NPD March 2008

[patsu]

Most of the examples that you provided all fall clearly under point b. Games do not. With a game, you have (in most cases) already been provided with a significant amount of content at a very high bar. Given that most players never finish the games they buy (in fact, a distressingly low percentage ever beat games), the audience for more content is already fairly small. Compound that with the fact that of the remaining audience, many won't be interested in content that is below the bar of what came before (point a), and you can see why most games with level editors and sharing don't see them used.

Does Game 3.0 mean more content, or more relevant/personalized content ? The large number of submissions do not mean everyone has to see or play them. It means everyone may be able to find something they like and they can hook up with people with the same interests.

Given that most people don't finish games, wouldn't shallow games be more relevant to busy folks ? If users can whip it up quickly for others on a PS3 and distribute to cellphones, what's so bad about it ? Does Pong have sophisticated/quality graphics ? The point about limited audience for user created games could be due to the poor tools, lousy selection of content due to targeting the wrong people. Doesn't mean Game 3.0 cannot be appealing.

Point c also lines up with your examples. The precise reason that search engines are so successful is that they allow you to make a small investment of time to find something highly relevant. This is also true for Wikipedia, Amazan, eBay, and almost any other successful web site.

It means that Game 3.0 needs a better infrastructure/platform to be successful ? As you mentioned, the success of a Game 3.0 title may rely on how fast you can find relevant content. The total number of contributed content may not matter. Search is one way to do it, but user referer (like many youtube videos), user ratings, or even publisher selected ones are all powerful and effective ways to surface the gems.

It may mean MORE work need to be done here to reach its full potential.

Where it becomes a problem in games is really a compounding of all of these issues. Let's look at a few cases:

Case 1: A game of 100% (or near 100%) user-generated content
We see things like this on the PC rather regularly. And unsurprisingly, some of them have actually been reasonably successful. There are a few things that we may be able to attribute to this.
a) Price of entry is typically free (no cost to try, no penalty for quitting if it sucks)
b) Anyone with a PC can participate (helps provide critical mass)

What's the issue here ? It doesn't have to be PC only though. Cellphones, PSPs, iPods can also participate.

Case 2: A full game with mod support on a console
We've seen several examples of things like this. UT3, Band of Bugs, N+, etc. Participation here tends to be pretty low. Why?
a) To even get in the door, you have to pay money
b) Even if it were free, you need to own the console
c) Frequently, content rating doesn't even exist, so you can't sort the wheat from the chaff
d) If it did, the size of the userbase is frequently too small to provide sound ratings, which hurts the experience
e) Most of the provided content is of far inferior quality to what came out of box

To overcome these business model issues, just redefine the platform and business model. Do it on PC/PS3 and make it accessible to all cellphones and iPods. Perhaps there is a reason why Phil demoed Home on cellphones (Lua on cellphones ?). What will happen if I can export SackBoy to my cellphone ? My kid will hog the damn thing and I'll have a hard time getting it back.

I already have a difficult time getting my PSP back because of Patapon. Now that's another game where Game 3.0 make sense. Create custom rhythms, songs, level, Patapons, ringtones, etc.

Case 3: A full game with mod support on PC
This is an interesting one. Participation is wildly all over the map. Almost any RTS or FPS has mod communities around them. Some trends?
a) It's really only the blockbusters that see much real participation
b) Popular mods are usually found not by using the game, but on fansites that implement filtering of some sort
c) Participation is still really only among the hard core

UT3, Halo Forge and Case 3 examples above are the same. They are built for niche FPS audience.

I think what will be really interesting to see looking forward is not "how many games implement user-created content". It's a silly question. Tons of games have been doing it for years. The real question is, "when will someone get it right on console, and what will that solution look like?"

If I were a game developer interested in user created content on a console, my approach would be to create a system where anything you create on your console can be played only by you or shared directly with friends. Above that are two approval levels.

1. Create an "Unrated Community Content" bucket. Anyone can play stuff from there and rate it. After enough ratings, it goes into one of two buckets "Community Recommends" or a black hole.

2. In-house devs could then vet content from "Community Recommends". Things that look good can get playtested, and if they look good, they can then get pushed out in some more global way.

But that's just me. It'd be expensive to implement, and frankly, I doubt it would get enough use in 99% of games to be worth the effort. Wouldn't it be nice if Live or PSN provided that framework for you?

