Leveraging user created content?

[Danc]

Just posted another article on Lost Garden about the potential uses of user content for increasing the longevity of games. http://lostgarden.com/2005/08/user-content-working-with-players-to.html

This seems to be a topic that is currently the focus of larger game developers who have the money to create polished editors. I'm curious if anyone here has had any experience with the business benefits of encouraging user created content in smaller games?

take care
Danc.

PS: My favorite so far has been the mods in Strange Adventures in Infinite Space. Wonderful stuff.

[alfie]

There is mention of HipSoft ( I think) using user created content for a word/phrase game of theirs in the IGDA casual games whitepaper. The link for it is in the distribution section of this forum, if you have not already read it.

[James C. Smith]

This seems to be a topic that is currently the focus of larger game developers who have the money to create polished editors. .

I don't think the editor in Ricochet Lost Worlds is polished at all. It has lots of rough edges. For example, you can access features that we used to make the game, but are not indented for end user to access. In other words, end users can really only make new levels. They can't make new type of power-ups or add new art to the game. But some of the tools we used to add new art to the game are still in the editor since we used the editor to make the game. But they don't have ALL the tools they need to add new art to the game. They can only successfully edit levels. But the editor makes them thing they should be able to edit other stuff.

There is also stupid stuff like you can delete a level from your level set but NOT the level you are currently editing. To delete level 4, you must first go to level 5 and then delete level 4. If you try to delete level 4 when you are on level 4 nothing happens. You don't get an error message explaining the limitation.

It is very easy to make levels that are not possible to finish. The game doesn't try to help you find these mistakes.

It is possible to make levels that will crash the game when you play them!

It is not intuitive to use. Once you learn the non-intuitive controls, it is easy to place bricks but still difficult to give them simple movement sequences.

I would go on and on. The point is, we didn't design the editor with the end user in mind. We designed the editor for our internal guys to use. It is far from intuitive and has many problems. But we figured it was a free bonus that most people wouldn't use anyway. "Here is the editor we used to make the game. If you find it useful then that is a bonus".

Some how hounded of people have used it to make thousands of levels that they were nice enough to upload to us to share with the world.. I think it has extended the life of the product a lot. In fact,. It created a new product. Ricochet Lost Worlds: Recharged is just Ricochet Lost Worlds with user made levels in it. We sold tens of thousands of copies of Recharged on our site and on big portals and we pay royalties to the user who created the content we used in the product. Recharges was the biggest ROI of any game we developed.

[DFG]

Check out Mahjong Towers Eternity. They make it really easy for user created content to propagate.

FlipWords I believe was the HipSoft game. Great idea and a super way to get additional content with much less work than making it yourself. Besides, i think people like being able to add something to a game.

[ErikH2000]

I'm curious if anyone here has had any experience with the business benefits of encouraging user created content in smaller games?
Here are the benefits I've gotten:
* Keeps players involved in game between releases, so I don't have to work as much to get their attention for the next release.
* Generates content I can update the site with, which in turn helps traffic.
* When players are encouraged to be creative around the game, it is like I am giving them a "superfan" uniform to put on. They might start by making a level for the game, and when that is well-received, go on to do more things that help me. Like putting up their own website, telling friends about the game, posting about it in Slashdot messages, and so on. As an example, here's a post a superfan made last night celebrating his 1-year anniversary of playing the game:

http://www.drod.net/forum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=7385&page=0&mid=73458#73458

How much is a customer like that worth? More than the price of the 2 or 3 products he may buy from me, that's for sure.

* I've had fantastic help when I recruited superfans to work directly on products--literally man-years of free help, and for people I've paid, it's been either royalties or paying a small fraction of what a typical contractor would charge. Recently, I discovered a very talented artist who started modding DROD graphics in his spare time. So I brought him onto the team to work on the next release. The guy finished everything I gave him to do in record time with excellent quality. Yesterday, I had a small dispute over what he should be paid. He was actually asking for an amount lower than what I offered. So now I've got 90% of the in-game art for the next release done for very cheap as an indirect result of promoting modding of game graphics (we released instructions and sample graphics earlier). That's just one example--there are similar stories for programming, writing, web authoring, running contests, and testing.

You might also want to look at Lux and Shorthike for examples of "user content" communities. Lux has actually got menu items you can choose that direct you to various participation areas. It's pretty cool.

-Erik

[James C. Smith]

Check out Mahjong Towers Eternity. They make it really easy for user created content to propagate.

Not THAT is an example of this "topic that is currently the focus of larger game developers who have the money to create polished editors." I think Danc was saying he doesn’t have the resources to pull off something like that and was curios about simpler options. (simpler for the developer not the user)