Understanding Modding Devotion, Practices and Motivations using Serious Leisure Perspective
Authors: 
Nicoletta Chiara Tancred, Selen Türkay, Nicole E M Vickery, Peta WyethAuthors Info & Claims
Pages 11 - 23
Abstract
Modding actively contributes to videogame post-launch life cycles. Prior research has investigated the motivations of modders, but most studies have treated makers and users as the same group. This limits our understanding of how and why people may engage and progress in modding as a serious leisure activity. In a mixed-method study (N=483), we examined whether modding can be conceptualized as a Serious Leisure Activity. Using the SLIM (Serious Leisure Inventory Measure), closed-ended demographics items, and open-response questions, we investigated how modders perceive themselves, their common practices, and motivations using the theoretical lens of Serious Leisure and Devotion. We found that the key motivation for modders is the enjoyment of creating content. However, we also found that modders are diverse in their practices and motivations to mod. They mod different videogames and make various types of mods, and their motivation changes with their levels of devotion. Overall, this paper contributes to the growing body of knowledge around the motivations and practices of modders.
Supplemental Material
PDF File
Appendix for the paper.
- Download
- 287.94 KB
References
[1]
Chee Siang Ang, Panayiotis Zaphiris, and Stephanie Wilson. 2010. Computer Games and Sociocultural Play: An Activity Theoretical Perspective. Games and Culture 5, 4 (2010), 354–380. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412009360411
[2]
John Banks and Sal Humphreys. 2008. The Labour of User Co-Creators: Emergent Social Network Markets?Convergence 14, 4 (2008), 401–418. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856508094660
[3]
Carla Barbieri and Sandra Sotomayor. 2013. Surf Travel Behavior and Destination Preferences: An Application of the Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure. Tourism Management 35 (April 2013), 111–121. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.TOURMAN.2012.06.005
[4]
Alan S Bellack and Michel Hersen. 1998. Comprehensive clinical psychology. Pergamon Amsterdam, New York.
[5]
Bethesda Game Studios. 2002. The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. Bethesda Softworks.
[6]
Bethesda Game Studios. 2006. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Bethesda Softworks.
[7]
Bethesda Game Studios. 2011. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Bethesda Softworks.
[8]
Bethesda Softworks. 2021. Creation Kit. https://www.creationkit.com/.
[9]
Katarzyna Bilińska-Reformat, Anna Dewalska-Opitek, and Magdalena Hofman-Kohlmeyer. 2020. To mod or not to mod—an empirical study on game modding as customer value co-creation. Sustainability (Switzerland) 12, 21 (2020), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12219014
[10]
Blizzard Entertainment. 2004. World of Warcraft (WOW). Blizzard Entertainment.
[11]
Jo Bryce and Jason Rutter. 2003. The Gendering of Computer Gaming: Experience and Space. Leisure Cultures Investigations in Sport Media and Technology 79 (2003), 3–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/0261436032000048966
[12]
Ergin Bulut. 2013. Seeing and Playing as Labor: Toward a Visual Materialist Pedagogy of Video Games Through Walter Benjamin. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies 35 (11 2013), 408–425. Issue 5. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714413.2013.842864
[13]
R. B. Cattell. 2010. Multivariate Behavioral Translator disclaimer The Scree Test For The Number Of Factors. Multivariate behavioral research 1, 2 (2010), 2010. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327906mbr0102
[14]
CD Projekt Red. 2015. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. CD Projekt.
[15]
Aleena Chia. 2020. Productive leisure in post-Fordist fandom. Journal of Fandom Studies, The 8, 1 (2020), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.1386/jfs_00009_1
[16]
Aleena Chia. 2021. 2. Self-Making and Game Making in the Future of Work. Game Production Studies (2021), 47.
[17]
Mia Consalvo. 2007. Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames. MIT Press. https://is.muni.cz/el/1421/podzim2014/IM082/um/Consalvo__Cheating__Gaining_Advantage_in_Videogames.pdf
[18]
Creative Assembly. 2017. Total War: Warhammer II. Sega.
[19]
Robert Cuthbert, Selen Turkay, and Ross Brown. 2019. The effects of customisation on player experiences and motivation in a virtual reality game. In Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction. 221–232.
[20]
Dheuster. 2010. Extra Dog Slot. https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonage/mods/664.
