What does modding do for a game and company ?

Well, I just looked on my arma2 server list
300 servers (mostly 50 slots)
mostly full
All just playing the DayZ mod.
This mod is in "alpha" state, played on a "Beta" version of Arma2
Yet I have played it for 30hrs in the last 4 days
Yesterday for 10hrs solid, no crashes freezes stutters or any problem at all.
Just solid online multiplayer fun.
Arma2 is just about to be replaced by Arma3
Yet Arma2 is at the top of the steam selling lists.
Just because ppl want to play this mod.

Thats what a good mod does for a game.

C'mon ... its 'stupid' shooter. Very different customer type.

You sir, are either miseducated, or a troll :) .. I am a simmer to the bone, and think ArmA2 as the finest land warfare sim to date. DayZ might be "stupid", but it seemed like good fun :)

Ok, forget the misleading part! Very different customer type.

I agree. You can't compare anything to a sim but another sim. It takes an entirely different approach than a FPS.

Well then compare to flight sims then ...

FSX, while it can be modded for free (I think via an SDK), its the paid "mods" that also see FSX still being sold today. Hell I saw MS Flight Sim 2004 on the selves at my local JBHiFi store, I asked the store guy if anyone is still buying it, he said the stock on the shelf right now was just brought in to replace the copies that have been selling over the past year.

X-Plane, sales are still strong. Any there are heaps of mods for it.

And to get back to the OP, both my sons just bought ARMAII off steam just to play that mod. You know from what I've seen from watching my sons play, ARMA II is a FPS sim, there are many aspects to it that set it apart from CoD (Call Of Duty), like getting shot once will kill you or severely wound you. If you're wounded, there are no health packs to pick up, and blood loss becomes an issue.

AFAIK both flightsims, that you named, ship with a very small content by default and have mods as one main game concept. IL-2 was never constructed to be modable.

What about EAW?

Maybe a bit of history...
Oleg resisted any mods for as long as possible as he had a clear concept about IL2. It's main function was a online 'competitive' air combat game, and in this he achieved his aim. He resisted any code/model disclosures to the public for years and this is to his credit - keeping the 'modifications/updates' within a small trusted team.. currently TD.

For all it's short-comings IL2 un-modded was better than any other flight-sim (including extremely modded ones -> FSX) in terms of DM, FM and a lot of other features, over its first 6-8 years. It was a niche market and very successful. Since the cracks and mods have appeared that online popularity has definitely waned.. and Oleg has 'left the building'.

There will not be another sim like this for a long long time... another PERIOD. :grin:

Even as IL-2 was rising the highly moddable CFS was losing customers for two reasons:

1 - IL-2 had more realistic FM especially in the handling/motions.

2 - CFS Frankenplanes ruining the online experience.

Oleg could not open IL-2 without giving away his stock-in-trade, how they achieved the complexity they did on then current and even not so current PC's.

It's funny there were people couldn't understand that who kept demanding that he tell it all "so they could check the accuracy". What a joke!

There was always a way of 'modding' to the stock game. Everyone could deliver their models or stuff to Oleg and if it hit the requirements, it was build in. So some kind of modding with quality control. Whole PF content was made like this.
Cannot imagine a better way.