Gmod Draw Circle in Map
How a 'total accident' led to Garry's Mod'due south funniest feature and xv years of twisted success
At that place's a fun holiday surprise over on the Garry's Mod website called the 12 Days of Garry'due south Mod (opens in new tab). The page displays some astonishing Garry'south Modern creations, like "One-half-Life: Full Life Consequences"—a charmingly awful story written past a Fanfiction.cyberspace author named squirrelking and turned into a hilarious and unforgettable short picture show (opens in new tab) past YouTuber Djy1991.
You'll too come across Ross Scott'due south one-act serial Civil Protection (opens in new tab), moody sci-fi drama Shelf-Life Part 1 (opens in new tab) and Part 2 (opens in new tab), the gorgeously atmospheric forty-minute long film Haven (opens in new tab), and several other notable machinima highlights, all fabricated with Garry's Mod, the physics sandbox created by Garry Newman and Facepunch Studios mode back in 2004.
Information technology must have been difficult narrowing the selection down to simply a dozen features, considering Garry'south Mod has been effectually for 15 years at present. Along the way from gratis sandbox mod for Half-Life 2 to standalone game on Steam, it'southward sold millions of copies, information technology's been used to make thousands of videos and webcomics, and has hundreds of popular mods and gamemodes created by users, like Prop Hunt (opens in new tab), Jailbreak, Trouble in Terrorist Boondocks (opens in new tab), and more.
The xv yr anniversary (opens in new tab) is the perfect fourth dimension to chat virtually the strange legacy of Garry's Mod, so I fired over some questions via electronic mail both to Garry's Mod creator Garry Newman and Valve'south Erik Johnson. Hither's what they had to say.
Origin stories
PC Gamer: How did you come upward with the proper name?
Garry Newman: You lot know, I think I kind of actually stole the name, information technology wasn't my idea to proper noun stuff subsequently myself. At the time there was another mod called JBMod, made past a guy that went past "jb55." And then information technology made sense that my take on that mod would be called Garry'southward Mod—considering I went past the name "garry". I probably wouldn't have named it called Garry's Mod if I knew where it would end up.
Garry'southward Modernistic has been in the top 10-20 games on Steam for as long every bit I can remember. Tens of thousands still play it every day, but how are sales nowadays?
GN: It sells near one.5m copies a year, and it's sold but over 15m copies full. Which is kind of pleasing since it's also 15 years former. Plus you know, money.
Do you recall when Valve first became aware of Garry's Modern? What were your first thoughts almost it?
Erik Johnson: The specific point in time is a little tricky to pin downwards. I exercise remember at that place beingness a pretty significant, and somewhat underground, mod community that was working off of the Half-Life 2 source code leak from 2003. While having the code for Half-Life 2 out in the wild before the game was finished wasn't a super positive experience for the team finishing the game, it's pretty cool to see what the modernistic community could get working with that unfinished codebase. It felt like Garry's Mod grew right out of that community later Half-Life 2 shipped.
Did anyone at Valve have any thought the Source engine could be used the way it is in Garry's Mod? Are there any tools in GMod that surprised yous to run into?
EJ: A lot of the identity of the gameplay of Half-Life two centered effectually physics. Fifty-fifty in the early days of evolution, most of the experiments that people were running had the physics engine at its cadre. So, on one hand, it wasn't surprising that Garry started in a similar place that we did. That said, information technology would take been pretty difficult to predict the Garry'south Mod of 2019 dorsum in 2004.
Nosotros've always been impressed by Garry'due south ability to iterate on the game and curl feedback from his community into the game so well. It's a more difficult process than it sounds, considering it really comes downward to navigating a abiding stream of feedback, merely beingness limited in the amount of fourth dimension to become everything done. Garry has always been well-nigh equally skillful as it gets at picking the right direction to take his game.
What's it similar to see the beloved characters from Half-Life and other Valve games being used with Garry's Mod for machinima and comics and videos?
