the long term.
So yes, even if the “REDkit 2.0” release could be risky, its long term benefits simply outweigh the potential financial risks as long as they know how to approach it and establish a strong strategy around it, and as I have shown in my report, that may be what they’re planning.
By making biased argument, this falls short of convincing people. I still truly believe this is a good piece of work. I however would like a more complete studies, because I find that extremely interesting, and oppositely to what OP may believe, I'm 100% behind him and the Red Kit. I'm just placing myself in a position where I accept that my wishes may not be the best interest for CDPR, and I'd thus be happy if OP can prove me wrong than they really are, without any concern.
When you look back at everything that CDPR did so far from 2013 till now and their Strategy for the duration of 2013-2016, you’ll see that their plan is that it was to release a REDkit (beta), then later on a release a more polished and advanced version of it aka “REDkit 2.0” and then the REDengine 3.
The “REDkit 2.0” would serve as a demo of some sorts for the REDengine 3, and be used to mod TW3 and CP2077. In short, it is a long term strategy in order to promote their REDengine 3. Or at least that’s one way of looking at it.
However, you may debate on whether they should continue the project at all, and you are right. It is common for projects to be cancelled in order to “cut short the losses” and avoid minimal financial damage.
The “REDkit 2.0” has tremendous potential to be successful and be the next big thing for CDPR (before cyberpunk 2077), introducing new innovations and god knows what.
They could make it compatible with both CP2077 and TW3 allowing cross-game modding. Maybe promote it as an educational tool in IT universities in order to attract students to use it and therefore bring more interest towards the adoption of the REDengine 3 by devs, veterans and new alike.(kinda like what the Nevigo company did with IT universities in Germany).
And even more. I could talk for hours on the countless possibilities on how to approach the “REDkit 2.0” and make it profitable in the long term.
So yes, even if the “REDkit 2.0” release could be risky, its long term benefits simply outweigh the potential financial risks as long as they know how to approach it and establish a strong strategy around it, and as I have shown in my report, that may be what they’re planning.
I have a good experience with video games in general, and modding, and unfortunately I still believe the lack of mods in TW3 are not only because of a lack of possibilities. How would we explain than Holgan96 is the first guy who revamp the textures of something else than the Viper or Bear Armor ? Is it only because "the texture system is complex", or because the original textures are good enough than no one really cared ?
The reason why there weren’t many textures mods back is that people didn’t even know anything about how the textures work in the game, and Holgan96 happens to be the pioneer of that. But there weren’t many mods that change the textures after that, because it was too hard. Not because the textures were “good enough”, especially when you look at a lot of the buildings in the game, which textures quality ranges from average to absolutely horrendous (stuff you would see 5-10 years ago, not in 2015), because of how barebones the Modding support (Modding tools + Documentation/maintenance) have been.
In fact this goes to all mods types, the time put into relatively simple mods to make them work is simply too great to be ignored, thus leading to experimented modders not even wanting to bother with it, let alone newbies.
Another thing worth considering is that the modkit not only barely works, at least without having other tools such as Mod editor by @
Sarcen or Modkitchen, but also have very limited documentation/tutorials to be exploited. Even when people post questions here, they almost never get answered. Those questions get repeated over and over and they never get a reply, neither via the forums or messages/e-mails. Not even a “we can’t disclose this detail” kind of reply is done by CDPR.
Another example, if they have a time to make a promotional video like this:
Then they have the time to make a video to explain how a certain function of the MODkit works or reply to the inquiries of modders via PM/e-mails or post it in the forums
In short, we are back where we started: TW3 modding isn’t flourishing because of how shoddy of the Modding support that the game had, in terms of tools and documention & tutorials/maintenance.
In my last reply I was scratching around for some - any - quantifiable profit gain from releasing a redkit, but finally reckoned we'd be wrong to assert that simply access to modtools - no matter how good - would guarantee sales over time, as there are bound to be more factors than that involved in its potential adoption & success. Fact is, while I appreciate your approach, ultimately I think this is something whose worth can't be truly evaluated by the usual means of immediate return. I think such a dimension added to the product should be regarded as a natural extension of the game, even a natural expression of the REDs, supplied with no other agenda than the intention of giving pleasure to all concerned.
View it as the gamble it is anyway and not a business strategy that must meet targets or fail. Who wouldn't want to see a thriving modding scene? Fans obviously would. I'd imagine devs who see their work still enjoyed years after release in this play-shelve-forget culture might experience an increasingly rare sensation of professional achievement, and superiority over all other gamedevs, in fact all I can think of is positive benefits...
True, which is why they need to make an air-tight strategy in order to make it succeed. I tried to give possible courses of action that could be taken, but ultimately they’re the ones who have a huge amount of data in order to make it work. It’s all about the HOW and the WHEN.
And yes it is a gamble, like all projects about to be released for the big public. They simply need to be smart about it, and know how to approach it. And I got a hunch, that what I presented in my studies may not be very far from what they’re planning.
Of course, all this is predicated on the chance financial considerations have come into the redkit decisions at all, if so for shame ! If the issues are of a technical nature I've no problem at all.
Well, the chances are that the “REDkit 2.0” didn’t get released yet seem to be more of technical nature, if the recent interviews are to be believed (a video back in July 2015 by the head of TW3 project). I could see finances coming in the way, but they could still manage to find a solution. After all, as I said before, the “REDkit 2.0” is already kinda ready. They simply need to polish it, adapt it for the use of the public, prepare the documentation, plan its launch…etc
And when you look at the budget of the witcher 3 (80 Millions $) and Cyberpunk 2077 which would be around the same value, you’d find that if they spent 1 million $ on it, it would constitute about 0.5% of the budget already employed for both projects, which is barely much.
Except this rhetorical inversion of @
web-head91 ; profit incentive question: Apart from financials... what loss to the company would a redkit release incur?
Well… if the “REDkit 2.0” would fail; it would harm CDPR’s reputation, since they already failed with REDkit (beta) aka “they haven’t learned from their past mistakes”, leading to possible losses in terms of interest and sales for the REDengine 3, causing a possible fall in stock prices for the CDPR group (about 10-20% maybe ?).
Adding my own two cents here as a part of an extremely mod friendly game's community (STALKER):
Modding is ... really as close to an objectively good thing in gaming as I can think of. Its prolonged support has been a real boost to both GSC's sales and the community.
The thing is mods have a very... snowball (was it so) effect. When high end super mods release (Think Lost Alpha, Call of Chernobyl, MISERY and others) they stimulate the community, make screenshots and videos as well as posts on social media suddenly become more prelevant. This in no doubt means that even years later, there are small but real spikes in the sales AS WELL as the interest in the game series.
Same thing can be seen in Bethesda titles. I am certain that a large part of the overall sales AS WELL as popularity is in no small part due to those game's continued mod release and support. This even affects the console sales, if less so (due to the marketing snowball effect).
Thank you for your input!
Yes, what you said is correct. i especially liked that metaphore you made with the "snow ball effect": i always imagine it as a complex mechanical machine with cogs or the "domino effect".
Another thing worth noting is that a game like kotor 2 benefited from modding immensely, thanks to the TSL-Content restored team, which as its name suggest, were able to restore kotor 2 to its intended and full glory with the help of Obsidian Studios. Not by themselves, with Obsidian studios, aka the developers.
