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The above logo and name may not mean much to people at the moment, but the one of the left is one that any gamer who’s ever touched a PC should know well. ModDB has long been a popular site that features user created modifications to games. It’s held as a site with strong community support and interactivity. The purpose of Mod DB is to list the mods, files, tutorials and information of any games that are capable of being modded with user-made content, and any game mod with a website is allowed to post a screenshot gallery, news, and requests for help. It’s also a place to interact with people using various development kits like Scimitar (Assassin’s Creed), CryENGINE (Crysis), OGRE (Torchlight), and the XNA based Valkyrie Engine to name a few (there are currently around 150 engines and engine variants listed). In many ways, ModDB has become an integral part of the game mod development community in that it serves to showcase and give access to the golden underbelly to things possible when independent creative minds come together towards making a game better or different. ModDB site creator, Scott “INtense!” Reismanis is launching another site soon- “Desura“, which is currently in closed beta.
On the surface it looks, feels and sounds an awful lot like Steam and in some ways it is very much like Steam, D2D, GamersGate, etc. Steam currently holds an estimated 70% of the digital distribution market share, and with the other digital distribution outlets in place to nibble at the remaining 30% it would seem that there’s little room for a new face. In actuality, not only is Desura backed by the already strong audience and content of ModDB, but it’s setting itself apart from the bunch by being ‘developer driven and community run with user made content:
Most importantly, Desura is designed to allow independent developers to create content for existing games. Still, Desura has heavy competition with Steam so why wouldn’t someone opt to go with the already established Steam? Since Valve owns and runs Steam and makes extremely successful games like Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead, there’s a potential conflict of interest whenever Steam rejects a game.
In an interview with “The Reticule” Reismanis states:
So many mods are amazing accomplishments, combining creativity with steadfast dedication and yet so many are missed by gamers, because they don’t know how to get them or that they even exist. Desura will provide a platform for mods to reach large audiences they never could in the past and at the same time will provide tools and APIs that only commercial games have access to. I believe we can also do the same for indie games, because whilst there are many now getting recognition on Steam, XBOXLive, PSN and other places, there are still many more getting missed. Developers who care about their players will flourish on Desura, because we give them the ability to build a fanbase and generate interest in their game by sharing frequent updates with the entire Desura community. This also applies to commerical games, who will benefit from mod support and the potential new customers that can now bring them.
Aside from that, community members are able to do standard activities such as post screen shots, write blog posts and reviews, and interact with one another. The community pages are fairly dynamic and keep pertinent information at close hand without the need to constantly change pages.
While at the moment we don’t have any “paid for” content, that is the next step. At the moment it is a “proof of concept” demonstrating some of the functionality will aim to eventually provide. So yes Desura will provide paid content, and it will also provide free indie games and mods. No other digital distribution portals offer this, so we are fairly certain gamers will love Desura thanks to some astonishing user-made content out there, which is sadly missed by most games.
I was granted the opportunity to toss a few questions of my own to Scott Reismanis about Desura and in his own words describes some of the philosophies and base attributes behind Desura:
Shawn Gordon (SG): You’ve stated that this is a completely open project and likened it to Wikipedia, but open doesn’t mean free. A question you’ll probably get a few hundred more times in the coming months by journalists and developers alike, is there a subscription fee or cost structure that will be implemented for developers to help maintain the site?
Scott Reismanis (SR):Open in the sense that we give developers and the community the ability to add and control the content on Desura. We simply check it and ensure it is high-quality to warrant being shown. Community driven and developer run is the line we use. Also the service will be entirely free, so getting free mods for your favourite games will not cost you anything. We aim to make money by selling commercial and indie games.
(SG):Going back to ‘open’, are you of the mindset that ‘open source’ is a philosophy or a pragmatic methodology and why (with either)?
(SR):The Desura website and application are not open source, we use the word open because we are not trying to create a “walled garden” like many of the other digital distribution services out there. Our firehose of data will be available for 3rd parties to integrate, we encourage the community and developers to use all of the services we provide be it on their website or ours. We are excited to see what apps, widgets, sites etc that developers will create as a result. Note that this functionality is not available now, but will come with time as we refine and finalize our system.
(SG):Desura is “developer driven / community run”. That in mind, Desura features a list of top tier publishers and developers such as EA, Ubisoft, and 2K – the little guys, the indie developers, they have a place of equal perch, right?
(SR):We don’t have relationships established with any developers big or small at the moment. The only reason why you see those names is because we support mods for some of the games we have made. Indie games are treated exactly the same as their commercial counterparts. In fact because our platform is open and “developer run” – this will be great for indies because it is up to them to add content and information about their game and sell it to the community. Given how passionate indie developers are (they do it for the love), this should come easy to them.
