Case Modding, One Man’s Journey and Thoughts

Everything has it ups and downs and I have seen and been part of the rise and fall and the rise again of computer case modding. The first rise was because it was something new and something cool that no one had seen before but it hit a plateau of greatness and fell… OK I call bullshit on myself on that statement! Why do I think it fell, like anything else does jealousy, ego’s and greed. “Really? Don’t you think people got tired of looking at all cool stuff and moved onto something else?” You know what a small percentage of those did fall into the group but out of the three things I list I think jealousy, ego’s help implode the hobby onto its self. The main reason Modders-Inc was born was that most of the here was on another site some 7-8 years ago and the guy who started the site wanted to change the whole site around so that all the focus was about him and that he would do nothing but bitch about this person or that person was getting more recognition than he was and on and on and on. So we all left and created a site that was meant to be about everyone and not just about the people that run the site. But I noticed that this kind of thing has happened many of times through-out the years and truthfully it will never go away. I just ignore those people and guess what they are the ones that always seem to disappear. When they do not get the attention they try so hard to get they seem to find other avenues to get the attention and ruin the fun for a whole new group and the process repeats is self over and over for them.

Now if you REALLY what to stir up some shit hold a case modding contest or a event like it. I can tell you that this can really bring out the worst of those people that have ego the size of the moon. Case in point MaximumPC had created a website/competition called the ModShop. The whole idea was to have people showcase their case mods and during the month people could vote on the ones they like the most. The top 10 would do a head-to-head battle and the winners would go against the other winners until the final two were picked and one would be crowned the winner for the month. Now mind you this was pretty cool idea and never done before and yes there was a learning curve, but in my eyes it would probably still be around today except on thing brought it down and that was greed. You see not only did you get crowned the winner of the battle, the King of the Hill, but you also got money and product… this is what brought it down. I want to say that the winner got something like $500 and  full version copy of Windows Vista. Second place maybe got $300 and a copy of Vista while third and fourth got Vista only. This was like “WOW, SUPER AWESOME, THANK YOU!” up until the time when someone won more competitions than what others thought they should. A whole full out rant, rave and bitch session erupted in the ModShop forums and I think we still might have some of the overflow in our forums. So much crap went down that MaximumPC got tired of all the negativity and shut down the site and well pretty much gave up on the modding scene for many years in the magazine.

Modders-Inc has also had its fair shares of not-so-fun case modding contest over the years, but I don’t know if it is my stubbornness or I like abuse but with each contest and issue we learned the right and wrongs about doing contests. You have no idea as to what kind of emails, PM’s and statements you get thrown at you during on of these but you know who does the most bitching? The one that are jealous with huge ego’s and greedy about winning everything. That is why you have to make sure that you read the fine details of our contest so those kind of people can be removed or banned from our contest and make it a fun affair for everyone.  I think this is why we have had a huge success with our Case Modding Contest at QuakeCon. The judges are modders and know the ins and out about modding and that it is NOT A POPULARITY VOTE CONTEST! You want to kill a modding contest then run a popular vote one and see what happens. The only what to do a popular vote contest is to state right up front that the winners will be picked by judges and that a People’s Choice Award will also be awarded.