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Power to the People Article
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Rob Fahey
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Published as part of our sister-site GamesIndustry.biz' widely-read weekly newsletter, the GamesIndustry.biz Editorial offers analysis of one of the issues weighing on the minds of the people at the top of the games business. It appears on Eurogamer after it goes out to GamesIndustry.biz newsletter subscribers.
Chris Satchell, Microsoft's XNA group manager, commented this week that he believes that Sony and Nintendo would be "inviting trouble" by allowing user-generated content to get too close to the metal of the system, rather than being confined to a sandbox environment.
His comments are revealing, not so much on a technical level - the reality of course is that none of the above companies are allowing user-generated content to have that kind of hardware access without passing similar strict technical checks to the ones which commercial games must pass - but rather as a clear sign of where the industry is headed in the coming months and years.
It's not so long since the question of whether there was any real value to user-generated content would have been a divisive issue between the platform holders. When you get to the point where they're instead taking pot-shots at one another over the relative security of their user content offerings, you know we've come a long way.
Or have we? Scratch the surface and you'll find an industry which is happy to pay lip service to user-created content - but which is far from committed to this emerging ecosystem in reality.
Microsoft's XNA is arguably further down the path in some regards than anything its competitors are doing - since neither WiiWare nor PSN title development is remotely open to users. Sony's apparent willingness to embrace user-created mods for some titles is also a positive step in a similar direction - but hardly represents a widescale commitment to the vision of user-created content.
Game companies and platform holders like to tap into the lexicon of online success by talking expansively about a "YouTube for games", but the reality is that while this is a valuable concept in some regards, it's a lazy and over-simplified way of looking at how user-created content could - and should - change the way videogames work.
The concept of a gaming YouTube is comfortable for game publishers, who think of it in terms of talented amateur teams putting together small shareware titles in the hope of breaking into the market. The volume of titles would always be low - and the quality always well below the benchmarks being set by 100-person teams at professional development studios. It would provide a handy way to spot up-and-coming talent, and shut up the people who complain that the industry stifles innovation. It's a nice, comfortable, cozy idea.
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Comments: 1-15 of 15 in total
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afghan_jones
18/04/08 @ 15:03
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No mention of Halo 3's forge mode?
Sure, its a very limited set of tools, but there have been some very original things come out of it which have even made it into general playlists such as Rocket Race, Grifball etc. The Bungie Favourites & File share apps make distribution pretty easy so a beefed up set of mod tools with the same distribution would be the enxt step. |
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Mentalist(air)
18/04/08 @ 15:15
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Although I still play PC games, I can't really be arsed with mods any more. At one point I would download any new Unreal Tournament or Half Life total conversion going, but these days I don't really feel like it. Perhaps I just don't have the time, or perhaps there's plenty enough professionally-generated content available for me these days.
That's probably why I'm not looking forward to Little Big Planet as much as some folk are. |
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I'm not particularly interested in user created content either. Most of it is shite, it's just amateurs toying around. Some are worthwhile but that's usually just a showreel for entry to the industry. Most user created content regardless of medium (Games, Film, Literature) is rubbish. I'm happy to leave it to the professionals.
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This represents the conflicts between the different cultures that exist in the games industry.
Some are very pro user-interaction - indeed much of PC gaming is built around the gaming community building new maps, mods, machinima and other things that not only serve to promote and evangelise the game in question, but solidify the gaming community. Others are more reluctant to let players become creators. Console platform holders come from a culture of total control, where they dictate precisely what is to be played on "their" platform. Certainly this has many benefits for the player, from a quality control perspective, but it can be drastically limiting in a world where user-created content is becoming increasingly important. Obviously it's a matter of balance. and I think that Satchell is saying some very correct things here: you need to be very careful that you don't give your users enough rope to hang the rest of the user-base (sorry for the mutilated metaphor!). |
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Had endless fun with the level and storyline designer in Timesplitters 2 - and that sort of dev environment would be welcome, as would 'Forge mode', like afghan_jones says, but with better customisation tools for things branching into weapons / vehicles and whatnot, and being able to share it around within a moderated environment without endless mods generated by people who think tits for wallpaper is funny.
Even buying team-developed stuff is like wading through muck to find the roses, so don't really have a problem with the percentage of dross likely to appear, and it will be interesting to see if 'the industry' is serious about taking user created content in this direction. |
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BrokenSymmetry
18/04/08 @ 21:58
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Yes, it really is strange that this article doesn't mention Forza 2 and Halo 3, which have exactly the limited easy-to-use in-game creativity tools that the article talks about.
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Yes, it really is strange that this article doesn't mention Forza 2 and Halo 3, which have exactly the limited easy-to-use in-game creativity tools that the article talks about.
I wouldn't call the Forge "easy to use" it's a total pain in the arse, as mentioned above the Timesplitters system is so much better. |
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Want customization? Garry's Mod for HL2. It opens up the entire engine to be toyed with, and it's fairly easy to make entirely new gamemodes and vehicles. It's not entirely accessible if you don't know the engine but even the basic stuff is fun.
Forget my plug, though, this is a good read. Mod teams are a great source for companies to find fresh talent. Look at the guys who made CS. They're now some of the top developers at Valve, making as much as any PC developer. |
Comments: 1-15 of 15 in total
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