More and more games seem to suck on thier own, but can be great with mods. You have entire platforms like roblox where all the games are more or less mods. How long until the platform itself is community created and managed and the viability of games created by companies dissappears?
It’s been happening for years, almost decades at this point. In fact, I’d be willing to say that at least 50% of most games ever made were made by someone who used to mod other games for fun.
Most recently there’s been Black Mesa, which is a fan remake of Half-Life in Half-Life 2’s Source engine.
There’s also The Forgotten City, which was actually a Skyrim mod first and was so popular the mod makers were approached by Microsoft to make their own game.
Most Source engine games are actually mods of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Counter-Strike started as a Half-Life mod.
Decades.
Team Fortress started as a mod for Quake 1(30 years ago)
Red Orchestra was the winner of the Make Something Unreal contest that Epic Games held over 20 years ago.
Famously, League of Legends and DOTA started as a custom map for Warcraft 3(Defense of the Ancients) and apparently Activision/Blizzard missed that window so much that they are a footnote in the genre they fucking started.
Battlefield 2 was at least partly made by the team who made Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942
I spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to mod quake into dwarf fortress until I reread your comment.