These are starting points. There are tons of other possibilities. And it certainly is not restricted to consoles only, although it can start there due to the critical mass of gamers.

 

[patsu]

It's not an artificial rule, it's just that Sony's got almost nothing to with the fact that there are user-created levels for an Unreal Tournament game. To me Game3 means that you can buy a console and contribute to the entire community with just that.

Not only console, Laa-Yosh. And the fact that Sony allows user mod and promote Game 3.0 on their platform is a great start.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The fact of the matter is that most user-generated content is awful.

Though that's true...

Most people don't want to be beta tester's for someone else's crap. And even then, most people would be put off by anything that requires them to pick and choose from a bunch of unknown stuff.

Existing user-generated content from mods and packs to webgames shows otherwise. People sort through and try loads of web games, mods, user-created quests, YouTube videos, and even random webpages, looking for something they like. For a lot of folk (not me!) there's a sense of exploration, akin to looking through a charity store or car-boot sale. And that's no different to what lots of gamers lok for in things like RPGs, being able to wander around and discover stuff. Tastes and tolerances differ, but the desire to explore is common, and user-created material is the most economical to create this. One could even argue that 'dross' is a part of the experience. When you sift through dross to find the one or two quality items, you have the 'fun' of looking, the satisfaction of finding, and then the fun of experiencing.

 

[dlm]

Existing user-generated content from mods and packs to webgames shows otherwise. People sort through and try loads of web games, mods, user-created quests, YouTube videos, and even random webpages, looking for something they like. For a lot of folk (not me!) there's a sense of exploration, akin to looking through a charity store or car-boot sale. And that's no different to what lots of gamers lok for in things like RPGs, being able to wander around and discover stuff. Tastes and tolerances differ, but the desire to explore is common, and user-created material is the most economical to create this. One could even argue that 'dross' is a part of the experience. When you sift through dross to find the one or two quality items, you have the 'fun' of looking, the satisfaction of finding, and then the fun of experiencing.

I agree with this completely. However, those people are only stage one of the chain to success. You need those people to do the sorting, then also to push the good stuff out to the more mass level for consumption. Hence why I said the applications where you see that model work successfully are those with large user bases (you have enough people to sort things so that new, good content keeps bubbling to the surface).

That's pretty much where my sort of "ideal" three-tier model comes from. Based purely on observation, there seem to really be three types of consumers for additional content on things:
1) Those who will sort through any crap to find something good
2) Those who want new stuff, but want a reasonably decent pool to pick from
3) Those who only want something that's pitched as official

I think the problem with a lot of current systems is that they almost always isolate one or more of those groups (typically they cater to groups 1 and 2). There's some interesting things that come out of that.

If you look at content distribution today on console, it's pretty heavily geared towards group 3 only (dev's make the content and distribute it, typically for pay). Now, if you make a 1-2 pair good enough, it's harder to make people pay for 3, plus the scale on 1-2 is bad. Sigh.

 

[dlm]

Does Game 3.0 mean more content, or more relevant/personalized content ? The large number of submissions do not mean everyone has to see or play them. It means everyone may be able to find something they like and they can hook up with people with the same interests.

It's a meaningless buzzword, as far as I'm concerned. I think we should be less concerned with labels and be more concerned with finding meaningful ways to improve the experience of giving gamers access to content.

Given that most people don't finish games, wouldn't shallow games be more relevant to busy folks ? If users can whip it up quickly for others on a PS3 and distribute to cellphones, what's so bad about it ?

Given that we can't even get console<->console integration right, I'm not about to hold my breath about console<->cell phone integration. Beyond that, that sort of development model kind of reeks of a gimmicky marketing ploy more than a realistic way to develop and distribute content.

It means that Game 3.0 needs a better infrastructure/platform to be successful ? As you mentioned, the success of a Game 3.0 title may rely on how fast you can find relevant content. The total number of contributed content may not matter. Search is one way to do it, but user referer (like many youtube videos), user ratings, or even publisher selected ones are all powerful and effective ways to surface the gems.

It certainly does mean we need better infrastructure. However, you also need a lot of users that are willing to invest in it. We're a long way off from that, and one thing I don't see is anyone talking about how to make that happen. I hear lots of buzzwords, but I don't hear much talk about how to make the right product for the right audience at the right time.

