Devs of No Rest for the Wicked Hire Modders, Taking Example from Valve
Thomas Mahler of Moon Studios clearly appreciates Valve's approach. The developers of No Rest for the Wicked are allowing fans to create mods and other projects.
Thomas Mahler continues to be consistently involved on X after launching the early access to No Rest for the Wicked. However, the Austrian not only responds to criticism, praises, and comments from players. In one of the more recent entries, the CEO of Moon Studios mentioned the practice of employing modders by Valve Software, which was supposed to inspire the devs of the Ori series.
In recent years, the creators of Steam haven't been overly active in terms of developing games. Nevertheless, over the years Valve has become famous for its approach to fan projects (well, most of them). This is how the history of the Counter-Strike series began, and a little over half a year ago, modder Nate "Polygrove" Grove was hired by the company - thanks to the work put into the modification of Half-Life: Alyx (via X).
Besides, 10 years ago, Gabe Newell himself expressed his appreciation for the modders. As he stated then, he values the creators of successful modifications more than "traditional qualifications" (diplomas, certificates, etc.; via PC Gamer).
Moderators at Moon Studios
Apparently, Moon studio wants to adopt a similar approach. Or rather, it has been going so for a long time, because according to Mahler, the devs of No Rest for the Wicked employed at least three modders (via X). In fact, the "third person" recruited by the team was James "thejazzman9475" Benson, author of the Dance Fortress animation and later one of the developers of Ori and the Blind Forest. It's funny because he currently works at Valve and assisted in the development of Half-Life: Alyx.
Another such employee is Milton "DoctorM64" Guasti, the creator of Project Another Metroid 2 Remake (AM2R) - a fan-made refresh of the second part of the cult Metroidvania series by Nintendo. No one will be surprised that after starting work at Moon Studios (in 2017; via X), he helped develop the second installment of the Ori series.
Finally, this year Willam "Eupholace" Butkevicius joined the studio. In his situation, the game from a different studio, Dreams by Media Molecule, was the key to getting hired. In this creative production, Trip's Voyage was created. The man had no other experience in game development, but it seems that this particular project really impressed Mahler and the rest of Moon Studios, as the company's head had announced a year earlier that he wanted to hire Eupholace (via X).
By the way, we are aware that there are currently over a hundred employees working in the company - a significant number for a team that prioritizes "elite," experienced devs. Certainly much less than what the largest studios have.
