"Mod" culture in gaming is an incredibly powerful, creative force that is responsible for nearly all popular games today. It allows non-technical users to tinker, create, and distribute to an engaged, pre-installed user base. A list of notable examples: (1/7)

Counter-Strike, one of the most popular first-person shooters of all time, originated as a mod of Valve's Half-Life 2. Valve quickly acquired the IP in 1999 and now, over twenty years later, the franchise is still consistently in the top 10 games on Twitch. (2/7)

The entire genre of MOBA (Multiplayer, online battle arena i.e. League of Legends) started as mods of Blizzard titles (Starcraft & Warcraft III) using the in-game map editor. Valve hired IceFrog, the modder behind DotA, to develop their own MOBA, DOTA 2. (3/7)

The popular genre of Battle Royale (i.e. Fortnite, Call of Duty: Warzone) started as a mod of a mod. Brendan Greene, better known as PlayerUnknown, modded DayZ, a mod of ARMA 2. Bluehole hired him to create their game, PlayerUnknown's Balttegrounds. (4/7)

Roblox is a game where modding *is* the game. Not to be confused with Minecraft, the sandbox nature of the platform specifically embraces the creative energy of the community to tinker, share, and monetize their own games. (5/7)

Auto-Chess is the latest genre to emerge from mod culture, originating from DOTA 2 by Drodo Studio and responsible for inspiring Dota Underlords, Teamfight Tactics, and Hearthstone Battlegrounds. (6/7)

Aspects that rhyme with mod culture are observable well beyond gaming. Low-code/no-code, APIs & developer ecosystems, chatbots, and browser extensions, all harness creative energy by reducing the friction of tinkering and/or subsidizing distribution. (7/7)