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Modders-Turned-Devs, We Want Your Stories!

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It’s no secret that modding communities are the unsung heroes of the gaming community. Every time we turn around, there's another incredible story of modders shaping the future of gaming. Take The Stanley Parable, which started life as a Half-Life 2 mod, or Enderal sweeping up the Best Fan Creation award at the 2016 Game Awards. So, this got us thinking… what other stories are out there? How many go from modding texture packs to designing environments for AAA games? Maybe your quest mod somehow led to a job writing dialogue for RPGs? Whether you made tiny tweaks or massive overhauls, we want to hear how you made the jump from modding to professional game development. 

  • Get featured and share your journey
  • Show off your current projects (cheeky bit of self-promo) 
  • Inspire the next wave of devs who are currently where you started
  • If your journey is featured, we'll send you a game key to say thanks. We have keys available for the Resident Evil series, Dying Light, God of War: Ragnarok, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, and more! This offer is available until December 2027, with the potential to be extended. 

Drop your story via the link below and we’ll reach out about featuring you. Bonus points if you include silly screenshots of your first mod (just kidding, unless...?). It may be an interview on our website, social media spotlight, or something else entirely (we have plans for some exciting stuff content-wise in 2025. Cheeky side-eye emoji.)  This is an open invitation - the form has no closing date, so we look forward to hearing from you! 

Share Your Story

40 comments

  1. StuykGaming
    StuykGaming
    • premium
    • 215 kudos
    Threw my hat in the ring. It has been a long time since I've done any major modding, but modding did give me my first steps into a professional career.
  2. Galejro
    Galejro
    • member
    • 421 kudos
    Added myself to this event, I'm happy to be part of the modding community for Bethesda games, have been modding for over 19 years as far as I remember and now I am developing a whole game in of it's own in Skyrim. Probably should become a standalone developer myself but first I gotta keep a promise to the fans of Vampire the Masquerade community.
    1. HALTT77
      HALTT77
      • supporter
      • 6 kudos
      Man ..I am eager to see you mod haha
  3. Pherim
    Pherim
    • premium
    • 268 kudos
    While I always knew that I didn't want to get into the games industry, modding was still an important step towards my current job. Around 2013 I started making graphics mods for Morrowind, but I had already done a lot of 2D and 3D stuff in my free time before that. Still, I learned a lot from modding that was very useful later when I returned to university in 2019 to study Virtual and Augmented Reality, which was closely intertwined with Game Development. While the curriculum was very programming-heavy (which was a challenge for me at the time, especially with the Corona Pandemic which started in my second term), my previous experience working with 3D models was invaluable for creating the various projects I worked on together with my (mostly programming) classmates.

    After finishing my degree in early 2023, I started looking for a job where I could use my broad range of skills, but it wasn't so easy considering my lack of professional experience in combination with my not-so-young age, and that I did not want to get into games or, if I could help it, the car industry. It took a couple of months, but then I found a job at a big University here in Germany, developing Virtual Reality applications for research projects. Being kind of a Jack-of-all-trades who understands both art and programming to a degree really pays off in this job and I have a lot of freedom to create awesome things, while also getting the satisfaction of taking part in research projects that may lead to useful applications.
  4. rashikgutpa1994
    rashikgutpa1994
    • member
    • 1 kudos
    i am getting notification spam about this

    also, cheeky side eye emoji? you mean 😏 or 👀? 

    1. Iluviel
      Iluviel
      • Product Manager
      • 15 kudos
      Well, that's not good! Sorry about that, we'll find out what caused it and fix it.

      Edit: fixed!
    2. AnantaJennes
      AnantaJennes
      • member
      • 12 kudos
      " Cheeky side-eye emoji.)  "

      Can i assume that this "repair" or that "repair" failed?

