More and more games seem to suck on thier own, but can be great with mods. You have entire platforms like roblox where all the games are more or less mods. How long until the platform itself is community created and managed and the viability of games created by companies dissappears?
Mods are developed by fans in their free time, like the original Counter-Strike. To play it you had to own the original game and could get the mod for free. In contrast games like Half-Life are developed by a company with full-time employees, and sold for money.
Of course Counter-Strike hasn’t been a mod for a long time now. Valve took it over and turned it into a full game.