Chapter 165: Game Mods

The development of hardware brought far more than just a major growth in in-game technology. Outside the games themselves, even the development structure within the office was undergoing drastic changes. 

It was almost impossible for a single person to simultaneously handle complex code algorithms, hardware, music, art, networking, numerical design, and every other aspect of development. 

Unless they had a cheat. 

The era when a single developer with a cup of coffee and a PC could create an entire world had already passed. 2

"Remember back when we were developing The Legend of Zelda, and just the two of us finished all the level designs?" 

Sam looked at everyone busy at work and couldn't help feeling nostalgic. There was a time when video games were in such a bad position that it looked like they might disappear altogether and be forgotten. 

Ethan smiled without saying anything. 

Once 3D technology matured, there would inevitably be another large group of modelers and animation designers joining the battlefield. 

Programmers simply couldn't do everything. So, lowering the barrier to entry and allowing more developers with ordinary technical skills but extraordinary ideas to participate in development was an inevitable trend. 

Ethan looked toward the somewhat reserved Kojima. In this regard, the future Kojima Productions had done an excellent job. They didn't bind themselves to rigid, traditional role allocations, but instead broadly recruited talented people from all walks of life. 

Aside from the positions that were absolutely necessary, it even brought in talent from completely different fields, including film and architecture. 

Selecting talent based on merit, and tailoring roles to their unique abilities. 

Ethan was trying to follow a similar path, but all of this depended on one crucial factor: lowering the barrier to entry for developers. 

"Sam, remember that game engine I told you about?" 

"Mm... You mean packaging all the mature modules together like puzzle pieces and making them available for developers to use?" 

"That's right." 

Ethan's gaze swept across everyone present before lingering on Carmack for a moment. 

id Software, or rather, Carmack and Romero, were absolute pioneers in this field. 

After Wolfenstein 3D, id Software pushed forward and released the Doom engine, and that engine, along with its next-generation Quake engine, served as the true starting point for game engines getting onto the right track. 

To be honest, Ethan was from the future. The technology available to him now was more than enough to build whatever functionality he needed, even if it meant writing assembly code from scratch. 

But he still couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing whenever he thought about the development tools of his time: Unity, Unreal, and even RPG Maker, which came with so much functionality already built in and ready to use. 

Why write a hundred lines of code for something that could be done in just one? All that pointless, repetitive work could have been spent on something far more worthwhile. 

"Once the Civilization project is complete, we'll officially begin development on the game engine." 

Ethan's eyes burned with determination as he made the decision then and there. 

"So, the design of this data sheet is also your way of making game development easier?" 

Sam stared at the spreadsheet in his hands, his mind racing. 

He had always worked hard to keep up with Ethan, constantly learning about the new ideas and technologies that seemed to appear one after another. 

But every time he thought he was finally catching up, he would look up and find Ethan already miles ahead of everyone else. 1

"Mm... More or less. But that's not really its main purpose; it's actually meant for something else." 

The serious expression on Ethan's face suddenly disappeared, replaced by a mischievous grin. 

"What?" 

"Gerald left a ROM slot on the NovaXeno. Guess what it's for?" 

Ethan deliberately kept him in suspense, casually pulling a small, packaged storage chip from his pocket. Its capacity was only a few dozen kilobytes, nothing compared to the hundreds of megabytes the NX's optical drive could handle. 

"Huh?" 

Sam blinked and frowned, trying to piece together everything Ethan had just said. 

"Is it... an expansion pack? Like the expansion floppy drive, we used with the NB?" 

That was the most suitable explanation he could come up with. 

Optical drives were far more expensive than floppy drives, and even if they developed another expansion device, it would be difficult to replicate the success they'd had with the expansion floppy drive. 

Besides, the capacity of an optical disc was ridiculously huge. It could hold up to 700 MB. What game in the world could possibly be too big to fit on a 700 MB disc? 6

The expansion pack technology they had first used for The King of Fighters had originally been developed because of the limited capacity of floppy disks, which made it impossible to fit all the content they wanted into a single game. 

The money they'd made from selling character packs had been a completely unexpected bonus. Even Sam hadn't expected the idea to be so profitable. It was practically a money-printing machine. 

The various character packs for The King of Fighters alone had already brought in considerable profits for them. 

"Bingo!" 

Ethan snapped his fingers and grinned. "It is an expansion pack, but not quite the kind you're thinking of." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I call it a Mod. Short for Modification." 

"Mod..." 

Sam repeated the word, which came surprisingly easily as he tried to understand what Ethan meant. 

"You mean modifying the game's actual content?" 2

"Mm... Not exactly. You could think of it as an expansion pack like before, and that would work too." 1

"Then what is it for?" 

"This isn't for us." 

Ethan's grin grew wider. 

"Not for us? Then it's for... No way..." 

Sam suddenly seemed to realize what was going on. His eyes widened, and he shot up from his chair. 

If he was right about what Ethan was planning, then whatever came next was downright terrifying. 

Don't let Sam's role at GAMENOVA fool you. Right now, there weren't many areas of development where he could actually contribute, so most of his time was spent handling the accounts and dealing with paperwork. 

But he had a solid background in game development, and he was a geek through and through. So, when it came to tinkering with games, Sam had never been one to hold back. 

"Fuck! This is for the players? A customizable interface? Holy shit!" 4

A system that gave players the freedom to modify game mechanics and content, while also allowing them to create and add entirely new features of their own. 1

And the most incredible part was that the developers themselves were officially opening the door. 

That meant players wouldn't have to painstakingly reverse engineer the game's source files or try to understand what all those obscure lines of code were supposed to do. 

GAMENOVA would make the necessary tools and information available to them directly, giving players the freedom to explore, modify, and create. 

Sam's eyes widened as he stared at Ethan in disbelief. The moment he saw the grin spreading across Ethan's face, he knew he had guessed correctly. 

"Mm..." 

Sam slowly sank back into his chair. When he looked at the document on the table again, he saw it in an entirely different light. 

This wasn't just about reducing the workload for the development team... it was about reducing the players' workload, too. 

Instead of having to dig through the game's files themselves, players could simply fill in a few fields and tweak some text descriptions to add an entirely new civilization or leader with ease. 

"What the hell? How am I supposed to keep up with you?" 

Sam suddenly felt like his brain was struggling to keep up with everything Ethan was throwing at him.