If You Build It, They Will Comment: Distributed Mentoring in an Online Game Modding Community

Modifications to video games add value for players and developers, driving new interest in existing games. If developers want to provide better mod support in the future, it is important to understand how mod communities share technical and creative knowledge. However, informal learning theories developed in other fan spaces, like distributed mentoring, have not been investigated in game mod communities, and it is unknown whether modders leverage game mod site features to build knowledge of their craft through similar knowledge-sharing practices. Therefore, this project investigates the extent to which distributed mentoring occurs in a popular game modding community. Through a deductive qualitative analysis comparing mod comments to fanfiction reviews, results indicate that game mod comments show evidence for all seven attributes of distributed mentoring, albeit in distinct ways. In particular, game mod comments contain more back-and-forth discussions that lead to reciprocal learning for both mod creators and the commentors themselves.