Beardtrick Posted January 30 Report Posted January 30 Community Driven Development Folding Hi all, this is my first post here. TL;DR "I’m interested in whether Vintage Story could ever fold community mod ideas back into the core game, similar to how other studios have learned from or adopted mod-driven development. I’m also curious how both Anego Studios and existing modders would feel about that kind of collaboration." I’m a game developer myself, though not a particularly successful one. While studying Computer Game Development at university between 2014 and 2017, I wrote a whitepaper looking at community-driven development and how studios might legitimately incorporate ("fold") community-created work back into a game’s core design. That included things like mod‑to‑core DevOps and QA pipelines, social or monetary reward systems, and EULA changes that allow a parent studio to safely and fairly adopt community ideas or code. I’d need to rewrite it if there was any interest, but the core ideas are still relevant! Some well-known examples of games influenced by community mods or where modded content became part of an official design: Spoiler Defense of the Ancients (DotA), a community-created mod for Warcraft III, directly inspired Valve to acquire the rights and develop Dota 2 as a standalone title, essentially turning a mod into a flagship game in a new genre. (Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients) Roblox represents a model where user-created experiences (essentially highly customised mods or mini-games) are the entire product, and creators can earn real money for successful content. (Reference: https://sqmagazine.co.uk/roblox-game-creation-and-monetization-statistics/) Paradox grand strategy games like Crusader Kings III and Hearts of Iron IV have extensive mod support, and the developers sometimes hire modders or consult the community, with documented cases of community content influencing official design decisions or DLC concepts. (Reference: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/integration-of-some-good-gameplay-mods-into-the-base-game.1674631/) Many other games originally built from mods became standalone commercial products, including Counter-Strike, DayZ, Insurgency, and The Stanley Parable. (Reference: https://www.thesavvygamer.com/gaming/20-gaming-mods-that-became-their-own-standalone-games) Integrating mods into the core game can help reduce development time and allow new features to be added more quickly, because active modding communities can extend a game’s functionality and address community needs that developers might otherwise have to build from scratch themselves. Research on modding communities shows that supporting modders can help meet the rapidly growing and changing needs of players, potentially saving developers time and money and improving the overall game experience. (Daniel Lee et al., Building the Perfect Game – An Empirical Study of Game Modifications; https://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.07528) A monetarily driven reward system (like the one present in Roblox) doesn’t really feel appropriate or realistic for Vintage Story in my opinion , But I was wondering whether Anego Studios has ever considered working more directly with the community to bring mod-originated features into the core game? or, has anyone in the studio already pitched the idea of a reward system and ethical changes to the terms of service that improves the game's future development cycles? I’d also be interested to hear how existing modders feel about this idea. In particular, how comfortable would people be with their code or concepts being used to help shape the future development of Vintage Story? Would you expect to be compensated, and how would you feel with a change to the terms of service? Thank you for listening to my TED talk. 2
LadyWYT Posted January 30 Report Posted January 30 I believe some mods have already been added to the game, after a fashion. The deer and goats are thanks to the Fauna of the Stone Age series, I think. A friend of mine helped swat a hunger bug recently as well. I will note though that when community content gets added to the game, it's not added directly, as much as it is used for inspiration and then worked to fit the devs' designs. 5 hours ago, Beardtrick said: Would you expect to be compensated, and how would you feel with a change to the terms of service? I also think this is at least part of the reason that baking mods directly into the game is a rare thing. Some mod licensing prevents the mod content from being altered(and therefore added) without explicit permission given by the mod author. Some mod authors may not want their work added to the game, as then they lose control over how it's developed. Some expect compensation, which is fair, but the price they ask may be too much. I will also point out that while it might be flattering to have one's mod added to the game, doing that too often will end up setting a precedent, and players may begin to assume that Anego Studios is just relying on modders to do their work for them. It's not an issue right now, nor do I really expect it to be one, but it's definitely not an impression you want a playerbase to be getting about your game. 1
