The Dying Light [official site] mod unpleasantness of the past week has been cleared up, and was indeed double whammy of overzealous protection. Developers Techland are doing something about the cheat protection that also blocked legitimate mods, while the Entertainment Software Assocation have nonapologised for copyright takedown notices issue in its name against sites hosting mod downloads. Huzzah! They don’t hate mods, they simply didn’t think things through.
Ooh, mods! Lovely, lovely mods. But while mods can add all sorts of lovely new things to games, a game letting folks fiddle its files might also make it vulnerable to cheaty cheats. The difference between a rad dinocop skin and a spiked model is artistic intent. Dying Light [official site] is being a bit overzealous in its attempts to block the bad, though.
The latest update’s changelog includes “blocked cheating by changing game’s data files”, which also blocks things like editing weapons. Some modders have even had mods they uploaded to public file hosts removed through copyright protection laws.