KingofBees

There is a common theme communicated to people who have aspirations of running large operations someday: start small.

If you want to run a world class restaurant on the shores of Malta, you should begin running a food cart. If you want to build the next Empire State Building, begin by building a shed. If you want to play in a traveling band around the world on spectacular stages, give the local open mic night a go first. Likewise, if we're going to make the next Counter-Strike, Battlegrounds, Chivalry, or Red Orchestra, we need to start with a mod.

Starting small gives us the necessary head room to "fail," with the only real failure being that no one wants to play the mod. This allows us to take on new ideas with more vigor than before. If we had borrowed loads of money and made a dud game, we would have many more problems to deal with. Running a company into the ground is not cheap, and many have seen their ruination from betting their life (sometimes literally) on the business. Remember when Curt Schilling started a video game company?

Building a video game from scratch means you have to build everything from scratch. Not just the game itself, but your fanbase, media exposure, company track record, company profile, etc. There is simply so much that can go wrong, and even if you do everything right, something out of your control could overshadow or kill your game, or the timing could be terrible.

Building a mod is an entirely different atmosphere. We get feedback from other modders and people from the modding community, a free platform to share our creation on, a place with like minded people looking for fun mods to play, forums to discuss issues and smooth bumps along the way, and best of all - a game already there to mod!

Finally, starting small grants us immunity from one of the most overlooked aspects of enterprise - pressure. Being under no pressure to create a fun mod verses having to meet task quotas, deadlines, impatient investors, and any of the stresses of time constraint - is extremely important. Having a mod before diving into making a full game would serve only to alleviate initial pressures on delivering a solid product. People who are working on a product as complex as a game do not respond well to the feeling of having the weight of the world on their shoulders. In fact, many developers in the gaming industry have had enough and leave for the indie scene hoping for greener pastures.

All the tools are there to make a new concept fully realized. The video game industry is one of the last industries where you can get your foot in the door with an original and fun idea.

Until next time

Buzz buzz 🐝