Tomorrows games: Designed by players?

[ninzel]

MS is not an altruistic company. As a company, it needs to be fiscally responsible and just building a platform without carefully considering the implications of doing so is neither responsible to the bottom line and may be detrimental to consumers.

But regardless, I doubt we'll see it everywhere, rather only in a few focused uses, such as Sims style games. I doubt MS sees this as a primary revenue line but more of a distinction when compared to competitors.

I think they could probably be more succesful in the long run, and build more customer loyalty by keeping the platform as open as possible. One of the biggest selling points of PC is it's openess and flexibility. The biggest selling point of consoles is the value and ease of use the standardized platform offers. If a company could offer the best balance of both those worlds, IMO they will reap the greatest rewards.In other words,keep the hardware closed and keep the software and services as open and flexible as possible.

 

[patsu]

You can find out more about Will Wright's Spore demo here: http://www.pqhp.com/cmp/gdctv/

I saw it @ GDC 2005. It's amazing.

I thought player-created game world goes as far back as the 80s. e.g., The text-based MU* (MUD, MUX, MUSH, MOO) allow users to create interactive game objects and rooms/places, plus communicate with other users in a virtual world. There was also "fake money" in the world for resource management purposes.

It was said that the first MU* world grew uncontrollably until the vast world collapsed (Out of server resources) and all was lost. I remember a friend nearly flunked out of college because of MU* addiction. So it should be a big thing when dressed in 21st century presentation.

 

[fearsomepirate]

They could pioneer releasing a pretty bare-bones presentation of a graphics engine and immediately distribute the resources for the "mod community" to make stuff. You know, like id, but on consoles, making them pioneers.

 

[BTOA]

I guess GTA3 offered the first real experience of this in a sense, since it allowed players to a play a role in game where they wanted to do bad things. But we all know whats happening to the GTA name right now in the media and politics; lawsuits and escape goat.

 

[Farid]

I like the idea of games with a lot of freedom, although I'm the kind to think that all the games should be like this. All type of story telling anb gameplay structure should co-exist, if you ask me. A GTA game needs to be set in a free roaming world, but does a platformer, for instance, need that?
After playing Jak 2 and 3, I, for one, would say no.

Also, when one say "designed by the player" when talking about games like spore or customisation stuff, I think it's Okay, but if one thinks more of games designed by committee, then I have to say I'm not a fan of the genre.
Any design needs a designer to push his/her vision, to make something on its own, something complete and rational, and not a simple patchwork of discrete ideas and bulletpoint features. Because the thing never work, and when it does, it has generic as possible. And you can trust me I already worked on "designs by committee" for different type of products and most of the time the outcome was less than stellar, if it worked at all.

 

[Avon_Implosion]

ah, but are not the greatest dev's in the world also dedicated gamers?

 

[Ty]

"Instead of putting players in the role of Luke Skywalker, or Frodo Baggins, I'd rather put them in the role of George Lucas," Wright said.

This should be no surprise considering his current project (Spore) or the one he's most famous for, The Sims, since they do nearly just that, allow the player to voyeurestically tinker with things and then watch as they play out.

Oddly enough, Wright had to fight tooth and nail to get The Sims funded for development.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

ah, but are not the greatest dev's in the world also dedicated gamers?

I don't think so. It's easy to know what you like and dislike in a game, and I think a lot of ideas gamers have come as changes they want made to an existing game or genre. Actually starting with a blank project and designing a cohesive world with story and characters etc. isn't easy. It's not easy for existing professional devs who still manage to churn out turgid rot a lot of the time, and it certainly isn't easy for the general public.

Where the idea can fall down is where you have different sections of the gaming populace wanting different things. Go onto any developer website where there's a forum for ideas, and you'll see all sorts. Some are good, many are mediocre, some or really bad. And what's a bad idea for someone can be a great idea for someone else. Some people might want an FPS that's totally realistic, where 1 shot pretty much kills, and the gameplay is in staying alive. Others on the same game forum want a game where you can cruise in indestructible and mow down the enemy. If all these values are competing to get into user-made games, it'll be a mess. Every game (and creative product, including movies, TV series, books, music...) needs a vision to work towards, as Vysez says, and that invariably needs to come from a lead figure, or a very tightly nit commitee of like-minded members.

It's also worth mentioning that a designer needs to know when to stop addng features. The best example of this I know if is the game Master of Orion 3. MOO1 was an all time classic on the PC (space strategy game). MOO2 was deeper, with excellent production qualities and micro-management. Some felt this was dragging on to be boring (plus it had serious gameplay flaws in that playing a Creative Telepathic race you'd always win...) MOO3 was years coming, with an active community (I wasn't a part of, but nosed in on once in a while) offering ideas. The devs talked up the trillions of features. And the end product was the most dull game I've ever played. To elliminate the 'grind' of micromanagement, everything was automatic. I feel, though could be mistaken, that the devs tried to appease the community rather than design the game, and the result was a major disappointment to virtually everyone. Another example of this is watch the 'deleted scenes' from a number of DVDs, and you'll often see that the editor removed some tripe from the film. Knowing what to get rid of is as important as knowing what to add, but the general public are almost certainly only going to be thinking of adding more and not concerning themselve with limits that contribute to gameplay.

Now if community developent is limited just typical MMO and mods, like adding new creature types to Morrowind, then it shouldn't bust the game, and it'd be nice if the few good writers out there not writing professionally got chance to add storylines and quests and make some money off their talent. It would provide a legitimised entry for wannabe writers without having to jump through the hoops (flaming hoops, covered with poisonous spikes and with massive axes swinging across them...) needed that other writing occupations need.

 

[rabidrabbit]

It's a great idea in theory at least.

Nothing new however, Animal Crossing does those things already, maybe not quite in the scale they're dreaming, but anyway.

MMORPG's surely have practised this idea for a long time, it's the players that make the world after all, and I think some MMORPG's do have the possibility to design your own gear.
That Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG at least was hyped as to have the possibility to take for example a job as a hairdresser and do other player avatar's hair.
Not sure if the final game ever had that though.

In the end, I can see this grand vision being diluted to you being able to upload stuff into the "marketplace", like your car sprayings for the new NFS game, to upload player designed levels to Unreal Championship 2006, setting up your house and decorating it in an online Sims.... basically you being able to upload self "designed" stuff that is done inside a fairly limited editor in the game.
Being limited to the xbox360 controller, there's only that much you can be bothered to "create".

I do agree with Shifty, giving players too free hands in messing with the game world would just ruin the experience for most types of games.

I see this statement of J. Allard and Wright as just PR for the game "Spore" that'll also be on the xbox360, more than anything concrete direction more games would follow.