Nexus games popularity

[seweryn]

Since i get find a forum where to put here it goes.

This site started as morrowin/oblivion modding site yet the are nearly twice the number of mods for skyrim then for oblivion.

How in nine hells it is possible ?

When oblivion came out it was a huge, but somehow number of mods for oblivion is around 27k and for skyrim around 51k.

After playing skyrim, i have to say, i am supprised to say it, but i have more fun in oblivion then in skyrim.

Maybe it is because i do not like snowy regions or maybe i am getting too old.

When oblivion came out, i only game, all other things were secondary, now in the 30's i have other priorities.

So what do you guys/gals think, why skyrim is more popular then oblivion.

Number of mods clearly shows that.

I have no idea why, personally.

And what do you think ?

 

[DoctorKaizeld]

Better tools. The skyrim CK is newer and easier to use.

[montky]

@seweryn

indeed... that is a great question, and despite being deceptively simple, it seems a complex question.

you could write a dissertation in games-history or games-marketing studying that question.

 

As a fallout fan, a lot of folks try to cite the mods-per-interval rate for FO4 as 'proof'

that folks didn't like FO4... they compare quantity of Fallout mods amongst the titles,

and they look at FO4's present value, and say

"wow, there's a lot less than for FO3, FONV heck, even FO2".

though, it doesn't tell the full story, which will be known in the fullness of time.

FO4's DLC compared with Mods is an interesting story.

FO4's quality of mods compared with other FO titles mods are also interesting.

Ideally, they'd all be interoperable in the one engine, and folks'd be able to have a 1:1 scale procedurally generated "Fallout Universe" hehe

 

I enjoyed the predecessor to Oblivion, Elder Scrolls 3.

I didn't like Oblivion as much... and enjoyed skyrim.

I played Oblivion, though I didn't put in nearly as many hours or effort.

maybe 80hrs total? I didn't break into the 100s of hours hehe.

 

I think there are a few variables at play -

we have to do a back-of-envelope for the audience/playerbase,

quantify the types of mods and cross-compare them,

as well as look at the lifecycle of a game,

and how much the games industry has changed in the last 10 years.

 

I think, the mindset for a modder has changed.

There are more people, and more likely to volunteer now as compared to earlier in games history -

earlier, there weren't as many people who knew how to make mods of increasing complexity.

what motivates a modder to make a mod? is it only altruism, or are other factors at play, and how have those other factors changed?

perhaps it is a change in those other factors, or an increase in altruism? a little of both?

so, i suspect those are key factors why substantial mods or complex overhauls weren't as common with previous games... yet.

Qualitatively cross-comparing over time, I think more mods from earlier games, as a general rule, were cosmetic. and more substantial mods were very rare and few and far between.

whereas now, thanks to modders and game industry embracing and tolerating modding,

we're seeing a lot more of all kinds of mods projects.

people have the training, the toolset and skills to make it happen, more than before,

so they make mods.

 

maybe the real-world is near a great depression mark 2, though it seems there are enough people with

enough work-life balance, to be able to make mods happen. maybe they are increasingly seeking escapism from an over-confined real-world

I think this factor in the overall mix, is a critical one.

 

games shouldn't go out of fashion, just look at Chess or Go-ji, still one of the most popular games ever... :laugh:

though tastes change,

and the game industry is moving away from

"use one engine and keep working on that', user owns their copy of the software etc to

rapidprototyping, user-pays-as-they-go, and putting more content behind DLC paywall.

that is, if gamers will tolerate that and keep tacitly supporting that norm with their purchasing power.

 

I think that will have an influence too;

there'll be more mods, though perhaps of less substance,

maybe there'll be less in the base game and that's why there are more mods...

-----

 

So, do I think we can infer the popularity of a game merely by the number of mods presently available for it?

not reliably. I think we'd need to do a census or self-reporting assay to determine who liked what about it hehe.

Yes, I think the number of mods per time interval can slow to a trickle, a 'mods drought',

though it will always be quality over quantity.

 

Peak Popularity any time t : a value, near the end of the "maximum hype bubble" (marketing and futures-ese)

Popularity at given timeframe: a different value - if we define this as "out of 52 weeks in a 1 year period, how many hours per year and per week, do you spend playing x,y,z game?" we would get a different value.

If we define it as 'alive' if people play more than 15% of their gaming hours per year on a single title (Kotaku, IGN, GameTheory),

then you'd be looking for people to answer that they play Oblivion for more than ~230hours per 52 weeks of a year.

How do we define a game's lifespan for mods? More than x amount of new mods for the game in a 52 week period? more than y mods per quarter?

Is there, from a computer science/systems theory standpoint, a 'peak mods' for a given game that the game can handle,

or is the limit more a function of time, ERoEI, and returns?

 

Is the number of 'new' mods related to the "monkeys and typewriters" problem? - ie, there are combinatorially only so many mods which can be made from the given constraints at a particular time?

what is a 'substantially new' mod?

 

Fashion will change - people will like other games and want to go back and add to those.

and it might increase the mods-per-time-interval.

Will the mods-per-time-interval ever exceed the mods-per-time-interval value in that "new hype window"?

that's an open question. I want to say "it's possible", though it'd take a lot of folks rediscovering something to make that happen.

[DoctorKaizeld]

Dang montky your answers are fun to read

[repusDude]

I don't know about other people preferences but... for me:

 

I play Skyrim, because I want to play Skyrim. I didn't play oblivion because I don't want to.

[DrakeTheDragon]

My personal view? Look at the sales numbers. More games sold means more users of the game and/or mods. More users in general also means more authors as a subset of them. And the numbers are so significantly bigger, it's no surprise the number of authors, and subsequently mods, is as well.

 

I'm not sure I'd count it down solely onto popularity here. It's not like Oblivion wasn't likewise popular back in its own days. It's just the overall number of customers has exploded for most Bethesda titles, not the least also thanks to the massive support with mods.

 

 

Oh, and as for me, I'll be sticking with Oblivion for like the time being. It wasn't my first, but I sadly must admit it is likely to be the last I'll be interested in. Can't get into Skyrim at all, although me and my brother played it half a year on his 360 through and through. The over-hype essentially killed it for me long before it was released, and ever since then what I witnessed in the comments or discussions does not make me want to share any mods for it in future either. So sticking with Oblivion it is, my personal happy place, and the community I'm still feeling "at home" and welcome in. But that's just me of course.