Discussion: Is Adult Modding Slowly Dying Out?

[RathAzu]

Hey all, 

Just wanted a place to put words towards something that I've noticed, and see what other folks' opinions are. 

Now, I know that even in 2023 there are a ton of really talented, dedicted people either starting work on new projects or maintaining and expanding old ones. I don't want to diminish any of their efforts - I enjoy a -ton- of what they're putting out. But I wanted to talk more about overall trends. I've noticed that when a new game releases, it can usually fall into three brackets of adult modding: mass adoption, niche adoption, and no adoption. We all know at this point that the mass adoption games are your Bethesda titles, The Sims, Rimworld, Stardew Valley, and a few Paradox games (more on that later). These games tend to be both extremely moddable and extremely systematized - games that are about crafting player-generated narrative that is compatible with making those narratives extremely slutty. The latter part is important - it's why games like, say, Slay the Spire don't take off. They're extemely moddable, but they don't have much potential for smut on a narrative level - just card reskins and the like. I think what tends to make a healthy mass adoption of adult modding for a game is that ability for people to generate their own porny stories through gameplay.  It's why I'd argue that Cyberpunk never took off - there's no real -systems- behind the hood. It's just a first person shooter. 

For niche adoption games, these are fairly common but, as the term implies, rather limited. Games where people see the horny potential, but the game just doesn't present the modding capabilities necessary to fully realize it. (Kenshi, Conan Exiles, etc.) OR games that do have that capability, but the art style or other game element alienates people's horny inclinations. (Wildermyth.) OR OR games ( and admittedly, I'm kinda talking out my ass here) that are SO complicated that adult modding tends to be rather daunting. This is kinda the impression I've gotten for stuff like Project Zomboid or Dwarf Fortress.  Niche adoption tends to get an immediate-on-release swell of interest, then tends to result in a one or two extremely talented people making one or two mods, without much further expansion beyond that. A lot of the time those mods tends to be reskins or nude textures, rather than systems. 

And then, obviously, the no adoption. Your triple-A lockbox games wherein modding is either totally unfeasible, undesired, or both. Not really worth going into these, IMO. 



My observation, my concern, is this: when was the last time we saw a mass adoption game release? Was it Crusader Kings 3? The game where adult modding basically seems to have stalled out almost completely because the behind-the-scenes system weren't as flexible as everyone was hoping? (Again, speaking mostly as a layman outsider - this just sort of -looks- like the case from the outside, and I'm happy to be corrected.) And when do we think we'll get another? Because the problem that I'm observing is that really robust mod structures, especially the ones that allow for pornification, are falling out of favor. I do not think there's a chance in hell that Starfield is going to be even a quarter as moddable as Fallout 4 was, and that game already kinda seemed to accept its script-modding begrudgingly. Bethesda will likely never put out a game as moddable as Skyrim again. They're just don't see themselves as incentivized to do so. I'd be very surprised is Sims 5 doesn't follow a similar trajectory. 

Which means we're going to keep getting a lot of niche adoption games. But as those resist people's efforts, present frustrating roadblocks, I wonder how many people with the technical know-how to produce adult mod will experience burnout and just step out of the hobby entirely. I already feel like I see three or four games come out a year, in recent years, that get a small swell on release of "this is IT! This is the new (x moddable game)!" and then they just . . . aren't. 

Anyway, what do y'all think? Am I just catastrophizing? What do you think the future of the adult modding scene will be? 

Edited June 21, 2023 by RathAzu

[MemoryH]

I can't believe you used "thus" wrong. You ruined it.

[RathAzu]

Woops, lol, that's just a full typo. Fixed. 

[Blehbreh]

There are a few reasons as to why adult modding seems to be on the decline, I happen to think it's just evolving or going through an awkward growing phase.

 

So games need to be built on the right foundation to keep the attention of modders for the long term. Games like FNV and FO4, Skyrim, all have a programming architecture that is very open and broad, allowing for more creativity. Though some of those games still required a script extension to load new code and sloppily at most times. These games also utilized developer tools that were free to use and relatively easy to use. Those types of games are the ones that have the longest active player bases.

We simply don't get a games like these very often as they take quite a lot of time, effort and money to make.

 

I am no programming expert, but I would assume that if it were even possible to create tools for a game such as RE4R that could inject entirely new maps, animations and animation cues, gameplay functions, voice lines, items and the like, RE4R would be one of the most modded games ever. The developer that was able to make tools like that may also be sued by Capcom, I'm not sure. Something to that scale has never happened before so it's hard to tell.

 

[Proserpina]

If you are talking about complete sexual frameworks with sexual animations like sexlab for bethesda games and others, they are always very rare in the modding scene. You can probably count by hand every games that have the whole sexual framework mod. Too much work and very time consuming, not many people have the skills and the time to do it. Maybe AI could help in generating assets like animations, arts, models and textures to reduce the workload, provided that there is no censorship in the use of AI in the future.

