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mod.io, the cross-platform Steam Workshop-like service that's independent of any store just today officially launched a very useful sounding plugin for the Unity game engine. Some news that will hopefully be interesting for any game developers following our news.

"Just as cross-platform play is gaining momentum, and developers have more stores, streaming and subscription services to reach new players, games that are better at uniting their community will stand out and find success," said CEO and co-creator Scott Reismanis.

I spoke directly to Scott Reismanis, the Founder of mod.io (also Mod DB and Indie DB) who confirmed to me that this plugin does support Linux. In fact, Meeple Station is already using it. Aground and 0 A.D. also use mod.io but they wrote their own mod.io wrapper.

Features:

  • Platform agnostic, supporting 1 click mod installs on Steam, Epic Games, Discord, GOG, itch.io with plans for full-console support.
  • Standalone, our API is not dependent on a client or SDK, allowing embedding everywhere: in-game, launcher, homepage, discord bot.
  • User Management, allowing for synchronized subscriptions, mod rating, and content submission.
  • Powerful and flexible default UI, providing a solid and extensible mod browsing interface to facilitate easy integration.

I think what they're doing is great, especially since it's cross-platform and their SDK as well as the website design itself are both open source under the MIT license. Not just that though, the convenience of the Steam Workshop is obviously lost when you get a game from other stores like GOG and itch.io, so if more developers opt to use mod.io they can give everyone a better modding experience.

You can find the Unity plugin here and the official mod.io website here.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Game Dev, Mod, Unity
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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2 comments

Sir_Diealot May 3, 2019
I really hope this takes off since Steamworks is a massive lock-in for games that rely heavily on modding. Maybe this Unity plug-in will help them get traction.
Pikolo May 3, 2019
I hope so too! The idea is good and the implementation as pure as I can think of. I am wondering if Epic might decide it's easier to partner with them instead of building their own counterpart. That could be a nice way to show they're not purely evil...

QuoteAground and 0 A.D. also use mod.io but they wrote their own mod.io wrapper.
0 AD is not written in Unity and therefore couldn't possibly have made use of a Unity plugin. It's nice to know there is more thank one open source implementation of the API though!


Last edited by Pikolo on 3 May 2019 at 5:56 pm UTC
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