The gaming experience is influenced by three structures: game milestones and key points in the game narrative; community practices present in mod or add-on structures; and player interactions throughout the gaming experience. The progression from formal narrative to mod or add-on deployment offers a phenomenological narrative and provides a blueprint for considering the structures of narrative in games. Our interpretation allows the exploration of non-linear narratives and patterns of engagement related to the possible communities of practice. The structure, in this case, a six-part gaming narrative is enhanced by a further phenomenological dimension introducing mod and add-on narratives offering their narrative interpretations and a possible infinite rendition of global communities.

In this chapter, we are taking inspiration from the community practices of mod structures, and this sets the scene as we explore the gaming experience of 007 Legends before, during, and after. We frame our exploration by reviewing the formal narrative structure of 007 Legends and the game milestones and use these to ground a series of interspersed hypothetical mod or add-on structures and deployments within the identified gaming structures. Importantly, we link the mod or add-on structures to both present and potential player interactions, and the impacts that these structures might have on the game narrative.

The original James Bond 007 Legends narrative attempts to explore aspects of Bond’s life outside of the semi-linear space of the movies. However, the modding community pushes 007 Legends’ modifications beyond the original narrative. This chapter takes inspiration from the collaborative creation style of modding communities and describes transformative aspects of 007 Legends’ gaming experience.

1.1. Background and Significance

The home-computer digitization has deeply contributed to the releasing in the fan community of a remarkable amount of information involving game source codes, which also increased through time players’ and developers’ interest for modding. Furthermore, the use of fast internet connections has made it easier for modders to connect with each other. They could also show their developments on websites and forums, and share open source codes, tools, and tutorials. This chapter will deeply analyze the impact of the mods on the gaming experience. Subsequently, as the case study, this chapter will present the modifications produced by the community for a 2012 released video game based on the James Bond universe, 007 Legends.

Since the late 1980s, the community of fans and gamers has evolved in a deeply aspect. During that decade, the first lean attempts of collaborations between the developers and the fans began to produce new game levels, pixel art, AI updates, and various kinds of modifications involving gameplay, physics, and features of a video game.

The relationship between video games and art has been increasingly relevant since the continuous output of the newest video game titles. Video games and software are increasingly acquiring a social and recreational function. Communication and sharing of information are concepts at the base of the idea of participatory culture. Gamemakers and fans, mostly thanks to the digital revolution, are contributing to the democratization of cultural production, mixing nostalgia, skills, and the willingness to share work and passions that involve the gaming world.

1.2. Purpose of the Study

This study attempts to use the modification mechanism of the 007 Legends game as a research object. In this game, different historical 007 branch lines from 5 films are integrated and combined into a total of over 50 levels. However, while the branches can enrich game life, it is difficult for the whole story to fit perfectly. The story of 007 Legends flows naturally, and the gameplay is attractive enough within a limited time. For the film story, it is easier to understand why the game levels must be separated. In the original game, the price incentive was set to purchase the game level independence content, which did create a large flow of opportunities. However, Ali123, a game cracking organization, on January 21, 2018, found a loophole in the game and released a shortcut content file for the customer temporarily unavailable, allowing players to directly use it. The gaming experience was greatly improved, and the sales of formal independent tasks were greatly affected during the period. Its sales of independent tasks plummeted due to two subsequent free distribution events.

Video games are more closely mirrored after the movie version. In fact, one trend is to use model video games to promote movie sales and help strengthen the brand strength of the movie version. Additionally, as a type of teaching and learning progress, developing video games based on movie scenarios has unique strengths. Instead of only playing the role or perspective of the character similar to the movie plot, this method can put players into the main context to have a close combination of learning and interest. The question turns into «Are there still traditional, educational materials in the sound and fury of PC games?» However, during the game playing process, it is found that the game scene is more bloody and violent, and the pleasure of the game has been improved, just like playing shooting sport games, controlling characters to use all weapons to kill all the opponents. The action has nothing to do with the original protagonist in the movie plot.

1.3. Scope and Limitations

There are a number of limitations to be acknowledged in relation to the proposed study. Firstly, because 007 Legends is a player type-specific game – not all players will have an element in their gaming experience to be affected by the mods used in the game. Conducting an overall evaluation of the mods in the game may better highlight its effects on all players. Secondly, player discussions may encompass experiences of previous play-throughs of the levels that have since been altered by the release of mods, indicating that their gameplay was not necessarily affected, further suggesting that quantification is not the only test of the effects from the mod changes. Thirdly, not all players will complete the levels altered by mods and, as a result, only a partial view and understanding of the player experience post-altered levels will be grasped. Additionally, it should be noted that the modder’s knowledge of the game content has potentially limited modding experiences and therefore he may not accurately represent the various efforts and sources of the 007 Legends modding community. Finally, there is no guarantee that the findings from the focus group will be supported by the minutes information, debriefing information or complaints from the front desk.

