That's been tried. The Wolves tried it with SH3 and didn't receive anything good, in spite of all they did for the game. These game companies tend to be very temperamental about their property. Some game companies which used to permit modding no longer do.
Now I was talking about the special case of SH4 which has schizophrenia between its U-Boat and Fleet Boat sides with shared parameters between the two sides. Both TMO and GWX barked up opposite sides of the same tree by threatening to shut off half the game, a move unlikely to gain the endorsement of Ubi, especially if new players installed these mods, then called customer support asking why the U-Boats or Fleet Boats vanished. That kind of stuff makes customer support people get cranky.
I think we get to have a very distorted view of our value toward a game. Of all the people who bought SH4, what percentage do you think even know there are mods out there? I'd say probably one in three at best. I'd say chances are we have some delusions of grandeur and overimportance. After all, the console game segment of the industry is killing us and it doesn't have modding. I don't believe the game companies do more than tolerate modders.
This may not be a case of game companies acting in their own best interest, but has Ubi consulted with modders before coming out with a new product? Last time they actually did, one of the modders burned them, leaking SH4 patch 1.3 before the release date, demonstrating once and for all our immense value to their company. After that we're lucky we're tolerated. Do they think we make their game better? I doubt it. They're wrong, but they have a right to be wrong. We don't necessarily have a right to be right.
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