[21]
Alexis Dinno. 2015. Nonparametric pairwise multiple comparisons in independent groups using Dunn’s test. The Stata Journal 15, 1 (2015), 292–300.
[22]
DMA Design. 2001. Grand Theft Auto III. Rockstar Games.
[23]
Eric Ellis. 2014. Productive Play: Exploring Participant Motivations of a Modding Community Surrounding a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Ph. D. Dissertation. Pepperdine University.
[24]
FlashShifter. 2019. FlashShifter Stardew Valley Expanded Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/StardewValleyExpanded.
[25]
Maxwell Foxman. 2018. Playing with Virtual Reality: Early Adopters of Commercial Immersive Technology. https://doi.org/10.7916/D8M05NH3
[26]
Joana Freitas. 2021. Kill the Orchestra: On Music, Mods, and Immersion in The Elder Scrolls on the Nexus Mods Platform. Journal of Sound and Music in Games 2, 2 (2021), 22–41.
[27]
Don Getz and Tommy D. Andersson. 2010. The Event-Tourist Career Trajectory: A Study of High-Involvement Amateur Distance Runners. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism 10, 4 (2010), 468–491. https://doi.org/10.1080/15022250.2010.524981
[28]
Giants Software. 11 No25 October 2016vember 2011. Farming Simulator 17. Astragon, Focus Home Interactive.
[29]
James Gould, Dewayne Moore, Nancy J. Karlin, Diane B. Gaede, Joseph Walker, and Andy R. Dotterweich. 2011. Measuring Serious Leisure in Chess: Model Confirmation and Method Bias. Leisure Sciences 33, 4 (2011), 332–340. https://doi.org/10.1080/01490400.2011.583165
[30]
James Gould, DeWayne Moore, Francis McGuire, and Robert A. Stebbins. 2008. The Development of a Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure. Journal of Leisure Research 40, 1 (2008), 47–68. https://doi.org/10.1080/00222216.2008.11950132
[31]
Eleonora Hackman and Ulfrik Björkqvist. 2014. Modders of Skyrim: Motivations and Modifications. Ph. D. Dissertation.
[32]
Kirstin Hallmann, Laura Bogner, Kathrin Sander, and Konrad Reuß. 2022. Sport for a Livelihood and Well-being: From Leisure Activity to Occupational Devotion. International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure 5, 1 (2022), 55–77.
[33]
Jenna Hartel. 2009. Leisure and Hobby Information and Its Users. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition (2009), 3263–3274. https://doi.org/10.1081/E-ELIS3-120043076
[34]
Jenna Hartel. 2014. An interdisciplinary platform for information behavior research in the liberal arts hobby. Journal of Documentation 70 (9 2014), 945–962. Issue 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-08-2013-0110
[35]
Jenna Hartel, Andrew M. Cox, and Brian L. Griffin. 2016. Information Activity in Serious Leisure. Information Research 21, 4 (2016).
[36]
Eero Hirvonen. 2017. Improving the Game With User Generated Content : An Overview of Skyrim Mod Users. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Jyväskylä.
[37]
Humble Bundle Inc. 2021. Humble Bundle.
[38]
IBIBIHB. 2016. TSR- The Simsresources. https://www.thesimsresource.com.
[39]
Henry Jenkins. 2013. Textual Poachers (20th anniv ed.). Vol. 1. Routledge, New York, New York, USA. 1–2 pages. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004 arxiv:arXiv:1011.1669v3
[40]
Andrew Johnson, Preston Nevins, and Rob Romanchuk. 2013. Castle Smurfenstien. https://www.evl.uic.edu/aej/smurf.html.
[41]
Kristine Jørgensen, Ulf Sandqvist, and Olli Sotamaa. 2017. From Hobbyists to Entrepreneurs. Convergence 23, 5 (2017), 457–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856515617853
[42]
Daniel James Joseph. 2018. The Discourse of Digital Dispossession : Paid Modifications and Community Crisis on Steam. Games and Culture (2018), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412018756488
[43]
Henry F. Kaiser. 1974. An index of factorial simplicity. Psychometrika 39, 1 (01 Mar 1974), 31–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02291575
[44]
Keunyeong Kim, Michael G. Schmierbach, Saraswathi Bellur, Mun Young Chung, Julia Daisy Fraustino, Frank Dardis, and Lee Ahern. 2015. Is It a Sense of Autonomy, Control, or Attachment? Exploring the Effects of in-Game Customization on Game Enjoyment. Computers in Human Behavior 48 (2015), 695–705. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2015.02.011
[45]
Yong Ming Kow and Bonnie A Nardi. 2010. Who Owns Mods?First Monday 15, 5 (2010).