Kulze Posted February 1 Report Posted February 1 Well, to be fair most of the issues can be circumvented with a opt-in option to allow devs to make use of the mod content to directly fold it into the game or adjust it according to needs, basically creating a form of a 'fork' of it. Simpy described you provide your mod in the mod database and when you do you not only get a baseline document to agree to ensuring the terms are clear but it would also allow to choose if it's free of charge - for those simply wanting to improve the game - or with a custom box to allow describing the expected return of whatever kind. It's then up to the devs to decide if they're willing to do it or not as any weird or outrageous ones can simply be ignored. I imagine the most common would be credits being given, and the baseline that the moment you allow it to be used you loose any form of rights related to returns outside of the initially stated one had you provided them. 1
Beardtrick Posted February 1 Author Report Posted February 1 On 1/30/2026 at 4:22 PM, LadyWYT said: I will note though that when community content gets added to the game, it's not added directly, as much as it is used for inspiration and then worked to fit the devs' designs. I also think this is at least part of the reason that baking mods directly into the game is a rare thing. Some mod licensing prevents the mod content from being altered(and therefore added) without explicit permission given by the mod author. Okay a few things to unpack: Adding code direct vs informing design. Consent to have code released from mod authors and into the hands of the developers. Focusing on the second point; I agree with Kulze, that an opt-in option would rule out issues of consent: 7 hours ago, Kulze said: most of the issues can be circumvented with a opt-in option to allow devs to make use of the mod content to directly fold it into the game or adjust it according to needs, basically creating a form of a 'fork' of it. An Upstreaming Repository Anego could maintain a public repo where mod authors submit features they think belong in core. Only mods intended for upstreaming would go there. Contributors would agree to hand over code and waive their existing rights in favour of eventual integration. Anego would decide what fits the game’s future vision, so even popular mods could be rejected if they don’t align with the team’s plans. It's important to note that a seperate repository is required, and not just a badge in vsmoddb, since we'd want automated testing that would be hard to ahieve from within a php website. On 1/30/2026 at 4:22 PM, LadyWYT said: Some expect compensation, which is fair, but the price they ask may be too much. A brilliant point to make, I think that in this case Anego would set the terms in the licencing agreement for contributing to the upstreaming repository, it's really upto the mod author to agree/disagree. It would be unfair to force a mod developer to contribute, and I couldn't agree more that some would expect compensation and that Anego wouldn't be prepared to pay. I just hope people here are modding for the love of the game, and not personal gain. 8 hours ago, Kulze said: ensuring the terms are clear but it would also allow to choose if it's free of charge - for those simply wanting to improve the game - or with a custom box to allow describing the expected return of whatever kind. I would expect Anego to not compensate monitarily at all, instead they might offer some devs a job. I don't personally like the idea of monetised mods, but feel free to disagree. On the first point; Adding code direct vs informing design. As to whether the mod is deployed "as-is" or "informs design" should be left to the desision of the development team. It's their game, and unless they design the CI tests and a method to acually fold-in code, then it's unlikely they'd ever use code "as-is". On making the trasisition from Mod Author led to Game developer lead: Proving out Mods as Modules with CI Tests Instead of merging upstream mods immediately, selected community mods could ship bundled with official releases using the existing mod API. This keeps features isolated, easy to remove, and low risk. Lightweight CI could automatically build mods and run basic load tests to ensure they start and register systems correctly. Hosting these tests on GitHub would prevent mods that fail on updates from reaching release. Only a small number of mods should be included this way, since CI tests would need to check compatibility between them. If a bundled mod works well for a release or two and is popular with players, it could be gradually folded into core systems. If it doesn’t, it can be removed without extra maintenance. Upstreamed mods would retain visible credit in the game’s internal credits, with ownership transfer agreements already in place via the upstream repository consent form.