 

For simple nude mods, not really, just search "nude"or "naked" on Nexusmods website (on the main/homepage of nexusmods, not tied to any game specific sections: https://www.nexusmods.com/) and you'll regularly get a bunch of new results almost every month. What could probably be a concern in the future is the increase of mods monetization or paywalled mods. I've also noticed an interesting trend in the adult modding scene, that is the authors of nude male mods (Mostly gay male mod authors, based on their profile descriptions: Sakura4, Loxoss, Yudokubos, etc.) tend to release their mods freely on websites such as nexusmods (the most recent example is the SF6 nude male mods and resident evil games), while the new female nude mods and their variants are mostly locked behind paywalls.

 

The other threat to adult game modding is cloud gaming service like stadia which is impossible to mod. That's why I'm very glad that system flopped and died.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Proserpina

[RathAzu]

@Proserpina, what about the middle-ground between the two, do you think? Stuff like Stardew Valley or Neverwinter Nights modding that are less full frameworks, and more just horny content that isn't systemitized, but does have a bit more 'meat' than simply nude mods - stuff like that really horny module for Neverwinter Nights - I think it's called "a dance with rogues?" To the best of my knowledge, that uses almost no new animations, just a lot of writing and already-present system integration. (Skill checks, etc.) 

I've seen a lot of games come out in recent years that have full module creation options, but no one really seems to use those to tell more directly horny stories. Why do you think that is? 

Thanks for your insight, though, it was interesting to read! And now I have to look at that SF6 nude male mod. 

[Skömer]

more players means more people interested to mod a game, just look what's going on with genshin impact - ofc always limited by the limitations of modding tools available. mobile games are outpacing pc games in playercount but since they are seldom moddable there won't be any mods for them

 

10 hours ago, RathAzu said:

OR OR games ( and admittedly, I'm kinda talking out my ass here) that are SO complicated that adult modding tends to be rather daunting. This is kinda the impression I've gotten for stuff like Project Zomboid or Dwarf Fortress. 

the issue with dwarf fortress is less the complexity and more the amount of hardcoded features and limitations of the available tools.

you can't add in new skills, jobs, buttons, or (longer) social interactions... all very essential for a good porn mod imo. we are limited to mix and mash what vanilla RAWS make available (which can cause all sorts of hilarious bugs if tokens are used outside their normally intended use), or what dfhack makes possible - still very much limited by hard coded vanilla features. Also the player count rapidly fell off after the steam release hype

Edited June 22, 2023 by Skömer

[megaman12321]

Games back then were also just easier to mod, or rather they didn't have a ton of protections to mod. Unless it's natively supported or just reaallly motivated, mods are just hard to do. It took us near a decade to get a good Tomb Raider 2013 mod that was something other then texmod. People like KairosZX going through the effort of whatever Unity games he wants and modding them seems like magic to me.

[27X]

There are less adult modders because there are more adult devs.

[DatWombat]

Just throwing in my two cents here,

 

One of my primary motivations for modding games is accessibility. I can cope with complicated modding processes, but I don't have time to learning coding and pioneer complex frameworks. I wish I had a fraction of the knowledge Skyrim modders have. I wish there was a "modding such and such for dummies" to kickstart not only my modding, but to encourage more users to break into modding.

 

I want to mod "X" game, where do I begin? What if I want to add an animation? What are common pitfalls? How did he, or you make that body?

 

I think something that'll keep the modding community strong is documentation. Unfortunately, it's time consuming to break down your creative process, your workflow, and complex topics into laymen's terms. It's perfectly understandable why most folk don't even technically document their own work.

 

Whenever I learn how to mod a game, I carefully document my process; one of my goals is provide the resources I wish I had years ago.

 

Admittedly I haven't had a good browse of Lover's Labs modding resources, but I think my argument still stands; it took me many, many days to learn how to perform a simple mesh swap in Unity-based games. Lots of trial and error, lots and lots of sleuthing, countless failures. . . when the working process in practice is just a few minutes.  

Edited June 22, 2023 by DatWombat
Wombat doesn't know how to human

[Lordchaosc]

I personally think its mainly due to accessibility, time, and money. Most mods you can get for free and while you can donate to modders there is no incentive to donate to them. Time obviously due to work or other personal things. Accessibility depends on the game on how easy or hard it is to mod. I think with a framework it would streamline some things. Someone creates a framework, someone else makes sex animations for it, then another person adds a mod that uses both the framework and animation. This is why I think most games like Stardew Valley doesnt have much mods, infact it only has two I can think of: Devious Valley and Xtardew Valley. I also think it'd be easier for a person to instead of trying to get a game that wasnt intended for NFSW content would rather make their own farming game where you can either romance someone or just be a slut and have sex with everyone in town.

[9zs]

On 6/21/2023 at 11:12 PM, DatWombat said:

I think something that'll keep the modding community strong is documentation. Unfortunately, it's time consuming to break down your creative process, your workflow, and complex topics into laymen's terms. It's perfectly understandable why most folk don't even technically document their own work.

 

Some general 3d tutorials would be nice. Most are specifically for using skyrim tools, extracting game meshes, and game specific processes. Stuff like editing geometry to add anatomy, blending the textures and normal maps, adding things without fucking up the UV map.

