mod.io Newsletter: Supporting Developers & Creators
Improving our tools for game developers and content creators: mod.io UGC framework, UGC collections, Creators dashboard....
Scott Reismanis, CEO - We’re at the midway point of the year, and building on the accelerating growth we’ve seen since 2024; we’ve now passed 2 billion total downloads of UGC using mod.io. It took us about 5 years to reach 1 billion downloads, and it’s been just shy of 18 months for us to reach this new milestone.
These numbers are carried by an increasing number of games expanding their ambition when using mod.io for cross-platform UGC & mod support. Baldur’s Gate 3 has generated more than 250 million mod downloads since launching its official mod support last year. Last month, our friends at GSC Game World extended their collaboration with us, using mod.io to bring mod support cross-platform for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chronobyl. And back in May, we got to reveal our partnership with CD PROJEKT RED, who trusted us to help bring cross-platform mod support to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt later this year.
More importantly, even our growth isn’t solely carried by new releases. We see the sustained performance for titles years after their release. The VR modding space remains a hyper–active niche for mod.io, with games like Blade & Sorcery, Gorilla Tag, Pavlov, or Downshot each generating hundreds of thousands of downloads daily. These games buck the trends by hitting new highs years after release, once the creativity of their community is encouraged with accessible UGC support, discovery, and community features.
Anno 1800 has been live with mod support for two years, but recorded its best month with close to 1.2m downloads in May, supported by the release of the major modding project New Horizons. More recently, Dying Light 2 Stay Human introduced additional mod support, allowing their creators to share cosmetic mods via their in-game integration. Combined with their UGC Fest, this led to a doubling of their UGC monthly active users, and a more than +1000% increase in monthly downloads. July is not over, and it’s already by far their strongest month in terms of engagement around UGC.
Making UGC Support Easier
Delivering the best set of tools for developers to add UGC support to their game, and bringing a smooth experience to all their players regardless of their platform has been one of our main points of focus as of late. We’ve talked about Component UI and Cloud Cooking in our previous newsletters which solve critical issues when it comes to cross-platform support and in-game integration.
But if you keep up with our Development Diaries on the mod.io blog, you know we’re also working on simplifying the process of making games moddable with a new mod.io UGC Framework, already available in soft launch for our Unreal Engine plugin. And we’ve got some solutions cooking for multiplayer UGC support in both peer-to-peer and dedicated servers environments, as well as some exciting new quality of life functionalities like exportable metrics.
Of course, we’re keeping up with supporting the latest engine versions and platforms. Our new Unity v3 plugin has been updated with full console support and is 2x more performant, and Android support for our Unreal Engine plugin had a major update last month. As you’d expect, we’re already working on mod.io support for Switch 2, available in Q4.
The feedback we get from partners about the quality of our toolset and the increasing ease of mod.io integration has been humbling, with every new update benefiting all of the developers using our SDK & plugins.
Building a home for Creators
Another major focus we’ve set for mod.io this year is to improve our set of tools and services for UGC & mod creators. Our ambition is to offer the best platform for creators to create & share content for their favorite game, as well as manage their community.
Some of it is providing creators with the tools they expect and are used to, and mod.io has been missing so far. We deployed UGC Collections last month, allowing users to create and share collections of content on mod.io. We’ve also improved our privacy options to give people better ways to define how they want other users to be able to interact with them, and are working to give more options for creators to filter through the noise in their reports.
We’re also delivering new functionalities for creators, where we want to go further than what they’d expect. Our new Creators Stats dashboard is a prime example, giving an unprecedented level of detail to creators about who plays their content. It’s a first step towards building an all-encompassing & improved Creator Dashboard, a place from which they’ll be able to manage all their content, reports & notifications.
This cannot be achieved without working hand in hand with the top creators using mod.io. Last quarter, we kick-started our Verified Creators initiative. A private community gathering some influential and talented creators using mod.io, and we are now working with them to help us understand their needs better and contribute to the design of future functionalities and tools.
Meet us at Gamescom 2025
Our biggest event of the year is just around the corner, and as per usual, you’ll find mod.io at the IGEA booth in hall 3.2. We’ll have our dedicated meeting room, lounge area, and our (User Generated) Coffee stand that has come to be renowned throughout the business area for the best flat whites of Gamescom.
We’re showing up with a full delegation, and it’s the best time to schedule a meeting if you want to discuss your UGC strategy and plans for both live and upcoming titles, how to bring mod support to all your players, and opportunities to explore UGC monetization. Hit us up ahead of the show, and we’ll make sure to schedule a meeting!
Latest Releases
We’ve been super excited for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl to go live with their full in-game integration of mod.io to distribute mods cross-platform to players on PC and Xbox Series consoles. On the VR front, we love seeing more titles adopting modding, such as GORN 2, published by Devolver Digital, or creative puzzle games, We Are One.
