Quote Originally Posted by Epistolary Richard
I'm not personally in the modding communities for any other games - but what would be helpful in this regard would be for some specific examples of what other game companies have provided in terms of official tools. Then I can hold them up as how CA should be supporting the modding community and how their competitors have made it work.
Well. WHen you look at the support that other companies give to their modding community it really puts CA to shame. Alot of companies will release their developement tools to the public (sometimes with the game itself, sometimes as a seperate download). Alot of games are completely open for modding with incredibly minimal restrictions. Most games support the ability to turn mods on and off while you're playing the game. Some companies even have modding competitions where every week or month they give a prize out to whoever created the most impressive piece of work during that time (the Unreal Tournament franchise has their 'create something unreal' competition). So many other companies really put forth an effort to encourage modding by almost any means possible because they realize that mods can incredibly increase the lifespan of a game, boost sales (especially later in the lifespan), and provide them with a good deal of feedback about what people liked and didnt like which they can then apply to their next game. In terms of modding support, CA is almost a decade behind other game companies in realizing the benefit of a strong modding community.