What's the issue here ? It doesn't have to be PC only though. Cellphones, PSPs, iPods can also participate.

It's a severe issue. I'm not going to delve into the details, but the mobile space is an absolute disaster right now. We can't even get PC's to work over that boundary very well right now, forget consoles. Even if the infrastructure was there, which it's not, the ecosystem is terrible. I think the idea of PS3<->PSP integration is interesting (especially given that the PSP is probably the first portable capable of doing interesting things in that space) and we'll probably see more of it. But it's not really topical.

These are starting points. There are tons of other possibilities. And it certainly is not restricted to consoles only, although it can start there due to the critical mass of gamers.

If it hadn't already started and built up steam for years on PC, nobody would be talking about it on console. Consoles are so far from having a critical mass of gamers that it's almost not even worth discussing yet.

I think we've seen a lot of derailment of ideas when the awful phrase "YouTube of Games" appeared. It's based on a few faulty ideas:
a) That the most popular YouTube videos are things created by users of YouTube (in fact, most of them are things ripped from TV or movies or are simply someone that taped some event and put it up).
b) That creating a YouTube video and creating content for a game are similar (one requires careful thought and a lot of nickpicky attention to detail and followup to end up with anything, the other just requires a webcam)
c) That users who are creating actual user videos on YouTube wouldn't just do what they're doing in another form if it didn't exist. I think this one is kind of key. If you hunt through the list of recently posted videos on YouTube, most of it is just video blogs that people post for their friends to watch. It's easier than typing, so why maintain that if you can just hit record? It's not even close to parallel to games.

I know in a post someone recently linked an article about copying the wings without understanding flight. This is sort of the same. It seems to me like people are looking at the Internet and going, "YouTube seems to be popular and doing well, so let's do what they're doing." In reality, doing that is not going to lead to success because it doesn't address the simple fact that people do not make YouTube videos for the same reason that people make mods and maps for games.

 

[betan]

Does anyone else here think that "Game 3.0" seems about as silly (and generally meaningless) as "Web 2.0"? This discussion reminds me of all of the AJAX debates a few years ago.

I wonder why.
The name is clearly a reference to Web 2.0, and naturally it's as silly or smart as Web 2.0.
It's not a tecnological milestone, it's a vision, possible trend and potential future. :|

The fact of the matter is that most user-generated content is awful.

It's the rest that people cares about.
A tiny fraction is enough to make UGC attractive.

 

[fearsomepirate]

If it hadn't already started and built up steam for years on PC, nobody would be talking about it on console. Consoles are so far from having a critical mass of gamers that it's almost not even worth discussing yet.

Don't tell me that you're one of those people who thinks that every PC user in the world is a PC gamer and cites the "install base of hundreds of millions." In terms of real money-spending gamers, at least in the USA, there are several times more console gamers than PC gamers.

 

[fallguy]

You can take one look at the Sims sales for the PC, and see even the very casual gamer, counts, and more than console gamers. There are other such games that the "walmart" crowd buys, and out does even the best selling console games.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Not true. There is no data to support that conclusion.

 

[Xalion]

As a matter of fact, not only is there no evidence to support that conclusion but there is plenty that directly contradicts it. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly the NPD stated that only around 14% of games sold in 2007 where PC games.

Ahh - here it is:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50939

That is just a quick googled blog. If you need, I can spend more time trying to dig up the actual NPD press release.

 

[Entropy]

As a matter of fact, not only is there no evidence to support that conclusion but there is plenty that directly contradicts it. As a matter of fact, if I remember correctly the NPD stated that only around 14% of games sold in 2007 where PC games.

Ahh - here it is:

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50939

That is just a quick googled blog. If you need, I can spend more time trying to dig up the actual NPD press release.

Note - US data only. Europe is quite different. Asia I have no idea.
Note 2 - not all games are counted, for instance none of the web based ones. The aggregate for the PC platform is fiendishly difficult to get a firm grip on.

 

[patsu]

It's a meaningless buzzword, as far as I'm concerned. I think we should be less concerned with labels and be more concerned with finding meaningful ways to improve the experience of giving gamers access to content.

People invent terms to group and define things they want to talk about. Phil Harrison coined the term so that the focus of his keynote is clearer. The term will be refined and redefined over time. No need to argue over it.

