In fact, aside from Surei Electronics, several other large and established ga companies also couldn't quite understand Gastar Entertainnt's latest move.
Guiding players on how to develop new gaplay chanics, having players essentially work for free to create new mods—it all sounded a bit far-fetched. Why would players be willing to make mods for you?
How many people would genuinely put effort into sothing with no material benefit?
Although Takayuki was already one of the industry's top figures, there was still so skepticism around this decision.
At least from a market perspective, this Creative Workshop seed aningless.
In reality, when the Creative Workshop first launched, it didn't appear to gain much attention from players.
Most Battle users were esports players, with their main focus being on StarCraft and Counter-Strike's online matches.
Among Battle's user base, only about 20% of players played other gas.
...
However, the zombie mod mode based on Counter-Strike did manage to catch so players' attention.
The mode lacked any real competitive elents, was highly random, and each match usually lasted only three to five minutes—making it perfect for casual play after a few intense rounds of competitive gas.
Not many people realized that this mode had been created using the Creative Workshop modding tools.
But once the player base reached a certain size, it was inevitable that soone would notice the Workshop.
Kazumi was one of them.
After she and her friends finalized the direction for their next ga, Kazumi couldn't resist jumping into the modding section of Counter-Strike.
To make it easier for players to use the Creative Workshop, the modding function had been deeply integrated with Counter-Strike.
Players could directly modify or add new rules within the Creative Workshop, then load the new content into the ga.
With the process for making mods simplified to the extre, even soone like Kazumi—who wasn't good at programming—could create her own gaplay.
"Hmph, just watch. I'll prove to you that my direction is the right one!"
With that thought in mind, Kazumi began editing Counter-Strike through the Creative Workshop backend.
First, she changed the ga's perspective to a top-down view.
Then she pulled in so models from the zombie mod, added a few new elents, and created a simple new gaplay mode.
It was quite similar to the ga she and her friends had previously made, Farm Defense, except this ti the enemies weren't monsters—they were endless waves of zombies.
Since On-chan had absolutely refused to include farming in her own ga project, Kazumi decided to build her own version from scratch.
She wasn't an all-rounder, so she had to rely on this user-friendly modding format to realize her ideas.
After about two or three days, her mod started to take shape.
Without needing to worry about art, audio, or even much programming, developnt beca incredibly smooth. Kazumi imdiately fell in love with this kind of modding.
Then, she uploaded her newly finished mod to the Creative Workshop.
"I bet I'm the first person to upload sothing to the Workshop," she thought proudly.
She figured not many people would be interested in the Workshop anyway—it was probably just sothing Battle was testing out without expecting much from it.
Kazumi didn't think many others would share her idea.
But when she refreshed the Workshop page after uploading her mod, she found that two or three unofficial mods had already appeared.
"Huh? That fast?"
She was surprised. There were actually a few others thinking the sa way?
No, not just a few. These were just the ones uploaded in the past few days—surely there'd be more soon.
Curious, she clicked into one of the mods.
It was a weapon-modification mod, where so of Counter-Strike's weapons had been remodeled and rebalanced. The normally serious-looking weapons now looked hilariously ridiculous. For example, an MP5 submachine gun had been turned into a BB gun model that was no bigger than a palm.
Kazumi snorted with laughter.
"Is this seriously a mod? It's so ridiculous."
But it was kind of fun. Out of curiosity, she clicked into the mod's main page.
The creator seed to be a dedicated Counter-Strike fan—the page was filled with achievents from the ga. The mod creator also left a ssage inviting players to join a specific online server where they could freely use all kinds of bizarre, funny weapons with no restrictions.
Kazumi downloaded and installed the mod, then launched Counter-Strike and entered the room code provided.
She quickly found herself in a custom modded map—a massive mash-up of several Counter-Strike maps combined into one huge arena. The player cap had also been increased from the original 32 to 256.
The result? Absolute chaos.
The mont she entered, she was t with loud, chaotic shouting.
Soone with an open mic was yelling at the top of their lungs:
"Don't run, you bastard! I'm gonna take you down!"
"Hey, why is this chicken gun so trash? All it does is lay eggs—wait, those eggs explode?! HAHAHA! Who ca up with this crazy idea? I'm dying! Is this really the sa Counter-Strike I used to play?!"
"Hey, you on the other side—co over here and help test this new weapon model I just made!"
Kazumi stared at the screen, stunned.
The players in the room were running around like wild animals, blasting each other with the most absurd weapons imaginable.
And not just the weapons—everyone looked totally different.
So players were zombies, so were chickens, and others looked like robots. No two looked alike.
It felt more like a wild party than a shooter.
And surprisingly... it was kind of aweso.
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