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Post news Report RSS Introducing mod.io

A drop in mod platform for game developers, from the creators of ModDB.com.

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For the longest time, we have championed mod support. What began as a hobby 20 years ago (see Old Timers), quickly became an obsession, and in 2002 we launched ModDB.com.

Over two decades we have watched modders transform games in creative and unique ways. The longest lasting franchises with amazing legacies like Half-Life, Warcraft, Skyrim, ARMA and Minecraft have spawned many of today's genre defining hits including Counter-Strike, League of Legends and PUBG.

Our newest product

Today we are proud to announce the launch of mod.io, the first open cross-platform mod API that puts developers in-control of their modding community. mod.io is designed to operate behind-the-scenes and be a drop-in solution that does the heavy lifting required to support user generated content in-game.

mod.io API


Our aim with ModDB.com has always been to support creators, and help games grow their modding community. We believe the more open and accessible modding is, the stronger and wider the adoption will become. So for us mod.io is a natural evolution of this belief. It is quite a different product from ModDB.com, which proudly supports mods for every game. mod.io will only support games that integrate the API and automate the process of installing mods.

Our launch games

We are incredibly excited to be launching mod.io with the titles 0 A.D, ECO, and Sinespace. Partnerships with these titles were sought to demonstrate mod.io's flexibility to tackle unique challenges. In the case of 0 A.D, it is working with the open source community that require a platform agnostic solution. In ECO, mods are purely server-side and Sinespace is a virtual world that treats mods as templates that are there to be built and modded themselves.

mod.io launch games mod.io launch games mod.io launch games


Games wanted to support mod.io

Game developers, we invite you to explore mod.io, read the docs and test integration in your games. We are investing heavily in games that want to support mod.io, as well as providing marketing support across our network. Reach out if you'd like to hear the details and work together to grow your playerbase. A whitelabel solution for large studios that require an in-house product is available to discuss on request.

SDK


We are incredibly excited to be launching mod.io, and help games of all shapes, sizes and requirements tap into the power of mods to deliver deeply personalised, amazing new gameplay experiences. This is step one of many for ModDB.com and mod.io and we cannot wait to grow this community with your support.

Post comment Comments
ChrisT|GamingZone
ChrisT|GamingZone

Congratulations on the release DBolical, this is a fantastic idea for future of mods! :D

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INtense! Author
INtense!

Thanks, we hope this encourages innovation and allows even more developers to support mods across more devices and stores in their game.

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lgs
lgs

How is it different from steam workshop?

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OrangeNero
OrangeNero

It isn't Steam. It supports games and mods that ain't on Steam. There's probably more.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

Steam Workshop is a great service, they made modding accessible via APIs. mod.io aims to do this as well but goes a few steps further.

The primary difference is the open nature of the mod.io platform. This allows us to work in DRM free games, on consoles, mobiles etc. It isn't tied to one store. This is significant for F2P games, large publishers and other cross-platform games who have either had to roll their own solution, or just do modding the old fashioned way, as no alternative exists.

The second benefit is the flexibility of the mod.io platform. It operates silently in the background. Every piece is entirely optional, so developers can decide what they want to use. We don't enforce any rules which gives developers a lot more control and access to their modding community.

Functionality wise, there is a ton under the hood that is quite new and different, from highly customisable profiles and browsing settings (to help with mod discoverability), to advanced moderation systems.

Ultimately though we believe competition is needed. What if Workshop makes a decision you disagree with, or doesn't meet your needs? Workshop is just one of many things that Valve does, so it's a bit of a black box for developers. If it does what you need and you don't mind giving up control of your mod community that's awesome, but mod.io is our focus, modding is an area we have 20 years of expertise in, and we are continually adjusting our platform based on developers feedback.

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Passerine
Passerine

An additional benefit that mod.io has over the Steam Workshop is that it gives developers the option to offer paid mods to their players (with a cut given to the mod.io developers - paid modding can be expected to be a key part if not the key part of mod.io's overall business model), whereas the Steam Workshop has had its paid mod functionality scrapped.