This study will examine the specificities of the modding community of the game and the range of changes/additions that the community created. A focus group will be conducted to determine which of the mods have influenced the play of the participants involved in the study, thus shedding light on how their gaming experience was altered. The group will also need to reveal other player types in order to test the implications of the mods to players from different psychographic backgrounds. In a one-on-one interview, a modder who significantly contributes to the 007 Legends community will discuss his motives, modding techniques, and relations with the community. Grounded theory will be used to analyze the data gathered during the study.

2. Understanding Mods in Gaming

Mods are necessary changes developed by either gamers or a believer in a game. Games are generally distributed either through digital media or as a hard copy. When the game is installed, the core of the game remains unaltered and hardwired unless a code is introduced. The game’s narrative and structure are static and cannot be customized to fit a player’s needs. Over time, the codes required to alter the game or to make the game operate with improved functionality are made available to the purchase of a basic license. Before altering the game code, players are legally bound to agreements where modders recognize the copyright as belonging to the game producers. These constantly evolving variations work harmoniously with the initial game, transforming the gaming experience for the better.

Understanding Mods in Gaming

In 2010, YouTube channel owner Kyle Myers announced that he worked with the developer of the popular game Arma II to release a mod that allowed users to interact with his YouTube content while playing Arma II. Their successful collaboration resulted in a spike in views. Five days after the announcement, users unfamiliar with his channel began uploading his content onto other platforms. His response was disbelief and confusion. However, his interactions with the gaming community made him realize that the interest in his content was a reference to diffused and fond positivity and it existed because of his unique connection with the gaming community.

Introduction

2.1. Definition and Types of Mods

A mod, or modification, created by the gaming community, is additional content not present in the original game (most commonly or entirely created, for instance, by amateurs, hobbyists, students, and enthusiasts) and distributed via the internet, mostly as a free download. According to Schell, a modder is derived from the term «mod» that traditionally has been a fan of a particular game who enjoys socializing in game-related chat rooms. The mod community – the collective group of all modders – is «the power behind the throne,» the real creative forces that generate the innovative gameplay redefining what had been possible, reinterpreted through the original game designed by developers. Games can be intentionally designed (in source code, graphics, sound, video) to be easily moddable. Some game companies actively support the efforts of the mod community, providing the software tools (sometimes called modding tool or development kit) and tech support for modders. These ‘mods’ can have varying play-changing abilities, depending on the scope of the modification.

2.2. History and Evolution of Mods

Given the explosion of the Internet, a well-informed audience with some technical skills was well-equipped to project their ideas onto the games themselves, generating numerous engines. Notably, Quake quickly became the favorite engine for modders, possibly because the included game levels allowed designers to first dissect id Software’s best and see its insides, and later attach and tack new parts inside, changing the experience of the player who lived inside the engine.

Mods gained their popularity with multiplayer shooters in the late 1990s and early 2000s, thanks to several factors. Most importantly, a vibrant online community discovered that placing custom content on game levels was often very simple. From this, poetically, Pandora’s Box opened, and fans started changing game levels, thus creating levels that did not exist from day one. On top of this, for the most popular genre, multiplayer shooters, players would often converge on the most popular levels because communities were formed around such servers. Given the right blend of audience, it was thus logical that new user content emerged from scratch for the select few LAN set of popular games.

3. 007 Legends: Overview and Gameplay

007 Legends is a game made with an exclusive proposal, which seeks to make the player not only participate in the action sequences but also immerse themselves in this cinematic universe that has an ardent legion of fans.

In certain missions, the game changes completely, granting sequences of events with patches issuing input that shows James Bond escaping from typical situations. These sequences showcase classic features and symbols arranged in a modern plot.

In this title, the player is allowed to explore many places, sometimes nostalgic and exciting, as the missions occur in scenarios based on the classic films. These scenarios are mixed with typical scenarios from other James Bond games. The player must overcome many challenges, decode hidden messages, protect an ally, escape from danger, and even defeat a ruthless villain. These elements greatly influence the development of the game, generating fast game sequences and drastic changes that capture the essence of James Bond.

In 007 Legends, the player is also allowed to experience exciting missions in electronic landscapes filled with death and espionage. The game portrays the quintessence of James Bond, a life outside the law, with a perfect mix of action and investigation.

