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?


No it wasn’t, it used the same (albeit highly modified) engine, if that makes HL a mod then almost every game you play is a mod since they all use some preexisting engine. Otherwise you have to consider Marvel vs Capcom infinity a mod of Daylight since they’re both UE4 games, or even Call of Duty as a Quake mod.
You don’t need Quake to run Half-life, therefore it’s not a mod, it just uses the same engine, or some parts of. That is very different from Counter-Strike which you needed to have Half-life and mod it to be able to play it originally.