The big difference is that people used to mod existing games. That allowed modders to leverage the game's engine, gameplay design, art, and even its existing playerbase.
Having a full-featured open-source game engine is great, but starting with that means starting at square one.
By obsessively enforcing copyright and "anti-cheat", we effectively bury the game-making process 6 feet underground. Every game is declared dead at the very moment of its release. Every decision its creators made up to then is set in stone. The game studio itself must exist in isolation, ignorant of the very world it is creating its games for.
It's no wonder that AAA studios are so out of touch with the people who play their games. Gamers are explicitly excluded from the creative process.
That's their loss. Meanwhile Minecraft is the most sold game ever, and Roblox is probably not far behind. (That one comes with its own issues, but hopefully children are sick of those by the time they become teens and are ready to move on to something more open ?)
Having a full-featured open-source game engine is great, but starting with that means starting at square one.
By obsessively enforcing copyright and "anti-cheat", we effectively bury the game-making process 6 feet underground. Every game is declared dead at the very moment of its release. Every decision its creators made up to then is set in stone. The game studio itself must exist in isolation, ignorant of the very world it is creating its games for.
It's no wonder that AAA studios are so out of touch with the people who play their games. Gamers are explicitly excluded from the creative process.