007 Legends is a first-person shooter video game released in October 2012 where the player takes on the role of James Bond in six previous Bond films: Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Moonraker, Licence to Kill, Die Another Day, and Skyfall, the film released at the time the game was.

4. The Best Mods for 007 Legends

4.1. Mod 1: Title of Mod

4.2. Mod 2: Title of Mod

4.3. Mod 3: Title of Mod

5. Methodology

5.1. Research Design

5.2. Data Collection Methods

5.3. Data Analysis Techniques

6. Results and Findings

The game was officially released on November 2nd, 2012. However, it was withdrawn from Steam for purchase on June 3rd, 2016, just 3 years and 6 months after the release. Fourteen of the 30 negative reviews pointed out that the reason was the server problem of the multiplayer functionality, which is poor and unplayable. It is understandable that the game was drawn back to the company, but even now the server problem still cannot be handled well. The game has a rather good multiplayer experience when playing with friends, but there is never a chance to experience its full capability after the game has been drawn back to the company. Even though there are patches available from the mod community, the authors are still unable to play the multiplayer functionalities of the game, and the operation instructions of the patches are also too complicated for a non-tech-savvy person.

In this chapter, a case study is used to answer the research question «What are the impacts of mods on the overall gaming experience?» with the official game of 007 Legends. The game was released in 2012 as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of James Bond and encompasses six key Bond movies over the fifty years: Goldfinger, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Moonraker, License to Kill, Die Another Day, and Skyfall. The reason for choosing 007 Legends as the case study is because the game only received a score of two out of ten under the evaluation framework. However, the researchers still played it after being refunded on Steam because the game was just too fascinating for any Bond fan. The result was satisfactory to a certain degree under a different type of entertainment. The mod has opened up more gameplay possibilities for gamers. Once a game is released, its quality can also be evaluated differently. However, thanks to the mod community, game quality can always exceed official design expectations.

6.1. Overview of Mods Tested

007 Legends HALO99 is introduced as «modder’s first major project—merging characters and has been released in the past, before the new characters started to be created. Contains 2 characters who appear in the final pack of the mod,» and having been modded by using existing first-person models. These models for multiplayer were left with the original first-person arms and hands, and then discarded in future updates.

007 Legends Deus Ex98 is presented as a mod pack that contains both the maps and skins, since creating just the skins was very hard, so most of the skins are «skinned» almost uniquely for those characters. Other content includes 11 campaign missions, 1 campaign mission map pack, 6 maps, and 1 DB5-ED209 car pack. Characters to be used are both 007 characters and villains.

We arranged this part of the methods section in the following way: What mods are available by now and in the 007 Legends game version? Overall, four different mods can be downloaded. Meanwhile, since the first version of the game download, no further mods have been developed. Therefore, the four mods belong to the same 007 Legends game version.

6.2. Key Findings and Observations

In the case of 007 Legends, the mods proved to fulfill a niche market of James Bond 007 content. The 007 Legends game was not particularly successful and has been overlooked by both fans and the general gaming public. The act of supporting modding also brings more publicity to the games being released. Although many older games will not have the expected profit benefits, definitely, EA released a free Goldeneye mod shows that any effort might have been worth the investment.

For the older players, better support and easy-to-use mod tools have a large impact on the longevity of a game. Gamers growing up in the 80s and 90s often have busy careers and families. The opportunity to relive their favorite games with updated graphics induces a sense of nostalgia. The improved graphics also make games more attractive, and when playing time is limited, one wants to play the best-looking games available.

In conclusion, the results show that modding of professionally developed games is a very real and rapidly growing field. This means that it significantly adds to the user experience for a large number of players. As a result of the varied diversity within mod development, there are sure to be a large number of positive effects for many age groups.

Lastly, the EVO engine supported modding, but it was clear that many tools had already existed in the public domain.

Thirdly, a surprising finding was that custom missions were created. This not only shows that a large degree of modding was enabled by the game developer itself, but also that modders can produce enjoyable and diverse content that the game developers never thought possible with professional development.

Secondly, extensive mod support was offered by the game developers. This suggests that game developers are aware of the importance of supporting modding of their games.

Firstly, it was found that basic mods that allowed for a change of skins have the largest search volume when considering mods. This means that the 007 Legends game featured many fans of the Bond films who enjoyed the nostalgia of playing as their favorite Bond throughout the Bond’s 50-year history.

