Since I was unable to download mods onto my switch, I chose to watch a modded let’s play series by Therm on Youtube that included a wide array of different additions to the game. Some of the mods included were aesthetic additions, such as Elle’s Seasonal Buildings and Starblue Valley, but the mods that I want to focus on were ones that added in new machines and ones that gave the player the ability to create automated systems.
The mod that introduced additional machinery to the game is called Artisan Valley and it includes 20 new machines that allows the player to produce a slew of new goods. The cost to craft each of these machines is quite expensive, with many machines requiring some combination of iron, copper, and difficult to acquire items, such as battery packs. Due to the high level of investment each machine required, playing the mod as intended would demand the player to spend multiple days “grinding” for materials.
While it was previously mentioned in class how this kind of mod pushes players towards accumulation play styles, I was particularly interested in how the addition of these mods intermingled with filming oneself for an audience. There is conflict between the monotonous nature of gameplay that characterizes resource accumulation and the kind of editing that is required to cut segments where watching the player “grind” would become boring for the viewer. The tempo of grinding in this mod of Stardew Valley, the lull between accumulating resources and reaping the reward of purchasing something, is out of sync with the attention span of viewers that the content creator needs to match. For this player, they were recording themselves playing around 3 in-world days per video, and voiced that it would not be exciting for people to watch them waste multiple days gathering materials to build just one machine. Since they needed to be able to constantly feature the new aspects of the mod to retain viewer engagement, they decided to “mod” the mod.
By going into the source code for the mod, they were able to reduce the cost of each of the machines, allowing them to build around one new machine per video, or at least make tangible progress towards a larger investment. The player’s choice to make this accommodation foregrounded how this mod sat at the intersection between the game of Stardew Valley and the game of Youtube content production. Modding was not limited to making the game itself more exciting, but extended towards making the secondary content the player was producing around the game more engaging to watch.
Over the course of this video series, Stardew Valley received a patch update which broke many of the mods packages that the player had implemented. Witnessing these mods become obsolete raised interesting questions about the relationship between modded content and the source material. Since many of the mods for Stardew Valley extend off of the base game, they require upkeep in order to remain compatible with the game system. This complicates the image of mods as being a subversion mode of design and play that can be free or divorced from the creator’s intent or power over the source material. While there is a plethora of self sufficient mods or ROM hacks for games, the durability of mods for games that undergo frequent update cycles seems far more tenuous. This raises questions about the long term labor that is involved in modding communities. How might planned obsolescence, or the capitalist drive to constantly being adding more into games impact modding communities in the future? And how will this shape fan cultures around modders being obligated to keep their mods up to date?
