Games and User Generated Content

UGC isn’t all reporting on disasters and doom and gloom; in fact, one of the booming areas for User Generated Content is in players creating their own content for computer games.

Whether you are blasting aliens or trying to save the Princess with Mario, user generated content looks to have an important future in the game world.

Soon-a you could be designing my next game!

If you aren’t a gamer, you may not be aware of the trend of new games allowing players to create their own maps and levels. Halo 3, one of the biggest-selling console games in history, allowed its users to design their own levels and even add “weapons” and “vehicles” to make for a more enjoyable playing experience.

Mods have been used by gamers since the 90s, so in some ways this isn’t a new development. However, the trend has now reached the point where companies are relying on user generated content to put them on the leading edge of the market; inFAMOUS 2, an action-adventure game for the Playstation, based a lot of it’s appeal around the ability of players to add new “missions” to the game, and they have even recently run a competition to allow players to design the beta stage of the game. http://news.softpedia.com/news/Transformers-MMO-Announced-By-the-Makers-of-RuneScape-189647.shtml

Players are being called upon to help design content for inFAMOUS 2

The company are even going further by letting user generated content become available online for users and incorporating the most popular and most commonly played into the actual game. This is a classic example of “bottomup” or “flexible” development which allows the people who are going to be playing a game to alter the way it eventually works depending on their preferences.

Another booming way for user to share game content is Zynga,  a new site which lets user share free games for Facebook and other social media websites. Many of these games allow the user to personalise them, particularly ones like FarmVille which can be customised to the user’s personality.

UGC is a useful way for computer game companies to enlist the talents of users to help them create new levels for their games, and also useful for gamers who want to have more control over their gaming experience. One question though, is will we ever have a truly collaberative game which is designed by people on the mass market who play it?

It seems unlikely. Most video game players don’t have the free time or talent to design the graphics and story necessary for a modern game. Ironically, the development of more sophisticated games and graphics has raised the barrier to entry too high for casual fans to really become a part of the industry.

Despite the Mario picture, the model also seems to be less suited to “platform” and “arcade” games (which are similar to Sonic the Hedgehog etc) since those games depend on solving puzzles, and if the player knows about them in advance it would defeat the point. It’s much easier to design levels for action and shooting games.

Pictured: not a puzzle. Photo from http://www.hiwiller.com/2009/07/

Nevertheless, player’s contributions to their own entertainment will almost certainly play an important role in the games industry and probably many other industries for years to come.