Given that we can't even get console<->console integration right, I'm not about to hold my breath about console<->cell phone integration. Beyond that, that sort of development model kind of reeks of a gimmicky marketing ploy more than a realistic way to develop and distribute content.

It's a severe issue. I'm not going to delve into the details, but the mobile space is an absolute disaster right now. We can't even get PC's to work over that boundary very well right now, forget consoles. Even if the infrastructure was there, which it's not, the ecosystem is terrible. I think the idea of PS3<->PSP integration is interesting (especially given that the PSP is probably the first portable capable of doing interesting things in that space) and we'll probably see more of it. But it's not really topical.

I am not a fan of cellphone games (You'll find some of my criticisms against them in this forum). But that's missing the point, it doesn't have to be cellphones only. iPod is a big enough pool too, same with PCs. The point is: Game 3.0 is not confined to specific platform. You can have Game 3.0 for hardcore gamers.... and you can certainly have Game 3.0 opportunities for casuals.

Where cellphones opportunities are concerned, businesses will always find an easy beachhead first. We will soon see how the iPhone crowd react to its first wave of 3rd party apps. I bet most of them will make use of the net and user-generated content. Not sure how many of them are games yet. A friend is already busy setting up his servers to prepare for his iPhone app.

It certainly does mean we need better infrastructure. However, you also need a lot of users that are willing to invest in it. We're a long way off from that, and one thing I don't see is anyone talking about how to make that happen. I hear lots of buzzwords, but I don't hear much talk about how to make the right product for the right audience at the right time.

We already have enough users to push this idea. As for making it happen, people are already doing it (LBP, Home Mii, Sims, Spore ?).

Regarding making the right product for the right audience at the right time, every businesses is trying to do it in their own ways and talking about it. Game 3.0 is just one possible idea. Afterall, who wants to make the wrong product for the wrong audience at the wrong time ?

If it hadn't already started and built up steam for years on PC, nobody would be talking about it on console. Consoles are so far from having a critical mass of gamers that it's almost not even worth discussing yet.

I beg to differ. Wii, 360 and PS3 have reached quite a sizable pool already. It's more than enough to start. How many is enough for you ?

I think we've seen a lot of derailment of ideas when the awful phrase "YouTube of Games" appeared. It's based on a few faulty ideas:
a) That the most popular YouTube videos are things created by users of YouTube (in fact, most of them are things ripped from TV or movies or are simply someone that taped some event and put it up).
b) That creating a YouTube video and creating content for a game are similar (one requires careful thought and a lot of nickpicky attention to detail and followup to end up with anything, the other just requires a webcam)
c) That users who are creating actual user videos on YouTube wouldn't just do what they're doing in another form if it didn't exist. I think this one is kind of key. If you hunt through the list of recently posted videos on YouTube, most of it is just video blogs that people post for their friends to watch. It's easier than typing, so why maintain that if you can just hit record? It's not even close to parallel to games.

I know in a post someone recently linked an article about copying the wings without understanding flight. This is sort of the same. It seems to me like people are looking at the Internet and going, "YouTube seems to be popular and doing well, so let's do what they're doing." In reality, doing that is not going to lead to success because it doesn't address the simple fact that people do not make YouTube videos for the same reason that people make mods and maps for games.

That's the key idea. Perhaps Game 3.0 for casuals should only require people to copy wings ? They don't have to understand the science behind it to enjoy games. It's what people in the industry want isn't it ? Game 3.0 is not about getting layman to design games or planes. That's way off.

And without coining the term "Game 3.0", it'd be hard to carry any discussion like this (e.g., Whether something is in-scope or out of scope).

 

[Xalion]

Note - US data only. Europe is quite different. Asia I have no idea.
Note 2 - not all games are counted, for instance none of the web based ones. The aggregate for the PC platform is fiendishly difficult to get a firm grip on.

This is really a case where Occam's razor can and should be used. Yes, there will be some variance from place to place. However, which requires fewer added variables to explain:

1) A slew of "not counted" games and numbers from other countries dwarfs the actual measured results from the NPD to the point to make console gamers "insignificant" as the poster claimed.

2) While exact percentages vary, a world wide model that includes both console downloads and web downloads should produce a similar distribution to the worlds largest market.

While it is true Occam's razor doesn't always provide the correct answer, this is one case that I think any argument against the second option would require a large amount of concrete evidence to support it.

