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There is a mod community which I believe is still active.
Abandoned?
First - IIRC, there was an update/patch in 2017 that helped modders out. (Or something like that) So, there's that...
Second - Abandoned? Really? When you finish painting a room and the paint has dried and you leave to go paint another one, did you abandon the house?
It's a good game and I'm having fun playing it again even now. (I return to it ever-so-often, at least once a year. :)) I play with the "Colonial Charter: Journey Edition" compilation mod. It's fairly nice and has a ton of stuff, half of which I never use though.
The game is finished. Done. This is the way of the things. And, if something happened and an OS update "broke" Banished? The game is basically in its "stewardship" or "maintenance" phase as long as the developer is still alive and capable of making easy changes to keep it compatible.
So, in a way, any developer who has a product in the marketplace is still actively engaged with that product in some way. Someone's still gotta cash the Valve checks, right? Someone has to keep the product up-to-date with OS changes so it can stay in the marketplace, too.
Modding - People still make mods for Banished.
For an old game, the Reddit is still active. Whenever one stumbles across an old, popular, game and sees fan sites/forums/boards still active, it's a good sign the game is "very good." :) https://www.reddit.com/r/Banished/
Considering that very nearly all games eventually make it to Steam and that in order to buy them, you have to have a Steam account, then... the Steam forums for gaming have more members than their counterparts on Reddit. :)
There's a difference between games that you buy once when it's finished and get to play it for the rest of your life and games that get constant updates ("DLCs", "extensions", "season passes" or good ole free-to-play, pay-to-win games) for a price.
Before anyone mentions chess, I watched a video last night that said chess changed several hundred years ago because the queen used to only move one square. So even classics can take an update.
That said, I do think(agree) the best route is to make a solid base game, that is open to modding. I think that gives the best of worlds, it's good on it's own and you aren't obliged to any changes, but there can be as many new creators to carry the torch as the players will support.
It seems to me the creator SHOULD stick around to iron out bugs and balance issues. Until some arbitrary point, and I do agree Banished is very solid and balanced. But that doesn't seem to always be the case, most games have bugs or exploits after the devs have abandoned.
And any new content to me (DLC) seems it should come with a price.
Since Devs seem to get bored, and also because mods have new ideas and energy, I'd like to see a model where base games are developed that are easy modifiable, and then modders create stuff but the modders and the devs split the profit. I'm curious whether other people think that is a good business model? I have sent money to RedKetchup for example.
I'm happy. I found the mods just go crazy on supply chains, and I really don't find that fun.
I actually do like the supply chains, just for something new to do, but that also eventually runs out. And I do like the colored little houses just for some color in the bleak landscape.
First - I agree with your other points that aren't quoted. :)
Next - While I also believe that producing the best product possible is the only way to go, I can't speak for the developer regarding how they may have felt about their finished product. If it was me, i would have revisited it and fixed any reported bugs I could that didn't require a re-write. For those troublesome ones, I would have tried to compensate. BUT, in the end, there's only one bug that is potentially catastrophic and it's very, very, rare. (Map edge bug- eventually whacks colonist pathing, very difficult to control for other than building bridges everywhere in a hope they come home. :))
Agreed.
I disagree with this characterization. Developers have to "eat" and keep their electricity bill paid and put clothes on their kids.
Developing games is not a "game." It's a job. Games are the end-product result of work. The work is undertaken usually in the hopes that those attempting it can pay their rent with what they produce. Working ceaselessly on a product that no longer returns value for labor is... not productive in terms of paying living expenses.
But, yes, as far as polishing and cleaning things up to maintain acceptable quality levels? Absolutely.
That's extremely difficult.
Remember - The developer is the legal owner of the product and its intellectual property. A modder may make a mod for it, but is that developer then obligated to pay them for doing unasked-for work? No. Never.
If you woke up one morning to someone painting your driveway pink, would you pay them when they then demanded money for their "work?" Probably not... :)
The only way any modder or mod-team should receive official compensation for their efforts is when they enter into a legal binding agreement with the developer who owns the intellectual property they have created a product for.
I'll go further in stating that modders should not get paid for any mod, ever, that do not also have specific legal right to base creative works that are derived from that specific IP. Donations? Sure. But, they can not even once exchange a derivative work for monetary compensation without being taken to court.
Note: "Abandoned" : There are games out there that qualify as "abandoned" in the loose terms gamers tend to use these days. But, a finished product is not abandoned simply because it is finished. The Beta, Early Access, and ongoing work after release as well as maintenance and bug-fixing development cycles has produced an audience that is much more heavily engaged with development than they otherwise should be. As a result, when that development finally stops, they miss that engagement and declare themselves... abandoned.
It's just a product, not a way of life. :)
Meant to respond to this directly, above. But..
Yes. Once the player plays through the game a few times, they're pretty much dependent on some RNG and difficulty settings to carry interest through further playthroughs.
But, it's a game that screams for more.
What I experienced was much like the above, with the added demand that "this is great, but I want more of it." I wanted more interactions at a deeper level, more crafting, more crafting "results" in terms of getting that positive feedback for achieving a goal, more this/that/andtheotherthing too.
Mods serve a need for Banished in providing deeper crafting chains, "new" mechanics (not really new, just some really inspired kludgework that's "neato" :)) new visuals/buildings etc.
The most popular mods are modpacks/compilation mods that add deep crafting/production chains to the game that greatly extend play. They give the player something more to do with the game to support longer gameplay.
Without them? Banished is a great game that has a couple of playthroughs in it until the player gets a firm grasp of mechanics. After that, it offers repayability based upon a sort of novelty/nostalgia effect. (Revisiting play of a game after months of not playing it, for instance.) With mods? It's much more suited for replayability, but even then its usually just one long playthrough's worth and then another absence.
That's not so bad, really. The game's pacing is STILL excellent with mods. That's hard to do and it demonstrates the game has a pretty strong foundation, IMO. I've received much more value in my purchase of Banished than i have for some other games. :)