[46]
Julian Kücklich. 2005. Precarious playbour: Modders and the digital games industry. fibreculture 5, 1 (2005), 1–5.
[47]
Cass Marshall and Polygon. Janurary 6 2021. Cyberpunk 2077 Modders Are Fixing up the Game. https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/6/22215667/cyberpunk-2077-mod-scene-third-person-view-minimap-change-v-appearance.
[48]
Sandra Mathison. 2013. Purposeful Sampling. Encyclopedia of Evaluation (2013). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412950558.n453
[49]
Maxis. 2013. The Sims 4. Game [PC].
[50]
Kyle Andrew Moody. 2014. Modders: Changing the game through user-generated content and online communities. The University of Iowa.
[51]
B Nieborg, David and Shenja van der Graaf. 2008. The Mod Industries The Industrial Logic of Non Market. European Journal of Culutural Studies 11, 2 (2008), 177–195. https://doi.org/1367549407088331
[52]
David B Nieborg. 2005. Am I Mod or Not? - An Analysis of First Person Shooter Modification Culture. Creative Gamers Seminar Exploring Participatory Culture in Gaming (2005), 16.
[53]
Lawrence A. Palinkas, Sarah M. Horwitz, Carla A. Green, Jennifer P. Wisdom, Naihua Duan, and Kimberly Hoagwood. 2015. Purposeful Sampling for Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis in Mixed Method Implementation Research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research 42, 5 (2015), 533–544. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-013-0528-y
[54]
Nathaniel Poor. 2014. Computer Game Modders’ Motivations and Sense of Community: A Mixed-Methods Approach. New Media and Society 16, 8 (2014), 1249–1267. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813504266
[55]
Hector Postigo. 2007. Of Mods and Modders Chasing Down the Value of Fan-Based Digital Game Modifications Introduction: Fan-Programmers in Context. Games and Culture 2, 4 (2007), 300–313. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412007307955
[56]
Patrick Prax. 2016. Co-Creative Game Design as Participatory Alternative Media. Ph. D. Dissertation. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004
[57]
L. Price. 2017. Serious Leisure in the Digital World: Exploring the Information Behaviour of Fan Communities. November (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/0165551516658821
[58]
Project Vaulderie and Atrblizzard. 2014. Goodnight, Sweet Prince. http://www.projectvaulderie.com/archive/goodnight-sweet-prince/.
[59]
Reddit. 2021. Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/.
[60]
Rockstar North. 2002. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Rockstar Games.
[61]
Rockstar North. 2004. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Rockstar Games.
[62]
Melissa J. Rogerson and Martin Gibbs. 2018. Finding Time for Tabletop: Board Game Play and Parenting. Games and Culture 13, 3 (2018), 280–300. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412016656324
[63]
Melissa J Rogerson, Martin Gibbs, and Wally Smith. 2019. Understanding the Travel Motivations of Game Hobbyists. Proceedings of DiGRAA 2019: What’s Next?2019 (2019).
[64]
Dongwan Ryu and Jiwon Jeong. 2019. Two Faces of Today’s Learners: Multiple Identity Formation. Journal of Educational Computing Research 57, 6 (2019), 1351–1375.
[65]
Walt Scacchi. 2011. Modding as an Open Source Approach to Extending Computer Game Systems. International Journal of Open Source Software and Processes 3, 3 (2011), 36–47. https://doi.org/10.4018/jossp.2011070103
[66]
Robin Scott. 2018. Nexus Mods. https://www.nexusmods.com/.
[67]
By Sean Cory Targett Regina. 2011. A Study of User Created Interfaces in Video Games. The University of Regina(Canada) (2011).
[68]
Yuri Seo. 2016. Professionalized consumption and identity transformations in the field of eSports. Journal of Business Research 69, 1 (2016), 264–272.
