Introduction to Game Modding

Video games of all kinds are a huge part of technology and culture in 2019. A large part of the gaming community has become more and more passionate about modding. It’s an open source community that shares ideas, code, and mods with each other. Game mods can be done in a variety of ways such as unpacking files or modifying the code of a game to manipulate it.

The game modding is largely done using open source methods. This means that the code and instructions are put into online repositories where anyone can use and implement them. Open source coding is essentially a software industry standard. In fact, “93% of companies use open source for non-commercial or internal reasons.” Game modding can be a good way to introduce open source concepts and structure to someone young.

In information settings, such as libraries with teen programs, there has been an increased focus on providing tools and tutorials for young adults to find some sort of passion with technology. Libraries have begun to offer classes on coding, video editing, and creating makerspaces for their users. As the gaming community continues to grow, a library that offered a class on game modding could create the passion in a young adult for game development that could lead them down a successful career path later on.

We are going to give a fairly simple introduction to game modding in this tutorial that could be a great jumping off point for any teen services librarian looking to run a workshop on the topic.

Before beginning the tutorial it may be helpful to review the list of game modding vocab!