I've been thinking recently. I bought the game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and enjoyed the game immensely. Then I downloaded the Oblivion Lost total overhaul mod and enjoyed it x2, and there's a stable of other mods I'd like to try.
My question is, when a company is making a game, why don't they go around and look at 'Alright, here's a modeler that did some really good work modding this game. Here's a modder that did this really popular mod. Here's this guy that does ridiculous CS:S maps'.
Why don't they take all these people, shoot them an email saying "Okay, we'll pay you $500 up front, $1000 when you're done, and basically what we want you to do is work together modding this game, we'll give you a month or so, then at the end, we pay you and we take your code, integrate seamlessly into our game, and that'll be that. Sign this this and this saying you won't release our code or talk about the game and everything will be cool, k?"
It seems like if game companies (that actually gave a forget about making a good game) really wanted to make the best damn game possible, they would go talk to all the people that improved upon it and pay them to do just that.
