Kosmos zmodyfikowany — wybrane gry symulacyjne w kontekście kultury uczestnictwa

Abstract

Lawrence Lessig — in the book titled Remix — indirectly defined most of the dependencies that today determine the dimension and nature of modding related to games. Mods can be considered an eloquent example of Read/ Write culture. Players are not only consumers of digital games, but creators who exert more and more influence on the character of contemporary popular culture. The examples discussed in the article show three aspects of modding. The first example, concerning the modification of XWA, shows that the re-actualisation (modding) of the original text does not de-grade it — on the contrary — it prolongs its functioning and confirms its culture-forming character. The second example — related to the X-Universe series of games — is a testimony to the cooper-ation of professional programmers and modders, in turn, is a testimony to prosumption (modding), which develops the text of culture also thanks to the “democratisation of creation tools”. The authors (Egosoft) intentionally provide script editors with, even those rather unfamiliar with programming, players can introduce their own solutions into the virtual environment and test the functionality of their ideas. In turn, the history and culture-creating dimension of Discovery Freelancer makes it clear that even the most comprehensive mods are not competing with the original text — they remain concretisation of its (presupposed) potential.