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Sciilan
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

Will Stadia games have (moderated) mods for games?

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As I expect Stadia to run mainly PC designed games, I was wondering if they would allow mods in a future update.

For select games this can be a big plus compared to the other consoles. Certainly for single player game experiences.

As I downside I see that the server may have to work with multiple unidentical instances of the game.
And there would need to be some moderation to only allow safe and stable mods.

Yet free or paid mods can enhance many games.
And offer game makers and fans a way to contribute to other games and gain skill and portfolio.

But perhaps it is up to the game maker to collect and bundle mods into an official addon.

So to summarize:
Will stadia have an option for mods/ addons other than from the original developer?


Kind regards
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Deleted User
Not applicable

@Sciilan Here's the only news we've had about mods. John Justice commented on the idea before Stadia launched last year. He basically said "It's on our radar and we're working with developers on how to incorporate mod support".

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Deleted User
Not applicable

@Sciilan Here's the only news we've had about mods. John Justice commented on the idea before Stadia launched last year. He basically said "It's on our radar and we're working with developers on how to incorporate mod support".

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Mefiboset
Stadia Player
Stadia Player

IMHO, I don't think that is going to happen any time soon. The major argument is: Stadia games are not PC games. Stadia is a new console that only supports playing its games via streaming. So, if console games don't have mods, Stadia games won't either.

Graphic improvements may come as servers are updated. However, I don't think this would have a major impact in games that are already released in Stadia (only FPSs), unless developers explicitly gave that option to Google (i.e., it is a matter of configuration changes and not a re-release of the game).

This is just my opinion. Maybe, games for Stadia are closer to PC versions and Stadia just "hides" graphic configurations for us so their servers can run them well. But I guess this is not the case. I think Stadia games are more like console games: they are as they are.

Finally, as far as I know, mods are kind of "a-legal". So, ... don't think companies will like that "add-ons" on their games. However, with the right amount of money, everything is possible in this field.

Best!

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JohnZoidberg
Gold Stadia Guide
Gold Stadia Guide

The best approach I can imagine for this would be something along the lines of Crayta. That "game" is really more of a "mod editor" on steroids – so much so, that it doesn't actually include a game. In order to support mods in other games, they'd need to incorporate some of the same technology (an editor that validates the mod for safety, a back end for storing mod assets, and a way to load remote mod assets into the vanilla game on startup). So, it's not technically impossible, but it would require a fair amount of work by game developers. For something like Crayta, this is part of the core functionality. But, for other games, I'm having a little trouble seeing how this would be justified in terms of prioritization (imagine the developer has to choose between putting in the effort to support modding or developing a major new DLC, for example; as much as some people love modding, the market for a DLC package is going to be bigger in most cases).

Why not Zoidberg?
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