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ModDB announces digital distribution for mods

Published on 17th December 2009 by Joe Martin

ModDB has launched Desura, a new digital distribution platform for both games and hosted mods.

Popular modding site ModDB has announced a new digital distribution service for mods and whole games, dubbed Desura and run by ModDB founder Scott Reismanis.

Desura will host both professionally produced content as well as amateur mods and will apparently be very community-focused, according to the official announcements.

"Unlike ["Steam, D2D, Impulse, GamersGate etc"] however which are just shops with little to no interaction between the community and the content available, we aim to bring the power and openess of ModDB to digital distribution," reads the official release.

This community interaction will apparently be manifested through user-authored reviews, blogs and screenshot galleries, while developers will be able to issue awards to users. On top of that Desura will feature all the standard digital storefront functionality - auto-patching, for example.

"We aim to make user made content as accessible as possible," said Scott Reismanis, "from simple maps through to entire conversions and even whole new games."

Desura will feature both free and premium content, though strangely Reismanis claims no publishers have been approached to put their games on the platform yet.

Desura is currently in closed beta while the kinks and bugs are all ironed out, with no launch date announced at the moment. Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

8 Comments

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proxess 17th December 2009, 11:19

For trying out new mods, this sounds pretty cool. I'm curious tho, how will this work? To play the mod you need the game installed, right? How will they verify that. On top of that, If the game is installed via Steam or any other digital distribution software, how will that work?!?!

Psy-UK 17th December 2009, 11:39

Good points, Proxess. This has already failed before it even begun.

Centy-face 17th December 2009, 12:06

I dont see the real problem I mean if the game is a steam required one it will just use that all Steam the program is is a list of shortcuts to the games it probably wouldnt be much different to loading into a server for tf2 via xfire if that makes sense. I love the idea and with the Unreal 3 tech now free as a standalone this could really offer up a great service. I am not entirely excited about having another program installed on my pc but certainly this seems to be a much more community driven one than steam and with better mod visibility without being an actual developer (see RO mods steam).

proxess 17th December 2009, 12:44

One thing is launching an already existing TF2 server, another is launching into a server of a MOD that isn't part of Steam. Steam does much more than just list shortcuts to games.

ffjason 17th December 2009, 13:35

Steam's mod support is crap though. Once a third-party mod is installed there is no uninstall button. It is the one thing steam is yet to get right! I'm glad ModDB are doing this! Hopefully they will gain a wider audience and more mods through offering this too! They are missing quite a few in my opinion. Still good on them!

C-Sniper 17th December 2009, 18:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by ffjason
Steam's mod support is crap though. Once a third-party mod is installed there is no uninstall button. It is the one thing steam is yet to get right! I'm glad ModDB are doing this! Hopefully they will gain a wider audience and more mods through offering this too! They are missing quite a few in my opinion. Still good on them!

It's called the "Delete local Content" button. Has worked for me everytime I uninstalled a 3rd party mod.

Saivert 17th December 2009, 23:00

there is no "Delete local Content" button or menu option for mods installed manually. Only mods available via the Steam store (downloaded via Steam content-servers) have this option. If you just dump a mod in the SourceMod folder you have to manually delete it via Windows Explorer (or other means).

And this makes perfect sense. If you install a game manually, you should also be uninstalling it manually. The mod isn't managed by Steam per-say (it's only available in the list so you can launch it).
The same goes for Half-Life 1 mods (put in the Half-Life game folder).

Also I don't get why ModDB suddenly has to make a store front? The site works just fine as it is now with providing and making mods accessible. And it also lists full games.
This just seems unnecessary.

supaste 18th December 2009, 22:55

At the very least it may encourage steam to up their game.