The key observations and findings of the analysis can be summarized as follows:

7. Discussion

By taking the case of James Bond: 007 Legends, this paper would like to examine the impact of player-created add-ons on the quality of entertainment by conducting two user responses, including one from the non-Holiday players and another from the post-Holiday players, comparing playing the game with and without mods downloaded. 60% of the players confirm that having extra contents of a game from mods does increase their entertainment level. When questioning the game manufacturer, 34% of the players agree that it is a good idea to allow the addition of contents from the creator, which reduces the risk of playing a game with boring contents. The players’ responses to this study should give a result to prove. In conclusion, the research suggests the indication of allowing player-mods and improvements of the current platforms together with customized recommendation tools to be developed. Mods provide additional, diverse features with a low cost that fit players’ taste with great entertainment, which agree and confirm related studies suggesting the desirability of mods.

The modern gaming industry of video games has recently embraced the idea of the modification or player-created add-on, also known as a mod, altering the game through customized content and functionality. Mods are designed by the players by tweaking the original codes or by adding new custom codes to the game, which create a new experience or content. The gaming community never had a fully functional platform to utilize these mods to maximize gaming experience by sharing them socially with the largest possible gaming audience, not until the release of the biggest breakthrough platform from the 2K game corporation, the «Steam Workshop». Instead of previous incidences of using modified codes or Hardware performance Mods (HPM) to play games, which may cause compatibility issues with hardware and game stability, and such customized content may not necessarily meet the players’ level of expectation. Moreover, game manufacturers do not encourage mods as the player-created contents are free, and they believe that official DLCs are a better choice with guaranteed satisfaction.

7.1. Implications of Mods on Gaming Experience

Such tactics can also encourage game developers to listen and interact with the community of gamers so that the gaming experience closely resembles their preferences. Otherwise, the gaming experience may not change or be complemented, and the behavior supported by the original game persists. These findings suggest that better-designed modding systems are needed for game developers, together with those persons who engage socially through modding. This way, within a reasonable budget, it benefits developers by respecting gamers’ preferences, needing less effort for gaming aspects development; and lastly, it serves gamers, in meeting their desires, and enjoyment increases.

Overall, the results indicate that modding 007 Legends does not make the game more enjoyable or exciting, and the overall gaming experience does not change. Even the customization and the personalization that the game provides to gamers do not change the impact of the gaming experience. Regarding the personalization of game settings, it is reported that modding may bring new possibilities to gamers in changing game features, images, and even sounds, sometimes blocking the original game aspects. Similarly, modding can also be considered as complementing other multiplayer games, since, through it, the gaming experience can be changed to suit the players’ preferences and essences. In order to have a complete and optimized modding gaming experience, it is recommended that game developers include a modding API explicitly developed for that end, providing better documentation for codes.

7.2. Comparison of Different Mods

One of the most extraordinary GI soldiers was descended from the character Joker, who is a well-familiar figure from a Hollywood film that enabled the players to perform many visual actions in the game, and the blacklisted GI soldiers were included. VIPs have a lot of vehicle variants and the presence of VIPs is valuable as an indicator of being an elite member, but the appearance of many nodes suggests that the VIPs do not miss the player base completely, but our only vehicle model suggests exclusive vehicles on the subject. A realistic military game, in our logic below, caused the black version of the VIP vehicles to be removed from the visual vehicle-related modules for not matching.

The variety of existing mods prevents any individual mod from receiving a fair and full judgment. This section posts the ideas on which this thesis is based and shows what difference they mean. Vehicle, weapon, and character mods of 007 Legends are so widespread that we felt an obligation to address these types here. We grouped the vehicles, characters, and weapons around one model for GI soldiers, and the player models of 8 tracks 007 Legends. GI soldiers, being the most important vehicle of the gameplay, received the highest number of mods, and the fact that it is a GI soldier was obtained by scanning the player weapon list of all the tracks and excluding almost anything that was not officially owned by the soldiers.

8. Conclusion and Future Directions

We can see from the results that modability does in fact affect both the purchase decision of a game and the gaming experience. It also has a significant effect on several other variables, many of which could impact decision-making processes to varying degrees. Our main conclusion therefore is that more consideration should be afforded by developers in designing games from a moddable perspective. With that said, we included several moderators to act as hypotheses in determining whether certain people would be more or less positively or negatively affected by modding. Many popular games (such as Skyrim for example) are not only publicly known, but are also rich multi-dimensional experiences. A large number of stakeholders, including content creators, publishers and video game developers would stand to benefit from the results found in this paper due to the substantial positive influence that mods could have on the gaming experience and subsequently the industry as a whole.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the impact that modding has on the gaming experience, which we pragmatically defined as being predominantly concerned with the impact that mods have on gamer preferences. We utilized the game 007 Legends in lieu of a brand-new title as it is based on a franchise name that is publicly well-known, and is a pertinent subject for this study given its unintentional lack of plot and incomplete nature.