 

Only thing like that I've found is Smutbase's Attaching Hotdogs in Blender

[synth_hate]

I see adult modding as more of loose collection of projects availing of opportunities than really any sort of cohesive thing.

 

Whilst Bethesda (in the past) considered the support of mods a selling point and something to growth the recognition of their titles strategically it was never more than an alignment of interests that would last until it didn't. The goal was to support modding so as to pursue business goals; it was never to pursue business goals so as to support modding. The failure of the incompetently managed paid mods fiasco burned a lot of good will (which considering how Neverwinter Nights years ago managed commercial releases of user created content really does demonstrate the problem was more greed, carelessness and incompetence than a fundamentally bad idea) and I expect a lot of management got cold feet and saw getting involved with modding as a hot potato (if not a career kiss of death), but the games-as-a-service trend and other commercialization trends were incompatible anyway so the result is things like ESO and Fallout 76, both by design incompatible with modding.

 

Regarding Paradox Interactive and modding my impression talking to anyone who has had modded Paradox games is that it's an infuriating and unrewarding endeavor where Paradox repeatedly release minor batches that fix low priority bugs and break mods leading to a lot of burnout even as patches leave major fundamental problems unaddressed which can in turn reduce the active player base. The games didn't so much come out with support for modders as they came out with no deliberate sabotage or roadblocks (but no documentation either).

Modding without being passionate about the modded game is just a second job with a lot of reasons to say "To hell with this, I quit". With adult modding as a subset and a fraction of those working on any projects that leaves it more fragile to any sort of collaboration falling apart, in turn leading to less collaborations and less ambitious, more infrequent releases. I don't think it's "dying" so much as it's shrinking because of a combination of opportunities that were only happy accidents created an increase in possibilities and those are no longer in play.

[boba58]

I agree with synth_hate.  For there to be an active modding scene in general, besides only adult mods, the games themselves have to be amenable.  More and more games are online-only, even when it doesn't really make sense.  So this games as a service trend that has taken over the industry has definitely had a negative effect on modding. 

 

However, there are many indie games which still allow and encourage complex modding, but indie games with a huge playerbase only come once in a blue moon.  For example, it seems to me like only Stardew and Rimworld have significant modding scenes even though there are nowadays many similar games within their respective genres.

 

Another issue that I haven't seen mentioned, but I think is a contributing factor, is the proliferation of actual adult games.  I remember back in the day, like when the Bethesda games like Morrowind, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 were coming out; there were hardly any English language adult games which were at least mediocre in quality.  Back then, the only adult games I could find with decent polish were from Japan.  I'm not saying the quality has improved that much, but certainly the volume of projects has increased.  To be honest, sometimes I question why I install adult mods into a game that isn't very erotic when I could be playing a game that was designed around sexual content if I were really in the mood. 

 

For instance, I just spent a bunch of time modding CK3 to be an adult game, and then I realized I don't even like playing CK3.  So, I've been trying to install overhaul conversion mods, but it's difficult to make those work correctly with the adult mods here.  I'm not sure if mentioning other sites is against the rules, but I could instead just visit this one site and see tons of adult games.  Sure, it's the not the same gameplay, but I think I latched onto the theme of running a medieval (fantasy conversion) state rather than the mechanics of actually playing CK3.  You probably have to approach from the opposite angle to actually appreciate adult mods, but even in those cases, it doesn't align sometimes.  For example, I love playing Rimworld, but it just doesn't do much for me in terms of using adult mods.

 

 

[whateverdontcare]

9 hours ago, boba58 said:

Sure, it's the not the same gameplay, but I think I latched onto the theme of running a medieval (fantasy conversion) state rather than the mechanics of actually playing CK3.  You probably have to approach from the opposite angle to actually appreciate adult mods, but even in those cases, it doesn't align sometimes.  For example, I love playing Rimworld, but it just doesn't do much for me in terms of using adult mods.

Did you find adult games about running a medieval (fantasy conversion) state? Those sound good to me.

[boba58]

11 hours ago, whateverdontcare said:

Did you find adult games about running a medieval (fantasy conversion) state? Those sound good to me.

Unfortunately, I can't recommend any off the top of my head.  There are games with elements of strategy or management, but like I said, the gameplay is different.  I haven't found anything like a Paradox grand strategy game or even a 4X (Civ-like) game.  Instead, I've been playing brothel management and porn business games. 

 

Also, there's many games where the fantasy story says you're the ruler of a state, but there's hardly any that lets you actually run it with meaningful gameplay.  I tried this one called Seeds of Chaos, and it's a nice branching linear story, but I never made it to the castle management part.  XXXivilization is kinda like civ, and it's definitely a strategy game, but it's pretty simple.  Brothel City is a city-builder, except you're building various kinds of brothels and amenities.  I found a few other strategy games, like Vae Victus, but again they're mostly like VNs, so I play adult management games rather than strategy games.  The situation is better with RPGs, even though many of them also have very simplistic gameplay.  However, I totally understand why so many people like Visual Novel style games in the adult genre; it just ain't for me...

 

...which is why I'm grateful to the modding community.  (back to the original topic, lol)