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OrangeNero
OrangeNero

Looks great! Gotta look into the integration process.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

Are you working on a game?

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OrangeNero
OrangeNero

Yes but its not in a very advanced state. I've tried different engines and think I want to rather make a mod instead to skip the basic work and live with the compromises.

If possible it would also be interesting for my two C&C mods. Whenever I make new content I upload it as an addon but most players of the mod don't seem to notice them or its too much effort for them to go there download and then copy paste into the folder. So mod.io could help quite a bit there I think.

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Dragonlord
Dragonlord

I still don't get how this is supposed to work. You talk about a client which runs in the background. What exactly integrates in a game? What exactly does this client do? I've seen written somewhere it can download stuff. But how does it know where to put it? If you have for example a stand-alone installation (not steam or similar) how is such a tool supposed to find installation location? I'm still quite confused about all this.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

It isn't a client, just a library / SDKs. So the game developer either connects directly to the API: Docs.mod.io or they use the SDK or plugin.

How mods install is up to the game developer, they would specify what folder mod.io should place the mods in and we will do that.

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Dragonlord
Dragonlord

So this "client" is more of a beefed up http-client for simple get requests then?

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INtense! Author
INtense!

That's right, we are a CDN for mod delivery with a lot of optional extras and features built around that. We solve all the boring stuff like searching, categorisation, moderation, manage complex legal challenges like DMCA and the new GDPR etc. With the aim of creating a drop in solution to give game devs mod support without having to spend a ton of time on the implementation.

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Dragonlord
Dragonlord

Sounds interesting. Still trying to figure out how this fits into the Launcher/Engine concept of mine since the Launcher is the piece of software which runs a game with the appropriate settings. Perhaps it would fit in there. Not sure about this yet.

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Templarfreak
Templarfreak

I hope you plan on supporting GameMaker 1.4 too, not just 2. Plenty of people still use 1.4. :D

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INtense! Author
INtense!

Any engine that has developers wanting easier mod supporting systems we shall target. So I cannot see why we wouldn't do GameMaker 1.4 as well in the future.

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Felix-Argyle
Felix-Argyle

Can you use the same sign-in from Moddb to Mod.io.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

The sites are completely disconnected and despite both serving mods, fulfil different roles.

So we might add a "login by moddb" option in the future, but for now it's all about helping games integrate the API.

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Guest
Guest

This is going to lead to, like moddb, people uploading others mods but this time for some quick cash.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

mod.io is an API for game developers to integrate, to get mods in-game. Not sure how that relates to cash. We want to offer game developers options they can turn on like patronage, donations and trading to make modding a driver of success for them and their creators - but we are well aware pain caused by paid mods and need to be smarter and better than that.

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Fredvil
Fredvil

How will this work for FO3 which I mod a lot?

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INtense! Author
INtense!

It is designed to be integrated into games. So it won't impact a game unless they decide to integrate support for it.

Oh and huge thanks for being a subscriber!!

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Fredvil
Fredvil

How can that happen if it hasn't already?

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INtense! Author
INtense!

We would have to work with the game creators, at the moment we are not working with them.

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Fredvil
Fredvil

what are your priorities then? "Free" engines like Unity?
I know too little about your project so maybe I have to take another delve into your info stuff.
Upon that I am a slow learner - that is the reason for being stuck to Bethesda/Havok and FO3 as a preference atm.

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INtense! Author
INtense!

That's right, we want to create modding plugins for the major engines making it easy for game developers to drop in mod support.

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OnyeNacho
OnyeNacho

Wonderful news indeed! HO HO YES!!

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tuxjsmith
tuxjsmith

Would your service fulfill the following:

I've written a free to play Android game where the maps are created using Blender:

- Items in the blender map have some properties so the game engine knows what to do with them.

- My libgdx game loads the map and the player explores it dealing with the map objects accordingly.

So:

- Could players upload maps to your servers.

- My game would then offer the player the option of downloading and playing 'user created content' from your servers ?

Cheers.
Paul.

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