Ownership

As with the advent of user-generated content spanning different media platforms the gaming industry is at a point of renegotiating traditional ideas of copyright and ownership. Ownership is a core issue facing the future of media production and the convergence of fan and corporate culture has called for less dichotomic models (Jenkins, 2002, 2006). Modding is a particularly interesting case, as it possesses a moral economy ‘challenging the current copyright-based ownership paradigm’ (Postigo, 2008; Sotamaa; 2011)

When a game is legitimately purchased off or online the gamer is buying the license to use the media product, generally an end-user license agreement (EULA). This is a common license with terms and conditions stipulating the ownership of the content. With modding however it’s customary to have two different terms, one protecting the underlying content of the game and one governing the derived work e.g., redistribution allowed, but not commercially (Scacchi; 2009). It is important for developers and distributors to adjust these licenses to maintain the mutually beneficial relationship with modders, as popular mods often help improve sales and revenue. Games like Half-Life and Civilization have EULAs that encourage free distribution of mods to users with licensed copies, which increases sales to those interested in playing well-known mods.

Licensed game development platforms like Unity3D are perhaps the way of the future as it’s subject to more than a dozen different intellectual property licenses with a variety of terms and conditions (Alspaugh, Asuncion, Scacchi 2009). There are also ‘Open gaming licenses’ which the Open Gaming Foundation constitute as a license which ‘…must allow game rules and materials that use game rules to be freely copied, modified and distributed. And…must ensure that material distributed using the license cannot have those permissions restricted in the future.’ (http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/licenses.html). This model, closer to a ‘Copyleft’ approach suits a modding culture where in order for free software to be produced all subsequent extended or modified versions need to be free as well (Sotamaa; 2011)

‘…some scholars [Kücklich 2005, Somataa 2007] are skeptical about the value of modding, which they see as “playbour” (a coercion of leisurely play into work) or a commodization of leisure time, and subsequently conclude that modding work primarily benefits game companies by exploiting the productive efforts of game modders.’ (Scacchi; 2009)

With this, it appears the developers and distributors of games are still the ones holding all the cards. As long as companies can keep modders happy to work for free they stand to benefit the most financially. This governance like any other in the media landscape is met with resistance usually in the form of breaching license terms and conditions with reverse engineering and redistribution. So why do modders mod and is their any financial incentive?

How does the game industry model compare to Pool and other media platforms?