Thorfinn Posted February 2 Report Posted February 2 I think it's an excellent idea for niche play. Which is more or less what private servers are. They assemble and often tweak a set of mods that produce the kind of gameplay they like. Official support for this is strong, but somewhat subtle. Obviously, they pay for the ModDB, and maintain it as necessary, but the Multiplayer forum seems underutilized. Or maybe its just that so many more people prefer single player or multiplayer for their friends, not seeking any other players. I would think Anego would need to be a much bigger entity to make it worthwhile having someone on staff to keep up with the legal changes and caselaw in every country they have sales in. Because "consent" doesn't necessarily mean "consent". Definitely not over time. 1
Kulze Posted February 5 Report Posted February 5 On 2/1/2026 at 2:28 PM, Beardtrick said: I would expect Anego to not compensate monitarily at all, instead they might offer some devs a job. I don't personally like the idea of monetised mods, but feel free to disagree. Ah, that was a bit misunderstood then, but it's a great point to make! We gotta differ between 'mods' and between 'core integration' here. Obviously mods shouldn't be monetized, they're a community service, not a paid position after all. And it's been proven time and time again that free monetization leads to mass-flooding of low quality content. It's a whole different can of worms to open up to make something like this actually functional and reliable, it's obviously not worth it to even suggest as neither are the resources here nor would be the reward reliable for anyone involved. What I talked about was 'core integration'. A modder has the intellectual rights on their created content. Sure, it can only be used in combination with the base product, but the work itself is their intellectual property as it's adding on top of a existing product and hence separate. Hence should the modder allow to have it integrated in the base game on the premise of their code rather then Anego working on a similar design from scratch then the option to allow a 'reward' of some kind should be open. And given a creator has the right to set their own terms of what value their work has it should also be in the hands of the creator to set it accordingly. It's Anego's choice to take the offer or not simply. Example: - Creator makes a mod which provides a functional trading system outside of the auction house, a in-game one. It includes a lot of models, UIs, scripts. Tons of work. - Upon release to the community - a normal mod in the moddb - there's 2 hidden checkboxes and a textbox which only the creator and Anego are able to see. One is 'I'm allowing Anego to use this code for usage in their game and adjusting it freely' and the second is reliant on the first stating 'I'm offering the code free of charge and voiding my rights of intellectual property to Anego'. The free option. The textbox is only relevant when the second box isn't ticked and states 'This is my expected remuneration for providing this the rights to use this code' and allows to input what exactly they would want for it. They can state whatever... and Anego can choose to agree to whatever... or start extra efforts to message the mod creator through that system to make up a alternative deal. It's simply a extra option to allow usage of code without legal issues, because no matter which country if you set the conditions for usage and receive the according remuneration you've rescinded the rights to have any further say about what happens to it related to the game. That's what you get rewarded for after all. One further option is the classic 'open-source' integration model. Basically all that happens is that people have the ability to see the code and can make more in-depth changes to it while Anego still retains rights of intellectual property to it. Hence we got a official branch and changes to the game according to whatever any user wants, the peak culmination of a modding community. A great example on how it works is 'Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead' actually. A core lead which retains ownership and decides on the direction and a community which can make merge requests to the core game. Mandated code structures to even pass a preemptive check for viability to reduce workload of the company and full choice for the company to use or not use said code going forward. The majority of merger requests commonly done in this case are bugfixes, optimizations and gradual miniscule improvements. And in the game example I made it led to that game being the biggest, most comprehensive and complex game of that type which has ever been seen, with a update speed of commonly 1 successful merger a day median, often more. Most people know the open-source style from Linux where the code foundation is freeware. In our case the code foundation isn't freeware though and hence any type of fork does still provide revenue back to the company or is simply included as a mod. Full development control stays with the company but since people want to have the best possible experience available it leads to a overall superior product over time... agreeing or not agreeing with the development direction. On 2/1/2026 at 2:28 PM, Beardtrick said: Instead of merging upstream mods immediately, selected community mods could ship bundled with official releases using the existing mod API. This keeps features isolated, easy to remove, and low risk. Exactly, modular setups are a necessity basically. Core gameplay can still be adjusted even from input of individuals... but risk is not present this way. And any large-scale not 100% tested aspect is a top-layer mod which can or cannot be integrated into core gradually, or be used as a simple 'extra' in the form of buildings blocks to create your own experience. The current mod setup we have is already supporting that greatly. Workload itself is also adaptable this way to not be overwhelming as it allows removing overhauled systems without major issues while also keeping the possibility for players to keep using the old style in many cases. A big win in terms of player agency. The risks are clear as well, choice paralysis and the necessity for a user-friendly way of adding/removing aspects through a simple but comprehensive way of setting up their game experience. It hence creates work on other areas which usually don't need any work. But the upsides are also quite clear as described above. 1
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