      Vélelmezhetem, hogy ez a "javítás" illeve az a "javítás" sikertelen?
    3. SlugGirl
      SlugGirl
      • Content Manager
      • 67 kudos
      Hey AnantaJennes, that's actually intentional. Emojis don't work on our news posting system and Modsetti still wanted to add some of her flair to it how she could :) 
    4. Kinkycollars
      Kinkycollars
      • member
      • 7 kudos
      Oh.. 
  5. LatinGames
    LatinGames
    • premium
    • 75 kudos
    Although I have published more than 100 Mods in both LE and SE, most of them are Translations and/or adaptations of the Original Voices plus various Textures and Animation Frameworks, which I basically do for Hobby and for the Pleasure of Playing Skyrim in my Native Language, soon I will be publishing 2 Immersive Mods that replace the Texts based on the original voices in Spanish that will be a Hit in my community.

    Lately I've been missing the Absence of the Great Modders of the Past with their Fantastic DLC Size Creations, fortunately we still have VICN, JaySerpa and others, with the Return of mannyGT the hopes of Having Great Creations Again begin to grow again. Although I miss Modders of the Size of EnaiSiaion, razorkid, yourenotsupposedtobeinhere, HaemProjects, Mike Hancho, Felisky384, Illiani, antistar, Rigmor, trainwiz, Reath1 and many more who have contributed to making Skyrim a New and Amazing World very far from the original Creation of Bethesda

    To finish I will only say that Although I have played the entire Dark Souls Saga, Witcher etc, I always return to Skyrim 
  6. VyrX
    VyrX
    • premium
    • 0 kudos
    I started from creating and running World of Warcraft private servers over 15 years ago.

    I did study to do game development. However, I absolutely hated working on games, it made me notice all the mistakes and corners that existing game devs were making whilst I was playing in my spare time, and it was ruining my favourite hobby for me. Very obvious seams in what should be patterned textures, or seeing repeating patterns everywhere because they made the repeatable pattern too small to save time. 

    Now I shifted into Software Development where I work in the education industry. I do still make applications for managing game servers (I'm currently working on a mod manager for ARK Survival Ascended that has Curseforge integration).

    Modding does interest me, but it is hard to find any spare time to develop code for free. 
  7. SCARaw
    SCARaw
    • premium
    • 252 kudos
    i prefer modding old forgotten games, but gotta earn money to cover the bills
    since modding is additional thing that got me to learn blender, texturing and animations
    i might aswell get paid for it, i often wonder whats the point of playing some games if i end up fixing it
    finishing broken and balancing proper load order and modlist while paying corporation who sits on the IP
    1. iomatix
      iomatix
      • member
      • 2 kudos
      +1
  8. mrskeleexe
    mrskeleexe
    • premium
    • 47 kudos
    KospY would be good fit for this :) (fallout mods to blade and sorcery)
    1. Pickysaurus
      Pickysaurus
      • Community Manager
      • 742 kudos
      We actually already did a feature with KospY in this series a little while ago 
      https://www.nexusmods.com/news/14323
    2. mrskeleexe
      mrskeleexe
      • premium
      • 47 kudos
      Oh nice!
  9. IGRepublic
    IGRepublic
    • member
    • 0 kudos
    Like i said. MODDERS should be the DEVS. Stands also in my Discord avatar description.

    I saw ONLY the MW5 mods and what should i say...a whole new game and also strategically/management/customization wise...a whole new world.
    Playing the game for hundreds of hours to date. Spent 1h today only customizing the new 100t Devastator exotic Inner Sphere mech so you can imagine why i have hundreds of hours of playtime on record lol. ;)
    The games should be released exactly this way, also if the games are released 1 year delayed. It is defo worth the wait without whining about the delay.

    BR (and greetings from Clan Nova Cat):)

    IG 
  10. macrocosm144
    macrocosm144
    • premium
    • 21 kudos
    Id love to, but nothing yet, regardless, I have fun in blender & tinkering with things lol. Im interested to see what stories you collect, I've always assumed there was some who become so passionate with modding they continue & progress farther.

    I remember the guy that did Forgotten City mod for Skyrim, he went on to form a studio of his own, but you featured that already some years back.