EJ: It's pretty cool. Function of the procedure for us in shipping any of our games, but especially the unmarried role player ones, is letting go of them in one case they are released, and letting the community take $.25 and pieces of them in whatever management they want to. It will be fun to watch what people build with the editor we're releasing along with One-half-Life: Alyx next year.
Pay to play
Paid mods are (still) a bang-up source of ire amid (some) players. When did the thought to commencement selling GMod on Steam come up forth? Was it Valve'due south thought or Garry's?
EJ: It was the early on days of getting Steam built, and it was pretty articulate that Garry's Modernistic had a big (and growing) audience. Our philosophy dorsum and so was the aforementioned every bit information technology is today, which is that we wanted a platform that connected the people who created valuable content with the people that consumed it. It was articulate that it was a perfect case of a product that would benefit from this, and then nosotros reached out and asked him if he was interested.
Garry being able starting at building a production that he thought people would like, to where he is today, is the kind of story we're ever trying to make happen. Reducing the friction between the creator of interesting content and the consumer of it has a number of actually positive side effects. It's been absurd to run across it happen over the past 15 years for Garry and his team.
GN: It was about a yr before nosotros started selling it. I was emailing [Valve] to ask about something else and they mentioned that they call up it'd sell well. I was similar, aye right, what a dumb thought, it's already free—why would anyone pay for information technology?
Every bit fourth dimension went by and it kept getting more than popular, I idea most things I'd like to reprogram, stuff I'd like to improve and innovate on. I couldn't justify spending a decent amount of time doing this stuff. Then information technology clicked that if we were going to sell the new version information technology could justify spending more than time on it and justify people buying it rather than sticking with the free version. And so then I had to get on my hands and knees and send an email to Valve where I explained that information technology wasn't a dumb idea and can we practise it please.
Was the negative reaction [to selling Garry's Mod] worse than you thought it might be, or not every bit bad?
So I'm thinking, fuck, I've announced it'south going to exist on Steam and now I've pissed off Valve.
Garry Newman
GN: I can't remember much of it—it was actually ane of the well-nigh embarrassing things that has always happened to me. We'd been working on it in secret for a few months and the community were getting quite worried. They had got used to weekly updates earlier that. And then we decided to announce that we were going to be on Steam and everything was going to be okay. This wasn't like announcing that you're gonna exist on Steam nowadays, this was when at that place were nearly 3 games on Steam. This was a large deal and blew up everywhere.
And so the next morning I woke upwards to an electronic mail from Valve, saying something similar "Information technology'southward customary to expect until the agreements are signed earlier announcing." Then I'yard thinking, fuck, I've announced information technology's going to be on Steam and now I've pissed off Valve—so it'south not going to be on Steam. Information technology took me a couple of weeks to recover from that. I couldn't savor whatever of the community happiness, I felt like a correct knob caput.
How did yous settle on the $x toll? Subsequently 15 years (sales aside) why is it still $x?
GN: I don't recollect I always contemplated charging more. Information technology was free and now it's not, the cost had to be low plenty to people that they'd just be like... aye sure why not. Information technology's important to remember that before Steam pretty much no-ane bought games on the PC. Everything was pirated. And while Garry's Mod was a multiplayer game—which offered some protection from piracy—it could be played unmarried actor too. It had to exist cheap and easy plenty to end people pirating it.
Apart from having money from sales, how did selling GMod modify its evolution?
GN: I think Garry's Modern would accept died xv years agone if we didn't sell it. It gave us a reason to go on development. Besides that Steam obviously allowed united states to update the game much easier. Previously when it was free yous'd download a nothing file from my website with the new version in. This would limit the frequency of the updates.
Back then, because Steam was in its infancy, they didn't have an automated update organisation. I had to upload the new builds to an FTP and electronic mail Valve to make them alive. Because of the time difference this could mean that a patch could become out at 4 am my time, while I was in bed. If there was a bug in it I'd be in a lot of trouble when I woke up. Merely again because of the time difference I wouldn't be able to become a patch out until Valve were back at their desks the next 24-hour interval.
Strike a pose
What exercise nigh players exercise in Garry's Mod these days? Do you know what the most pop way or mod for it is? When is the final fourth dimension you played it yourself?