(SG):ModDB is a great site, full of great content. One of the things that has made it such a profound place is the community. It becomes obvious that ModDB was built around ‘community’. Desura has the same feel with greater organization. Aside from that I noticed that profile information, blog posts, posted media, etc., carries over from ModDB to Desura. What is going to happen to ModDB when Desura finally goes gold – Will the two sites run in tandem or is Desura an evolutionary replacement for ModDB?
(SR):The two sites serve totally different purposes and should co-exist well. We view Desura as a distribution platform for quality released games and mods. So for gamers that only want finished content, Desura makes it easy to find and play. On the other hand, ModDB will continue to list upcoming games and mods, so it caters more towards developers and gamers who like to track games from start to finish. Once a game or mod is released, the developer simply clicks the “publish on Desura” button and all information on ModDB is ported over, making it super easy for the developer while retaining the fanbase they have worked hard to build during their games development.
(SG):Outside of much stronger community overtones, Desura feels almost like a direct competitor to Steam yet the site contains a button that reads “Join us on Steam”. Is Desura best a “mirror”, a competitor, an enhanced ’skin’, or ‘the other side of the coin’ to Steam and what specifically would make a developer more inclined to function through Desura over another network platform such as iTunes or Steam or game specific communities like ijji, NCSoft, and Nexon?
(SR):Steams a great service, so we will encourage developers to try and release their games on as many platforms as possible. It isn’t like they have to choose one or the other. We hope to be able to compete with steam by offering a stronger community experience, augmented with mods for your favourite games and also putting more control in the hands of developers. Combine these elements and with time I believe you will find Desura is quite unique and different from Steam and other competitors out there. The comparisons will come and that’s fine – once we get the developers on board Desura should really begin to shine. We are just trying to manage expectations at the moment, because this won’t happen overnight.
(SG):In traversing the available features of Desura in beta, one of the more interesting sections I took note of was giving developers a method to give people beta access to games, DLC and mods. Essentially, in the section overall is a sub-storefront control panel (with the understanding that the developers can offer things at no charge as well), for anyone who develops games, mods and add-ons. This is vastly more open than a lot of other places. What spurred the idea to create such a place?
(SR):Behind the scenes developers can branch their releases on Desura – so they can potentially upload a number of different version of their game or mod. How each of these releases is distributed is up to the developer, they can invite gamers to free betas, run experimental versions, it is entirely up to them. Mods were built in because too much amazing user-made content is currently missed by many gamers, who don’t know what it is and find it too difficult to install any play. Essentially anything that is great for developers and great for gamers we want to build into Desura, and these are two ideas we thought would yield pretty cool results.
(SG):I enjoyed the game Half-Life 2, and often play mods, but I also have it installed and ’shortcutted’ via Steam. From Desura I can install a shortcut to Half-Life 2 to the Desura app but when I go to play, it starts Steam. I understand that whether or not someone purchased the title on disc or via Steam, that Steam is required to play it. However what I’m unsure of is the point of installing the shortcut on Desura if it’s going to open Steam anyway. What is the advantage of using one over the other?
(SR):Due to the way Steam works, to play games you have bought with Steam you need to have it running. Unless Steam gives us a means to directly launch games that will continue to happen. We expect people to use Desura because they prefer it, or they use it for the mods and content and community we have which no one else does. You should also be able to buy your games on Desura, which we hope many will decide to do.
(SG):It took me under 10 minutes to download a 1.3 GB mod for Half-Life 2 (seriously, I timed it), which for most people in the US, is crazy fast. I understand that during the closed beta phase of Desura (or closed beta anything) the site traffic is low because there’s a limited number of people with access, and that the number of people on a network pulling data from a server simultaneously has an effect on network download speeds (among other things). Do the developers host their materials and wares on their own servers, and if so do you plan on encouraging developers to keep their speeds up to help ensure users don’t get frustrated on download wait times and lines?
(SR):We host all of the files on our servers. As demand increases we will boost capacity. We want you to get your games as fast as possible, so expect fast speeds to continue as long as we can keep up!
Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t restate the emphasis on ‘beta’ with Desura. The service was announced late December of last year on the ModDB forums and has since blown up. Reismanis says Desura staff have “received hundreds of emails from game developers wanting to use Desura, and gamers wanting beta access.”
Desura was one of the 5 finalists in the “Who’s Got Game” during the March 10,2010 GamesBeat@GDC event.
This article appears in it's original format on Fairchild6.com
