An attempt at a quick post: user-generated content and game developers

[zhai]

I frequently have game-related things I want to post about here (and writing-related things, and science fiction-related things, and...), but rarely feel like I have the time to post thoughtfully, so this is an experiment in writing something off the top of my head just as it occurs to me

Comments

[haikujaguar]

Mucks/MOOs/etc used to be pretty good for user-generated content. :)

[stoda]

"If you give them tools, they will draw penises."
--Sheri Graner Ray

The problem is... by and large users are lazy goobers. If they were creative and artistic, they would be in creative and artistic occupations... and then why in the world would they donate their creativity, which they normally get paid for?

I'm exaggerating, of course, but I've played a bunch of City of Heroes' "architect missions", which is their UGC area. For every moderately clever, interesting, well done mission there's a hundred grindy, exploitative, repetitive slogfests.

Given the tools to create the most interesting imaginable missions... they create hamster wheels to grind with.

I do know a few professional writers and artists who contribute to games like that, but frankly most of the standard media creative types I know are NOT good game & mission designers. They're great at what they do, but games are.. completely different.

Now... for all my nay-saying, and the horrendous mess that places like Wikipedia become... I still love the

[andrewgreenberg]

We dealt with user generated content a lot at Kaneva, and even with the emphasis we placed on it, it was a 10 percent ratio - 10 percent making for the other 90 percent. However, this led me to conclude that UGC was just one part of an even more important dynamic - the user generated experience.

Letting players create objects for the game was a major reason people played, but the ability to use all this stuff really drove a lot of the others to play. I think this is true for user-generated stories as well.

[zhai]

Hey Andrew -- thanks for the comment, and sorry for the delayed reply. :)

Your numbers sound spot on, but I think there are multiple ways of interpreting them. I would wrap that "user generated experience" (which you're absolutely right is what is critical) around the UGC itself -- the key there is that the experience is fundamentally malleable and alterable by the players. The "bang" you get from that is not limited to the players who create (the 10%), but the entire pattern of creation and consumption that is generated. I see UGC itself as part of the process of creating user-generated story, which I still see as the single greatest identifying marker of a successful online game (or offline for that matter) -- as a representation of player investment.

[hdiandrew]

Absolutely agree with you on that. The whole ability to say, "I did this" is one of the things that so sets interactive entertainment off from most other types of entertainment, and we should encourage it in every way we can.

YouTube?

[anonymous]

I know that you're not talking about UGC along the lines of user-created video clips, but isn't YouTube a succesful UGC environment? Not a 3d navigable space, but... isn't it still somewhat remarkable?

- Michael McC.

Re: YouTube?

[zhai]

Hi Michael - thanks very much for the comment! And sorry for my late reply. As you have seen things have been kind of crazy. :)

There are a bunch of nice comments over on the Gamasutra blog post: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ErinHoffman/20091023/3382/Quick_Post_UserGenerated_Content_And_Game_Developers.php -- in case you're interested in reading further. :)

I think YouTube is entirely a UGC environment, though -- you're absolutely right. What it's missing is persistent space (I am intentionally using "persistent" improperly). But both YouTube and Wikipedia are fantastic examples of the power of UGC -- and incidentally how compelling that is to young audiences especially. They're the new hot sites for tweens, which I think implies really interesting things for the future of this generation.

ugc

[anonymous]

real creation is/takes WORK//

Work requires a value transfer. And since games are ethically best only as entertainment, then the value of their activity needs to be fair.

Neither SL or Metaplace ever reached any sort of fair exchange with those who made the value for those companies owners.

Will is right, the illusion of "real" creativity is a fair trade, but only with entertainment in mind.

cube3

Re: ugc

[zhai]

Hi Cube -- thanks for your comment (and the linkedin add :) ). A discussion of this came up in the version of this post cross-posed to Gamasutra's blogs, in the comments, if you're interested