GN: The roleplay gamemodes are still a huge thing, just that in itself can encompass a thousand other sub gamemodes. Betwixt Facepunch, Rust, two kids and trying to watch ten hours of TV every day—I don't have much time to play present. I used to feel bad about that, like a great chair maker that doesn't like to sit on chairs. But I call up it'south just that I savour making them a whole lot more playing them.
Existence able to pose ragdolls made Garry's mod a nifty tool for comics, videos, and machinima. How did that function outset come up about?
GN: A full accident. I was trying to pose ragdolls, but not by freezing their joints. I was trying to make information technology so they would move like the atmosphere was actually thick, then they'd stay in place. The physics in Source back then weren't as stable every bit they are now. You could actually easily cause a crash past giving information technology numbers that it wasn't expecting. I used the wrong values and it locked one of their bones in place. I made a quick pose—I think it was Kleiner giving birth. I was actually excited—I immediately knew the fun everyone was going to have with this.
I had a phone interview [with Valve] and I don't remember it took them long to realise that I didn't know shit.
Garry Newman
What'due south the biggest requested characteristic y'all get from Garry'south Modern players?
GN: The biggest thing, by about a meg miles is the "Played with Garry" achievement. It's one of the hardest achievements to get on Steam—for obvious reasons.
Valve has hired a number of people who mod their games. Am I remembering correctly that yous tried to become a job with Valve at one point?
GN: Aye I applied for a job, I think it was before Garry'due south Mod went on sale. Or might have been just later on. Around that time anyway. I had a phone interview and I don't remember it took them long to realise that I didn't know shit. I didn't get offered a position. In retrospect it's a proficient thing. Helk (Rust lead) had an interview with them as well, he made it all the way to an in-office interview. They had him writing out code on a whiteboard. I can't even code without Google—and so I wouldn't stand a hazard at that.
Have you hired any people at Facepunch based on mods they've fabricated in Garry'due south Modernistic?
GN: No, information technology wasn't something we were prepared for, as a company, back then. It's something nosotros should have been doing. I see the stuff the Tower Unite (opens in new tab) guys accept managed to practice after their Gmod Tower gamemodes and kick myself. It's a great thing for them, to go out and make their own game only in an platonic world nosotros could have made it good for all of us.
Future tense
Garry's Modern is still being updated, but how often do you personally nevertheless piece of work on Garry's Mod?
GN: I haven't personally worked on it for about iii years. Rubat and Willox have washed a really practiced chore of taking it off my plate. I plant that it got to a place where anything I tried to change I got yelled at by the customs for breaking something else. So I felt like it's better to just maintain it, to keep it ticking over so the modders tin can do their affair. Or risk breaking xv years worth of content.
What's the Garry's mod modern that hasn't happened notwithstanding, but yous really wanted to happen?
GN: In that location's actually a ton of things I want to do, but I don't similar to talk about it too much. If you talk nearly stuff you want to do you don't end upward doing it, considering you feel like you already did it. You get all the positive feedback from it. Plus I don't want to pull a Peter Molyneux and talk about a bunch of stuff that gets people excited, but let them all down when the idea eventually has to collide with reality.
What's the status of S&box, which sounds similar a Garry's Mod for Unreal Engine 4. The last devblog was in 2018.
GN: We did a lot of experimentation with s&box on UE4 (opens in new tab). It'due south actually quite far forth merely we decided to pause information technology for now. Nosotros're hoping you lot'll hear more about it next year—if not it's probably dead forever.
Volition Garry'due south Modernistic still be around in some other 15 years? What volition it await similar then?
GN: In xv years I'll be 52. An onetime homo. We'll accept the iPhone 35, Steam's friend listing volition be its ain operating system and my son will be the age I was when I first made GMod. It's possible it might be renamed Alex's Mod and is primarily used to watch exploited/spoilt american kids play with toys in their massive Youtube house. Merely who knows. Nosotros'll go on updating equally long as people go along playing. Maybe we'll do a sequel.
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Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/garrys-mod-interview/