As I have echoed several times to the point of redundancy now, Skyrim wasn't really my cup of tea. It didn't capture my attention in the same way that previous games in the series such as Daggerfall and Morrowind did, but I may be partly to blame for this. In my ripe old age of twenty six, I have played a lot of games since my first NES at five years old, so the thrill of new things has been diminished for me over time. Now that I feel like my life is blasting by, I might be yearning for an older, more simpler time. Yet, luckily, the rest of the world keeps on turning regardless of my involvement in it.

Even still, Skyrim won the hearts and minds of millions around the world, and continues to do so, and this is a very positive thing. It means that people are not yet ready to abandon the simple pleasures of a dark fantasy setting, that their imaginations are still going strong; that they are still willing to dream regardless of the daily, anchoring troubles of reality that they still have to face every day. As someone who will likely ignore it completely, I was extremely excited to hear about the release of the Skyrim Creation Kit, for exactly this reason.

Modding tools, custom scripting languages and map editors are an absolute godsend to burgeoning amateur game developers. They provide what is essentially a flexible route to bypass the seemingly colossal barrier of game design; learning a programming language. These days getting into programming is easier than ever. With hundreds of robust Integrated Development Environments and just as many stand alone programming languages, anyone who wants to spend a great deal of time sitting in front of a computer screen, learning the ropes, and getting into the grit of it can do so without issue.

In the early days of home computing, people had to settle for much much less. Using different iterations of the BASIC programming language and being put under the constant pressure of ram limitations, it is a wonder anyone broke through those walls and ended up being developers themselves. But they did it – a lot of them did in fact – which is why we have so many memorable designers, and so many memorable games. To mangle a popular Jurassic Park quote, “games find a way”, and they do so regardless of easy to use tools such as the Skyrim Creation Kit. What these things serve to do, then, is act as an artificial barrier all on their own, and create an environment of constant problem solving, a key element in game design.

When given a fully functional mod tool and a scripting language, the resulting product on the end of many users doesn't always come down to a simple level or character mod. Entire games, many which are still popular to this day are the result of what are ultimately restrictive, compared to a full program language, modding programs because people will do anything they can to bend the rules they are given, to push their tools to the absolute limit. These limitations are what drove so many innovative games in the early eighties, and even the nineties. It was asking the question “can we even DO 3D?” that resulted in revolutionary games such as Wolfenstein and DOOM. And in the case of the modding community, turning a game of Warcraft 3 into Defense of the Ancients, or a game like Half-Life into Counterstrike was likely a result of similar questions.



I would love to know just how many game designers got their inspiration from making simple maps in Lode Runner, or mod files for DOOM. When developers of big name titles release their own creation kits like Bethesda is doing, it creates entire communities of people writing mods, and sharing their work. Out of all of these people, at least some of them will create mods of a very high caliber, and out of all of them, some new game designers will be born.

Have you ever sat down to learn a programming language? It's a fairly daunting task after you write your first “Hello World!” program, or your first calculator or number generator. Programming is something that is almost entirely unnecessary for anyone who doesn't use it as part of their job, making it a non-essential skill which is almost completely impractical as a hobby for most. Many people avoid it because of the initial intimidation, and the logic of “what am I really going to ever use this for?” Most programmers program for a practical reason, there are very few who do it as a hobby because programming, as much as people will say it is an art, is a mechanical process of mathematical problem solving. If you don't have a problem you need to solve, you don't have a reason to program, plain and simple.

A hobby like that is for the obsessive, for the ambitious, and often, for the strange. Watch any interview with developers of the older era; they are absolutely never boring. Some of those people are undeniably bizarre, but the genius they possess is usually clear as day. Most of them will admit to practically living in their offices, whether they worked for ID Software, Interplay, or Atari, and the memory of a lot of these people is legendary to say the least. Most people who love video games will probably never begin to touch game development because that passionate, obsessive drive isn't there; and if game development is anything, it's an extremely demanding process.

But with the industry growing every year, becoming a giant of untold proportions as it already has, there will constantly be a need for more designers. And in an age where most of the big A titles are being pushed out by one or two massive conglomerates, the continued creativity and evolution of game design will rely on the little guy, the guy who starts with mods like the Skyrim Creation Kit, and moves onto bigger things once he has exhausted every possible outlet of creativity a tool like that has to offer.

Companies like EA and Activision are no longer pushing games forward. The industry has found its own personal Hollywood in companies such as this who are willing to constantly shove similar games out the door in the attempt to grab a quick buck wherever possible. That isn't to say that there are no longer any creative people working within those companies, but I'd venture to say that their offices are relatively introverted-basement-weirdo free. Anytime I see footage of behind the scenes game design, I see normal people; college people, people who took computer science in school, people who are now being trained in a mold of game design that is familiar, and comfortable. The idea that there are now entire schools for game design is both heartening and frightening; it's great that design has now been distilled down to a teachable form, but bad at the same time because simply put, you cannot teach creativity. You can teach a writer how to put a sentence together, but you can't teach them how to be “good”.



The days of the one-man company, the innovator, are not over. But they are hiding elsewhere, in a corner somewhere, taking PayPal donations and selling their games through XBLA or Steam, if anywhere. There is still a chance for them to influence the larger industry certainly, but for the most part, they will be supported by gamers themselves; not by the casual crowd, not by Wii buying mothers, and not by most people with a Call of Duty Elite account. It is essential we don't lose these people, and only by continuously making high level modding tools, map editors, and open source game engines will we continue to find more of them, to allow them to prosper and grow, and hopefully, to continue develop fascinating and innovative software that will continue to push the envelope of what games are capable of doing.

You can say what you want about the perceived overstressed importance of the independent developer, but the fact that there is now a distinction makes them all the more needed. It's proof that there is a clear line between ingenuity and what ultimately ends up being just another batch of shovel ware sent out to feed the masses. If the game industry now has a Hollywood, it is just as guilty of the constant onslaught of the mundane, persistently pushing the same title forth into the mainstream until the consumer feels battered and tired, their senses completely blunted, just waiting to get on to the next big thing. But when publishers demand their developers to produce the exact same thing time and time again, it is up to someone else to innovate.

Modding communities and independent developers will always be around, but can use any support they get along the way. Just like kids learning BASIC seems like a far away and distant impossibility now, people will always find a way to cross barriers and follow their dreams. Games will find a way. But giving these people the tools they need to penetrate those walls more easily is a very positive thing.



That is why I care about tools like the Skyrim Creation Kit; because it means more fantastic games in the future, which is good for everyone, both developer and consumer.

Well, and most importantly of course, for me.