Volition’s new publisher views modding as a long-term investment in the community.
While entire genres have been built around the power of modding, not everyone is so impressed. THQ, the former publisher of Saints Row, decided it wasn’t worth the time to officially support modding. Now that THQ is dead, Saints Row is receiving modding tools with the official blessing of developer Volition. Andrew Groen over at Penny Arcade Report tells the story of how Volition itself is leading the charge for modding in its games.
Until now, talented fans had to find their own way around the Saints Row engine. The lack of official tools restricted them to only the most basic modifications. That’s all about to change.
“We are just at the beginning of things, and this is a grassroots effort within Volition,” according to Studio Director of Programming Jeff Thompson. “By that I mean, right now, it’s entirely fueled by people within Volition who want to do this.” Those developers are helping modders on forums like saintsrowmods.com and working with the community to release a software developer kit (SDK) to allow deeper alterations in the game. This also means mod support for previous and future Saints Row titles.
According to Thompson, it has its new publishers, Koch Media and Deep Silver to thank for the change. “This is a company that has done a lot of its business with PC gamers,” he said. “It’s also a company that trusts us and supports us to do things that are longer-term investments like building up stronger relationships with the community.” Saints Row is already an amusing mixture of luchadores, dildo bats, and aliens. It’ll be interesting to see just what else the community can add to it.
Source: Penny Arcade Report
