Articles - Mod DB

Hello indie developers. 11 months ago we let our community know that we are building mod.io, a cross-platform mod API for games. A number of games signed on as early adopters, and last month we proudly powered over 100,000 mod installs.

Today, we are happy to announce the launch of our Mod Browser and Manager plugin for Unity, which makes it easy to integrate user generated content directly into your Unity Engine games. It is highly adaptable, open-source, has built in UI with search, supports all stores and takes minutes to setup and get running. Features include:

• Platform agnostic, supporting 1 click mod installs on Steam, Epic Games, Discord, GOG, itch.io with plans for full-console support
• Connect your community, with our Discord ModBot and embeddable web app
• Synchronized subscriptions, mod ratings and installs
• Powerful search, filtering and tagging of mods
• Flexible default UI, with easy integration

If you are familiar with Steam Workshop but need a solution that works on Steam as well as the Epic Games Store, itch.io, Discord, GOG and other places in the future, then mod.io for Unity is the tool for you. For non Unity Engine developers, anyone can start using mod.io via our API or C/C++ SDK, we are building plugins for other popular engines like Unreal and will email you as they become available.

If you are interested in experimenting with mod support, we'd like to hear from you and invite you to download and start using our Unity plugin. We look forward to enabling the creativity of your community, and extending the life and success of your game with mods.

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The IndieDB, ModDB & mod.io team
Scott, Pat, Turu & Jackson

At DBolical, we are huge believers that mods bring out the best in games. From the moment we launched ModDB in 2002 and started playing mods like Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, Insurgency, Killing Floor (and so many others) we were hooked. Today, indie games like RimWorld and Cities: Skylines with incredibly active modding communities inspire us, and reinforce our belief that enabling the creativity of the community is a very powerful thing.

Two years ago we started working on mod.io, an open mod API for game developers (much like Steam Workshop) that allows user-friendly browsing, uploading, and installation of mods. With mod.io we are building a highly customizable drop-in platform to support mods (for studios large and small), that has allowed us to work closer with game developers than ever before.

Now that mod.io has approached the point where we are ready to onboard games to further our vision and help developers succeed, we are proud to announce a brand new initiative: Modularity. Modularity is a new games publishing division with a focus on investing in and supporting games that are created by modders, inspired by mods, or have strong modding support themselves.

Some of the biggest games that still reign supreme today were spawned from mods: recent smash hits like PLAYERUNKNOWN's Battlegrounds coming from the ARMA 2 mod scene; Dota 2 having its roots as a Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos custom map; the highly-moddable Cities: Skylines becoming the true city-building genre successor; or classics like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive rising to the top of the Steam charts from its humble beginnings as a Half-Life mod.

Modularity is looking for the next generation of games that have the chance to stand tall as mod-focused titles. Games with a fierceless independent streak. Games that dare to do something different. Games that, in finding success, steer the industry in a whole new direction with their creativity, innovation, and strong sense of identity.

Modularity is thrilled to announce its debut title under the label, Meeple Station - a highly moddable space station building simulator which, after already seeing great success as a top-selling beta on itch.io - is launching on Steam Early Access today. Inspired by deep and creative simulations like RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress, Meeple Station lets you build and manage a habitat for your meeples, all while surviving the dangers of deep space like meteors, pirates, and deadly alien encounters.

If you're a developer who has found their start in the mod scene, is working on a game with strong mod support, or is inspired by other mod success stories, get in touch with Modularity and tell us why you think your game is incredible, and what kind of assistance you need to realise your modding-powered vision.

Our objective at ModDB is to preserve modding history when possible. It's a rewarding challenge that requires 10 servers to run, 15 terabytes of space, and 10 gbps of bandwidth (all constantly growing). Occasionally communities close down as happened with GameFront (which some of the original creators are now painstakingly restoring) and unfortunately it's happening today to withSIX.com.

For the unaware withSIX.com is a modding community and application that began 10 years ago, with a passion for ARMA mods. As ARMA grew and mods like DayZ and PLAYERUNKNOWN's Battle Royale burst onto the scene, their popularity exploded. But over time change has come, and rather than do a poor job summarizing their history, it's probably best you read their teams farewell post on Medium:

Despite many efforts to introduce interesting and innovating features over the years, we must concede that the costs to maintain and run the servers have become too high. As less and less users are using our services, we reached the point of no return. We are at a point in gaming history where the results of modding have never been felt greater, but sadly only a few true supporters remain and its future remains uncertain.

When we discovered this news we reached out, and their team graciously volunteered their time to help us archive content submitted to their site, which you can browse here on withSIX. Unfortunately we were unable to keep their mod launcher and custom code running, but did our best to organize the mods in an easily accessible manner. NOTE: We attempted to filter out mods pulled from 3rd party sources and only keep a handful of mods available via withSIX.com. If you are the creator of one of these mods and would like to claim ownership of your content or have it removed - please reach out, we'd be happy to assist.

Finally we'd also like to acknowledge the other amazing dedicated ARMA modding communities (like withSIX), which continue to go strong today: Official Bohemia Forums, ARMAHOLIC and their Workshop communities. You'll be missed withSIX, thanks for supporting such an amazing mod community for so long!

You may not be aware, but the DBolical Network of sites which includes ModDB.com, IndieDB.com, GameFront.com and mod.io is proudly Australian made. We reach over 5 million people monthly around the world but so rarely get to meet anyone down under. Occasionally we manage to fight our way through the snakes and kangaroos and E3 is one such event.

If you happen to be in LA from June 11th to 14th and are keen to have a chat, please reach out to hello@dbolical.com. We are in town and will be taking our latest creation mod.io on a road show for game and engine developers, that want to take control and grow their modding community across all platforms. Of course if you just want to chat about mods or your indie game thats fine too!

See you there.
❤️ DBolical Team

For the 4th year running the time has come to kick off Mod Appreciation Week 2018 and talk about our favorite mods. Nothing is more motivating than knowing something you've built is being enjoyed by others. So this week if there is a mod you love on Mod DB (or anywhere else), make the effort to shout out to them, mention and link their mod in a tweet, blog, forum or facebook post with the hashtag

#modlove2018

Just click any of the handy links provided, then post a message with a link to the mods profile to help raise awareness and appreciation for your favorite mods. Or follow these steps:

1. It doesn't matter where your favorite mod is hosted be it on Run Shoot Think Live, GameBanana, Curse, Workshop, Nexus or Mod DB.
2. Copy its URL then write a post explaining why you like that mod (you could write this post on your blog, in a forum, a tweet or facebook) the more we share the better.
3. Tell us about your post by linking to it in the comments here.
4. At the end of the week we shall be picking a few lucky members who left a comment following these rules at random, and giving them a key to one of the games listed below as thanks for helping us celebrate mods!

We have partnered up with some friends of ModDB (want in?), who have always been mod-friendly and deserve our love, and will be giving them away to participants. We've got a handful of keys for the games listed below - just follow the steps above to be eligible to win! Game developers, do you share our passion for mods and want to giveback? Get in touch and we will add your game to our #modlove collection. We promise to promote your game whenever we run an event like this, by giving away a handful of keys each time to the participants.

Win games

After you have linked to a mod in a tweet, blog, forum or facebook post, let us know by leaving a comment with a link to your post. At the end of the week we shall be picking a few members at random who followed these rules, and will send them a key from one of the above games.