Tinker Mods Blog | General

It's true, I'm sorry

My die hard fans and viewers won't want to read this blog. It's hard for me to write it, but it's true. Console case modding is dead and the reasons for this are very unfortunate. Luckily, it doesn't have to be and as many of you might know by now, that is why I am (still) here. SO let's start with how we got to this postmortem status in the first place.

Lots and lots of garbage

The console case modding community grew to massive numbers by the end of the Original Xbox console's lifespan. It grew so much on the Xbox 360 that large companies with plenty to invest got involved too. We've all seen them or heard of them, Ghost case, XCM, etc. To this day you can still find Ghost cases and LED fans on Amazon, though none of those companies are still in business. I've been a harsh critic of these companies because they made cheap 3rd party components that break easily and also partially ruined what console case modding really was. It was now mass production instead of customization and I didn't particularly care for that. However, they did bring console case modding into the main stream and accounted for the majority of the growth and interest in customizing video game consoles. For that reason I can only be so mad at them. They brought more people and thus additional ideas to the table. So, they weren't the garbage, they just helped breed the garbage that ruined the community.

Many people saw this huge influx as a business opportunity and that is where the problem began. It would take me forever to list all the examples but here were the big problems that started to pop up.

Glorified re-sellers bought large numbers of consoles and ghost cases with XCM LED fans by the pound. They would simply switch out console cases with the clear ghost cases or the pre-manufactured XCM cases. Then, off to eBay and forums they went. Most of the time they charged anywhere from 300-500 dollars a console. This was bad for many reasons. They were making a quick buck without having to do much work. They charged out the ass for the product. When new comers saw how much these custom consoles cost, they simply lost interest. I mean... 500 dollars for an Xbox 360 console... when you could get a standard one for 50 bucks? Don't forget, you could only choose LED colors so they all looked exactly the same too. It turned off new fans of case modding right from the start. Then, the people who did pay these prices ended up getting a console with cheap 3rd party parts that broke and malfunctioned in no time. This meant even the hardcore case modding fans were getting discouraged.
The community started seeing a big in-flux in younger fans too. I'm talking... 14-18 years old range. These kids also decided to "get in the business" which was the worst thing that could have happened. This is a true story, before I started this business and designed my own LED kits I found someone who could make LED kits for my personal projects. The first order went okay, but on the second order I didn't hear back from the guy for over a month. When I finally heard from him I found out that he was actually a 16 year old high school kid who got grounded by his parents and thus couldn't use the internet or make any of the LED kits I ordered. Big shock, he also never refunded me even after he let me know what was going on nor did I receive the order. This became such a common thing that most people started labeling the modding world as nothing but scammers. To this day you can go to an Xbox 360 forum or Facebook group and 99% of the posts are just arguments about people being scammed and calling out other people in the groups who ripped them off. Guess what? Just about everyone being accused is no older than 15 years old.

I really don't mind people assembling pre-manufactured consoles to sell. I don't mind the case modding community having a wide range of ages either. There were many people who weren't charging insane prices and there are many people who never ripped someone off. Unfortunately most of us only talk about the negative stories and negative aspects of things instead of the good ones. So in the end, console case modding is dead because it got too big too quick and got a bad rap right from the start. On top of that, the lack of support for legitimate supply sources had just as big of an impact.

Too much recycling in the garbage bin

This plays right in line with the points I made above. There were still decent people and legitimate companies. They offered great services and quality support for the community. This group had the experience and the know how to create amazing console case mods. So, why did they all go under too?

The answer is simple. Just as I talked about before, The console case modding community started to get a label of being scammers and rip offs. When you are involved with something that gets this kind of label, it's pretty hard to break out of it. The people who were still die hard case modding fans were too distrustful to give someone a chance. Everyone else got turned off and lost interest in case modding all together.

Just like that, there were way fewer people interested in case modding. They had been scammed or thought it was too costly. I'm sure you can guess this was the biggest reason legit companies and individuals got out of console case modding all together. How could they support themselves and their businesses when a huge portion of the people who loved it, wanted nothing to do with it anymore? When you add the fact that people who still loved console case modding were distrustful and needed a lot of convincing and time to give someone a chance... well... it was inevitable for businesses to go under. Even the big ones that manufactured Ghostcase and XCM are no longer in business.

Just a good old vicious cycle

To recap, Case modders either, got scammed, couldn't afford the high prices, or were too distrustful. Then companies suffered and went under. Then the lack of people offering custom console case mods meant fewer and fewer people had a place to go or a community to call home. So, now case modding fans lost interest because they couldn't get supplies or cases. The lack of these suppliers, modders, and companies also meant that no new fans would learn about modding. This is called a vicious cycle. This continued up to this very day and is why the community is where it is now. Fans dwindled, companies dwindled, and it all happened because there weren't enough authorities in the console case modding community to prevent the scammers and rip-offs from being able to get peoples business.

It doesn't have to be this way

It really, really doesn't. As I shared with you I had several experiences where I myself was ripped off or got screwed over and I decided to take my love for console case modding and offer the opposite of what everyone else was doing. I have a huge library of tutorials you can watch for free, I offer simple kits to help people build a custom console even if they lack some of the skills to finish their projects. You can be a part of this too and it isn't difficult to get involved.

Share the bad, AND the good

It's all of our jobs to let people know about scammers. If you get screwed, return the favor. Blow up your facebook groups and website forums, let people know who is trying to take advantage. But, don't stop there. Take to those same places you love and tell people about great experiences you've had. Tell them about that guy who accidentally messed up your order and sent you a replacement for free and even gave you a refund! Tell your community where you got that awesome LED kit that works perfect for your case modding project. Spreading good words is just as important as spreading the bad ones and it is a key part to growing our modding community!

I still look back and wished I would have spread the word about the individuals and businesses I worked with before I started my own. Those businesses might still be here if I had done so. I had no problem telling anyone that would listen when someone screwed me over but I never took the time to talk about the ones that didn't. That is exactly why console case modding is dead. That is exactly why I am one of the few moderately sized companies who still make kits and tutorials for people to learn, because too few of us did very little when console case modding was alive.

So... What do you say we make sure that doesn't happen again... you in?