LogFAQs > #973209247

adjl posted...

Ah, but then we get to the heart of the question: If it needs modding to be good, is it actually a good game? That ends up in a weird place when it only applies to one version of the game and there are other ways to experience it without those crippling problems, since saying "the game is good" about one version and "the game is not good" about another version of the same game isn't a great way to express that, but the question remains of whether or not having the potential to be a good game with help from modders actually qualifies as being a good game.

Mostly, though, I'd just like to see more publishers held accountable for releasing inexcusably bad PC ports. We can philosophize about what mods mean in the context of appraising games all we want, but when an amateur can fix a near-broken port with an amount of work that would cost the publisher maybe $500 tops, that's a very real issue that gets a free pass all too often. Unfortunately, I don't think there really is an avenue to do that, since enough people want to play these games that having to install a mod to get them running isn't enough of a barrier to really hurt sales, and if ever it did come to a point where a publisher couldn't sell a PC port because no modders were willing to make it playable, I suspect their first reaction would be to drop the port altogether and not to spend a little bit of extra time and money solving the problem.

I just want to say that for some that don't know mods are not just about optimizing a game, most of the mods out there add stuff to games or fix issues some might have with them. For instance in Cyberpunk you can get a mod to have a flying car, this was not implemented in the game but fits right in with what would likely be around by the year 2077 if they wanted it. GTA V for instance has a ton of mods that add shit to the game, though from what I understand Rockstar removed the ability to use quite a few these days.

We seem to be focusing heavily on the discussion of "fixing performance issues" which is hot button issue right now when many games have come out in a shit state on day1. We just had the recent example of Jedi Survivor which came out in such a bad state the Steam reviews blew up with negative reviews. Before that we had the Last of Us on PC which also came out in a pretty damn bad state on day 1.