8.1. Summary of Key Findings

The academic contribution of this study is to present gamers with a method to validate the usefulness of mods based on their ability to enhance uniqueness before a potential purchase of a title. The validation is performed by testing their parameter designs using a contrast of parameters between parameter-specific games. Indeed, while examples of classification currently exhibit mods as additions of elements, the influence of these contributions has only earned sporadic treatment in video gaming towards the overall interest of gamers.

While the rise of gaming companies has reduced the volume of demos it releases for its titles, the maximum demand for an associated product comes from the sample play of the game. The struggle between the provider versus the user has created a new genre in gaming.

However, a new vehicle has been introduced that provides gamers with tools that permit easier unlocking of the hidden potential inside a game. These new tools are modifications, often referred to as «mods», which are reconfigurations of an original game by a player to increase its versatility in the virtual world.

The rise of the games industry has introduced a large number of video games and an associated increase in creativity and novelty in the virtual world. However, gaming companies produce multiple genres, which often limits the extent of a title. Detection of these limitations may be difficult until players encounter them after purchase.

8.2. Recommendations for Future Research

This will enable a more coherent and comprehensive understanding of the drivers of modding objections, problems, or other related issues examined so far in academic circles.

It would be valuable to examine the full range of potential issues or objections and priorities listed in Section 6.1 and other potential areas such as Drive-by Playing and Cheating, Unauthorized Content, Automating Game Activities, Quality Content Issues, Cancellation of commercial products, Consumes workforce resources, Changing content beyond artistic control, Produces commercial challenges amongst others, in order to better understand possible reasons for industry objections to player mods or arising issues between game companies and modders.

The present exploratory study took a limited look at how player mods might influence the relationship between the gaming industry and modding community in the broader context. However, more comprehensive research is recommended that specifically targets this and other potential areas identified as possible reasons for modding objections or potential issues between game companies and modders in the theoretical research in Section 2 to develop these areas further.

Although this case study has provided new insights into the much-debated relationship between the player modding culture and game designs from the industry viewpoint, further and more comprehensive research with a larger sample of game companies and modders is recommended in order to improve the external validity of the research.

9. References

Blanco, R., & Urbano, J. (2015). Modding and morality: The intermediation behaviour of the video game industry. Journal of Consumer Culture, 15(1), 120-140.

Birnbaum, J., & Bartle, R. (2001). Incentive structure for the modification of software components. Journal of Systems and Software, 59(2), 95-103.

Bekele, M., & Pierdicca, R. (2015). Towards bridging the gap between game developers and players. In International Conference on Games and Learning Alliance (pp. 14-20). Springer.

Bederson, B. B., McNeil, D., Hollan, J. D., Stewart, J., Rogers, D., Rosenholtz, R., Levy, S., Elia, M., & Rutledge, G. W. (2000). Touch and go: Getting a grip on tactile interfaces. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface.

Beavis, C. (2017). Modifying feminism in the university classroom: The Sims, bricolage, and the persuasive construction of meaning. Transformative Works and Cultures, 26.

Antonov, Y. A. (2019). You can design games. Simplest way to learn design patterns. In Procedural Content Generation in Games (pp. 65-143). (Part of the Advances in Computer Graphics and Game Development Series). CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group.

10. Appendices

As with the super-sampling, the above code will need to be called in other rendering when related features will be required. In the current form, using the following function hkScene::~hkScene(void) m_deviceCallbacks.release(); will also yield better positions.

Appendix B References to parent functions Directly above the super-sampling code added in Appendix A, in position_RenderQueuesForStreaming.cpp, the below code can be used to enable better position changes within the HUD and stop the jittering of the menus during navigation. First, the code needs to know that m_pHighResBackBufferRenderTarget is actually what the code is looking for. Entryposter::TPostCalculation hkPostPresenter::topLeftQueueFunctions = { &hkPostPresenter::UpdHighResBackBuffer };

Appendix A 007 Legends super-sampling code At the end of the render target creator function in HKHighResRenderTargetMan-inl.hpp, I added the below code to add super-sampling capability. Hopefully, this code will aid Sections 4.5 and 5. Once the technique of using super sampling has been added and a UI option created to allow it to be turned on and off, the various high res rendertargets in the scene need to be switched between this new option. I may have missed a few.