So, theStar Wars: BattlefrontClassic Collection, huh? Hoo, boy, we really all fell for that one again! The old “We’re re-releasing ancient titles which should run flawlessly on modern hardware but they absolutely won’t" scam. The shell game of the electronic entertainment industry! If you’re a corporation with the rights to a major IP with a large backlog of games from the beginning of the century, it’s almost your responsibility to make sure they now run at 15 frames per second on a Geforce RTX 4080. And good news: fans will fix the game themselves, so it doesn’t matter! Put it out and let the people with technical skills sort out the rest as a treat. Income secured!
Seriously, dear lord, can companies please stop expecting fans to fix their games? It’s already an issue that corporate executives destroy their dev teams’ lives in an effort to shove out a product as fast as possible. Let alone expecting fans to both pay for a game and take time out of their lives to save them with mods. Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection is especially wild, considering thatmodders are already working on fixing itandthe game appears to already use a fan mod without permission. So not only do fans have to mod the games now, the company is already using their work from before. And I’d very much bet they’restillsqueezing the team porting the games as hard as possible.
Modders Are Heroes, But They Shouldn’t Have To Be
I want to emphasize that again: Not only are modders already jumping in to save Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, they also seem to be having their older work taken without permission for the same product. I know a handful of modders get some income from their work, but no matter what the circumstance, that’s a breathtakingly messed up situation to put people in. “You have to repair this now. We tried lifting your work from before but it didn’t do the trick.”
Now, I’m not saying that modding is bad or that fans shouldn’t do it. I love mods. I install mods. And, in the best of times, mods expand and extend a game’s experience while complementing the vision of its original designers. In the worst of times, mods are created by weirdos to make sure you’re able to’t choose your own pronouns.
But, in either scenario, fun or idiotic, those fans are modding as a choice, not as an obligation. There’s a difference between a fan-made-patch that improves what’s considered a clunky inventory system and a fan-made-patch that actually allows the game to turn on properly. Especially if it’s a game or game collection that wasjust released.
Not to mention the assumption by companies - and some fans - that modderswillsolve any problems. WhenStarfieldwas launched, there was a lot of talk about whatmodderswould add in and whatfanswould change about the game. That’s all fine and good - but often these were problems that the developers should have been addressing themselves.
It’s Not Just Star Wars Either
I very much loveBethesdagames. I very much dislike that the Steam page forFallout 4VR is filled with reviews that basically double as guides as to which mods to download to make it playable. Trust me, I’ve run it without mods: it ain’t the best. True, a VR version of any game isn’t going to get deep attention from the developer, but it’s almost ridiculous how barebones it is and how hard fans had to work to make it fun.
I’m glad fans are out there making games run on modern machines. I’m grateful there are fans out there who can dig into the data of a game and revive cut content as if it were completely polished. These are the people who create ways to preserve the medium and play older games. We should celebrate them - but we shouldn’t let companies trick us into thinking that it’s their responsibility or job alone to make things good and better.
Companies shouldn’t foster a fan culture full of winks and nods about unpaid programmers who will create a better experience just because they care. The vast majority of modders do this out of the goodness (or, depending on the mod, evil) of their heart. Mods are a privilege, not a right.
Stop expecting free work to push a game over the profitability line. Pay your QA teams, pay your developers, pay your staff. For the love of god, these games are 20 years old. I know you’re able to do it.
