Professor Scott Swearingen is a
professor at UTDallas and has roughly 10 years of experience in the game
industry. His industry experience will allow me to write on the developer side
of the mutual modder and developer relationship. Here is how the interview
went.
How long have you been in the industry?
I was in the industry for about a
decade, since ’03.
Did any of your developers have a
problem with user created content?
From my perspective, when I was a
modder, I used to mod the Quake 2 engine and Quake 3 engine when I was in
school. The developers love it because what it does is it gives a game legs. If
there is a huge modding community out there, that is free press for a specific
game or a specific brand. If everybody is modding Quake 1, then Id is going to
make Quake 2, and it keeps growing and what you get are a bunch of modders out
there who are entering the industry who are used to one specific piece of
software. If the studio is developing that one software, they love the fact
that all of the talent is using their software so they gotta license their
software. When I first got into the industry I was working with TKO on Metal of
Honor, and it was using the Quake 3 engine. Ninety percent of games back then
were using the Quake 3 engine because that was the big thing back then. So yea
studios love it because it gives their game legs.
Were there any types of mods that you
found developers disproved of, or that infringed on any copyright laws?
Not for any of the games that I worked
on. If your breaking the law with your mod, like having pornography as part of
your mod, the developer is not gonna want that. If your using your mod to do
other illicit activities, the developers not gonna want that. If your are
breaking the law, just generally speaking, the developer is not gonna want
that. If it is just tounge and cheek, artsy fartsy stuff, that’s fine.
Have you ever seen anyone get hired from
the modding community?
Totally. I actually got hired out of the
modding community. It’s awesome that you as that actually. When I worked at TKO
as a level designer, I found that Unitool
(Jeff Zerin) was there, I was sitting right next to him. Metal Slime
(John Fitsgibbins) from the modding community was working at TKO. Yogi (John
Hues) was working at TKO. Amathis 7 who I know from the modding community was
working at TKO as a level designer. Vexar, from the modding community was
working at TKO. All of these people that I knew from the Quake 2 and Quake 3
modding boards. They had their first time gig in a place in Santa Krus that was
making a game using the Quake 3 engine. Everybody out there making mods for
Quake 3 got picked up by the studio. It was just amazing. They hired some other
programmers, turns out that one of the guys, Ydnar, who I knew from the Quake 3
community, he was writing a new compiler for Quake 3 which was doing some crazy
awesome lighting effects with the Quake 3 engine. TKO hired him to do some work
for them and it was crazy meeting him, I was like “Oh my gosh your Ydnar” and he’s
like “Yea I’m Randy.” I got it then he spelled his name backwards. Everybody I
worked with came out of the modding community. Especially for level design,
specifically level design actually. Modelers not so much, most of them came
from schools. Level design is one of those things that’s difficult to pin down
in schools, and a lot of schools don’t teach level design.
What is your overall opinion of the
modding community?
I think it’s cool as heck! That is where
people can get really experimental with engines outside of the constraints of
studio money and studio time. People can get really creative and do some really
wild stuff.
There you have it folks. Modding benefits the
developers just as greatly as it benefits the modders. Modding is also how the
earlier generations of developers trained on the game engines of their time, and is
still true today. So everyone out there, get modding, get recognized, and get
in the industry. I would like to thank Prof. Scott Swearingen.
Sources
Professor Scott Swearingen, Unity
Teacher, The University of Texas at Dallas. Interviewed: Dec 10, 2013.
This is the last of my posts for this semester. Winterbreak is here and it is time to hibernate, and start working on a few of my own projects. I will return at the beginning of next year. Happy Holidays.