[69]
Kim L. Siegenthaler and Irma O’Dell. 2003. Older Golfers: Serious Leisure and Successful Aging. World Leisure Journal 45 (1 2003), 45–52. Issue 1. https://doi.org/10.1080/04419057.2003.9674304
[70]
Olli Sotamaa. 2009. The Player ’ s Game. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Tampere.
[71]
Olli Sotamaa. 2010. When the Game Is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices among Computer Game Modding Culture. Games and Culture 5, 3 (2010), 239–255. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412009359765
[72]
Robert Stebbins. 2014. Careers in serious leisure: From dabbler to devotee in search of fulfilment. Springer.
[73]
Robert A. Stebbins. 2008. Right Leisure: Serious, Casual, or Project-Based?NeuroRehabilitation 23, 4 (2008), 335–341.
[74]
Robert A Stebbins. 2010. Flow in serious leisure: Nature and prevalence. Leisure Studies Association Newsletter 87 (2010), 21–23.
[75]
Robert A. Stebbins. 2015. Play in Art and Entertainment., 65-87 pages. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137513038_5
[76]
SureAI. 2018. Enderal. https://enderal.com/.
[77]
Tahira. 2015. War Table - No Waiting. https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonageinquisition/mods/479.
[78]
Nicoletta Tancred, Selen Turkay, Nicole Vickery, Peta Wyeth, and Anna McCoombe. 2020. Understanding Women Modders Using the Serious Leisure Perspective. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Honolulu, HI, USA) (CHI ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376351
[79]
Joshua G. Tanenbaum, Amanda M. Williams, Audrey Desjardins, and Karen Tanenbaum. 2013. Democratizing Technology: Pleasure, Utility and Expressiveness in DIY and Maker Practice. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2013), 2603–2612. https://doi.org/10.1145/2470654.2481360
[80]
L L Thurstone. 1947. Multiple-factor analysis; a development and expansion of The Vectors of Mind.University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, US. xix, 535–xix, 535 pages.
[81]
Selen Turkay and Sonam Adinolf. 2010. Enjoyment of customization in multi user online games: A survey study with World of Warcraft and City of Heroes/Villains players. In EdMedia+ Innovate Learning. Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 592–601.
[82]
Shenja Van der Graaf. 2018. ComMODify: User Creativity at the Intersection of Commerce and Community. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61500-4
[83]
Richard L. Webb. 2009. The Online Game Modding Community: A Connectivist Instructional Design for Online Learning. Ph. D. Dissertation. Capella University.
[84]
Wesp5 and ModDB. 2018. VTMB Unofficial Patch. https://www.moddb.com/mods/vtmb-unofficial-patch.
[85]
Wube Software. 2020. Factorio. Wube Software.
Index Terms
- Understanding Modding Devotion, Practices and Motivations using Serious Leisure Perspective
Recommendations
Understanding Women Modders using the Serious Leisure Perspective
CHI '20: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsModding, the act of custom creation in videogames, is a large enterprise comprising millions of people. Despite the large number of individuals creating mods, our understanding of who modders are and their motivation for modding is limited. This is ...
Malleable Games - A Literature Review on Communities of Game Modders
C&T '19: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Communities & Technologies - Transforming CommunitiesThe creations of people who modify games (game "modders") have had an significant impact on economics of game development. Being part of a creative participatory culture, their mods serve as a source of inspiration that has even steered the direction of ...
Gamifying Serious Games: Modding Modern Board Games to Teach Game Potentials
Gaming, Simulation and Innovations: Challenges and OpportunitiesAbstractThe growing interest in game-based approaches is evident. But establishing Gamification and Serious Game processes are challenging, especially when there are few available resources and game design knowledge. Low-tech and low-budget games can be ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
December 2023
733 pages
ISBN:9798400717079
DOI:10.1145/3638380
Copyright © 2023 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 10 May 2024
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
- Research
- Refereed limited
Data Availability
Appendix for the paper. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3638380.3638386#ozchi2023-6.pdf
Conference
OzCHI 2023
Acceptance Rates
Overall Acceptance Rate 362 of 729 submissions, 50%
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 265Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)265
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)49
Reflects downloads up to 16 Feb 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
View options
View or Download as a PDF file.
PDFeReader
View online with eReader.
eReaderHTML Format
View this article in HTML Format.
HTML FormatLogin options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in