PC Mods for Console Gaming

[Tullaryx]

One thing which I found interesting during last week's E3 was the agreement between Sony and Epic Games to do exclusive work in allowing usermade mods for the PC version of Unreal Tournament III be made available for use on the PS3 version of the game. This won't be priced mods created specifically by Epic Games for the title, but mods created by PC players using the PC toolkit which would be available to PC players.

The usermade mods announcement made for quite the early holiday gift fro Sony to PS3 early adopters. This looks like one thing that on-line console gamers have been wanting since on-line gaming become a hit on the current consoles. The fact that neither Sony and Epic would filter the mods before making them available for downloading, or brought over by way of Memory Stick, should make the usermade mods availability almost instantaneous.

I remember enjoying The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind past it's lifespan on the PC by way of constantly looking for official and usermade mods that added new weapons, gears, tweaks to the combat mechanics and even full-blown dungeons and quests. That was one thing about the Xbox version of the game that made me feel like that game was lacking something about it.

Now with Sony and Epic about to try out this new experiment of PC mods to console game does this help console gamers get more out of their systems and thus help extend the fun factor of games using this ability. Or will it open up, in addition to the positive, console gamers to hacks, cheat mods and just plain old malware disguised as mods which could shutdown and damage a console gamer's PS3, or Xbox 360 or Wii?
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[fuji]

Games using player mods should never have permissions to alter any system critical area. In the Windows world, everyone runs as administrator... so any virus that infects it has free reign on the system. Console makers will lock a game in a sandbox so that it cannot affect anything. Games should run in a non-privileged state so ti can't do any serious damage. Count on Sony and Nintendo to at least understand the most basic level of security.

However, that's not to say it's not possible. Of course it is.... But we all have the Internet at least in some form so we can do a little bit of research prior to installing it.
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[Sniper_Zegai]

I think its safer to say that Sony will screen popular mods and make them available like new maps and stuff are available on X-Box live. It would be safe and fun. Who knows how they will do it though.
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[Tullaryx]

Well, if I read the articles and blog entries on Kotaku, Gamasutra and the like correctly then Sony will not be monitoring and screening mods created by PC players and taken by PS3 players to be used. They'll be relying on users policing themselves instead of Sony taking on the job.

Epic and Sony seem to think this is the best way to promote a new community-based modding system to help keep Epic Games for the PS3 extend their life in regards to gameplay.

I, for one, would like user-created mods for my console shooters, but then I would most likely only download and use mods from people I know. But not every gamer is as careful and some will probably end up using something that has a chance to spread from their console to the network they're signed up on.

Even with Sony doing some minimal screening process will usermade mods still end up becoming more of a problem to balance whatever enjoyment it may give the player. I know that on-line multiplayer FPS games have always had the problem of some players using cheat mods and hacks to pretty much ruin the on-line gaming experience for some. Even with Halo 2 which wasn't even on a PC platform when it first came out had problems with some players using cheat mods and hacks to ruin games for people. I'm guessing this is why Microsoft instituted, for the moment, no usermade mods to be made available to its Xbox Live players.

Who exactly is in the right in this debate over usermade mods? Is it Sony for allowing an open-source environment free of regulations? Is it Microsoft who has kept a more rigid, but stable environment for console on-line gamers?
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