mod․io Newsletter: Supporting Baldur's Gate 3
Larian setting a new standard for mod support, and juicy numbers on the value of UGC support from GDCo research.
Scott Reismanis, CEO - Our partnership with Larian Studios and their use of mod․io services to bring official mod support to Baldur’s Gate 3 has been live now for 7 weeks. Working with Larian has been incredibly exciting and humbling; embracing their outstanding level of care and demand for quality in the end-user experience has been transformative, pushing us forward and driving many improvements to mod․io, which we’re now making available to all studios we work with.
Baldur’s Gate 3 in-game mod support (now out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC and Mac) is an advanced benchmark for what can be done in the field. The results align with the game's exceptional nature and Larian’s work. With over 50 million downloads of mods since launch, more than 2000 mods available for PC (and over a hundred curated for Mac & Consoles), and over 40% of Baldur’s Gate 3 players engaging with mods.
Larian Studios built their custom integration using several of our premium services. Our studio SSO solution allows players to sign in using their Larian account and synchronize their collection of mods across all platforms. They built the Baldur’s Gate 3 mod website using our Embedded Web Hub solution, keeping their players within their own domain without relying on a third-party platform. Of course, content approval and moderation across platforms are handled using mod․io dashboards and systems.
Anecdotally, during launch time, the activity generated by Baldur’s Gate 3 players more than tripled the overall use of our servers and infrastructure, with more than 3 million downloads a day for that game alone. It’s a massive milestone for us to absolutely nail the landing and ensure a smooth start for all of the players seeking mods to enhance and personalize their experience. Overall, the feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive, and we couldn’t be more proud to have been entrusted with this work. With still some polish and improvements, we’re looking forward to supporting the game and our friends at Larian for the years to come!
Commercial Impact of UGC support
Late last year, we commissioned GameDiscoverCo to do some research on how commercially impactful User-Generated Content (UGC) was for games. Using Steam data, they measured the impact of official UGC support on game retention and revenue. We shared this data with partners at GDC and Gamescom, and it's now been published by GDCo.
We were expecting the results to confirm our belief that adding UGC support would always positively impact a game’s commercial success, and the numbers very much reinforced our perspective. Based on data from the top 1000 games on Steam, the study shows a 23% revenue advantage and a 90% retention advantage after 5 years for games supporting UGC.
This impact is observed for all games, regardless of genre, even when UGC or mod support is added post-launch. Our dedicated blog article provides more numbers and a detailed analysis of the research's results.
Premium feature: Playtime Insights
We see a lot of value in better understanding how players interact with UGC and allowing games to build experiences based on these insights. Building on our live metrics foundation, we’re introducing a new premium service: Playtime Insights. This service allows a studio to not only get live stats on the quantity of UGC downloaded by their players but also on how they’re playing with that content.
This new system allows you to track concurrent players (CCU) interacting with UGC, the quantity of content they’re playing with, and the duration of play sessions. As soon as the functionality is activated, this data is integrated into your existing mod․io dashboards. It’s a new frontier which opens the possibility to see the impact different types of UGC can have. For example how long do players spend playing custom levels, vs. changing their characters and content skins and settings. Downloads alone cannot tell that story and we believe this feature will be loved by studios and creators because of the new intel it unlocks.
Playtime Insights is now available as a premium feature and is ready to deploy if you integrate mod․io with our C++ SDK or Unreal Engine & Unity Plugins. We want to refine it based on early adopters' feedback and requests. So, if the possibilities it opens align with your plans, and you’re interested in integrating it into your game, now is an excellent time to contact us! You can also check the Playtime Insights documentation.
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