 

[AlphaWolf]

While my mother has played a game on a computer once, calling her a gamer would be quite a stretch.

In terms of dollars, consoles are dominant.

 

[patsu]

When you get to that level of users, the boundary will blur. It would be more like "Serious Games" or entertainment services.

 

[dlm]

While my mother has played a game on a computer once, calling her a gamer would be quite a stretch.

In terms of dollars, consoles are dominant.

Dollars are a meaningless metric here though. What we're measuring is the influence that a platform has had on the development of the concept of user-generated content.

In that regard, we've certainly seen *far* more of it on the PC, dollars or not. The number of copies of games sold on each platform is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

It's like saying that Napster wasn't hugely influential because nobody was making money on it.

 

[dlm]

People invent terms to group and define things they want to talk about. Phil Harrison coined the term so that the focus of his keynote is clearer. The term will be refined and redefined over time. No need to argue over it.

Terms like these are harmful because they put the false idea in people's heads that "X is the new and only right way to do something". It hurts innovation, and it engenders design by committee. Anyone in a creative position should be angry when these terms are used.

Where cellphones opportunities are concerned, businesses will always find an easy beachhead first. We will soon see how the iPhone crowd react to its first wave of 3rd party apps. I bet most of them will make use of the net and user-generated content. Not sure how many of them are games yet. A friend is already busy setting up his servers to prepare for his iPhone app.

I'll take your bet. I'd wager that few of them will. While the iPhone is interesting in that it is a single platform that is likely to end up with a pretty vast install base, it remains to be seen if gaming will even be viable there. I have my doubts.

I beg to differ. Wii, 360 and PS3 have reached quite a sizable pool already. It's more than enough to start. How many is enough for you ?

It's not about the number of boxes on the shelf. It's about the mentality of the community surrounding them. Consoles do not have a tradition and culture of content generation. There are a lot of reasons for that.

And without coining the term "Game 3.0", it'd be hard to carry any discussion like this (e.g., Whether something is in-scope or out of scope).

Not true at all. We already have better phrases, "User-generated content" and "content distribution." They seem fine to me, but without being meaningless marketing buzzwords.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Dollars are a meaningless metric here though. What we're measuring is the influence that a platform has had on the development of the concept of user-generated content.

In that regard, we've certainly seen *far* more of it on the PC, dollars or not. The number of copies of games sold on each platform is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

It's like saying that Napster wasn't hugely influential because nobody was making money on it.

Only because its a new concept to consoles. The dollars are what really make the industry go.

99% of PC gamers don't use or make user generated content anyway. With perhaps the exception of UIs for WoW.

 

[patsu]

Terms like these are harmful because they put the false idea in people's heads that "X is the new and only right way to do something". It hurts innovation, and it engenders design by committee. Anyone in a creative position should be angry when these terms are used.

It is part of innovation (You have to name it for common discussion). It is ok if it's just re-cooked innovation (revival or evolution). It is also ok if one innovation hurts another innovation (competition).

I had a professor who refused to use buzzword when he was young(er). His articles and lectures ended up very long and confusing (because many terminologies and buzzwords are coined to tell the finer details). Readers keep going back to him and ask him if he meant this or that, or did he have some new ideas. Eventually he gave up and admitted that intelligent use of buzzwords is fine.

It's not about the number of boxes on the shelf. It's about the mentality of the community surrounding them. Consoles do not have a tradition and culture of content generation. There are a lot of reasons for that.

Behaviour can be trained and change (over a long time). e.g., For the upcoming Spore game:

"The creatures, vehicles, and buildings the player can create will be uploaded automatically to a central database (or a peer-to-peer system), cataloged and rated for quality (based on how many users have downloaded the object or creature in question), and then re-distributed to populate other players' games."

Not true at all. We already have better phrases, "User-generated content" and "content distribution." They seem fine to me, but without being meaningless marketing buzzwords.

There is a subtle difference. For many, user generated content may mean the materials themselves. But in essence, Game 3.0 like titles may also play on other user attributes, such as the collective user behaviour (e.g., number of times they did X).

Most importantly, as the concept becomes clearer with more exploration, Game 3.0 definition will morph with time, but user generated content will still remain as user generated content.

 

[AlphaWolf]

While buzzwords can be useful, Game3.0 isn't a good one.