GamesTM talks to the creator of Gary's Mod to learn more on the thriving modding scene

You may feel our modus operandi is to discourage you from entering the video game industry. We’ll go on about sinking sales, ratings controversies, retail catastrophes, and deadlines that would scare even the most hardened of you. And it’s true, making a decent living in the game industry – at least the game industry you see on the cover of this issue – isn’t easy. Worse still, with increasing technological complexity and production values rising with no clear terminus in sight, it’s getting harder every year.

Or so we thought, until we met Garry Newman. This man is the sole founder and proprietor of Team Garry, the development house that released its first commercial product, Garry’s Mod 10, to astonishing success despite its free-to-play origins. If you haven’t caught on, the Garry’s Mod that now sells for a very affordable price on Steam was once a mod – or ‘modification’ – specifically of Valve’s classic majestic shooter Half-Life 2.

In unlocking Half-Life 2’s versatile physics engine, Newman discovered the truest sandbox experience ever seen in videogames. Garry’s Mod has no plot, no direction, and no purpose other than to create or destroy whatever you want, with perhaps the most accessible and logical interface in existence. Players can toy with objects from Half- Life 2 – and other Valve games, plus user-created ones – construct elaborate Rube Goldberg devices, or contort Half-Life 2’s enigmatic G-Man into positions his grandmother really doesn’t need to see. It’s an exciting concept when you think about it, but it’s not an easy sell.

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