include level editor or not?

[Robert Cummings]

Hiya,

For the portals, is spending the time polishing the level editor worth it? will it translate to more sales?

[digriz]

Why not see how the sales go first. If they're good, polish the editor and sell it from your own site and generate a bit of that revenue back to yourself.

Or sell it as an add-on pack with some extra levels etc.

[Savant]

I think so.

[James C. Smith]

I include the level editor but spend very little time polishing it. For example, when we localize the game to other languages we don't localize the editor and there are many other rough edges in the editor. A better example is the fact that it is not to hard to make the level editor crash or to use the editor to make levels that are imposable to finish.

[Robert Cummings]

So it's a gimmick, but one that could possibly mean $500 to you?

-Rob

[Savant]

It depends on whether or not you're trying to build a community or sell a game. A level editor invites a community of enthusiasts to form and start creating content to share. No level editor means that once the game is done (or they get tired of it), it goes away.

Amd you can still release add on packs and expansions while including a level editor. Epic Games does that all the time with the Unreal series ... the maps in the expansion/bonus packs are professional level and far outstrip the community maps (generally speaking) in terms of quality and polish.

[dima]

I say go with the editor. Even if you release it separately from your site, it;s still worth it. My game will have a separate editor, that's not part of the game. VB6 is the bet when it comes to writing tools

[simonh]

I think it's worth it, but don't get too carried away with it, just polish it up to a decent standard and then concentrate on the game.

I'm pretty sure the inclusion of a level editor with my own game is the reason for quite a few of my sales. It's quite an added incentive to buy the full version.

[Robert Cummings]

I think I'll go with this lads.

You've won me over. I'm sure it's only a few days work anyway.

-Rob

[BitBoy]

I included a pretty polished (imho) level editor in my game Hexvex. I don't really know if it has helped sales any, but I doubt it. However, there's another benefit from having a good level editor - it's SO much easier to create the levels for the game. Believe me, if you're aiming for a fair amount of levels for your game (like 50-100), you will definitely start cursing if you're creating them in a crappy editor, and even more so if you have no editor at all!

EDIT: Umm, I sorta missed the original question whether to include the editor or not. Well, if you already have a nice editor going why not polish it up and include it in the game? Otherwise, don't bother unless you really want to build a community...

[James C. Smith]

Big Kahuna Reef included a level editor in the game itself and allows you to have multiple user made level sets installed. When you start a new game you get to decide which level set to play. On BigKahunaReef.com there are currently 2,126 levels packaged into 179 level sets. There is a forum where user discus what they like and dislike about each level set. Some users have contributed hundreds of levels. Other users have played every single level ever posted. There are some real die hard fans.

Ricochet Lost Worlds is the same. The editor is included inside the game and the game has built in support for selecting from many add-on sets that are installed. On RicochetLostWorlds.com there are currently 6,636 levels packaged into 310 level sets. There are hundreds of different authors of these sets but there are six authors who have created at least 200 levels each. Just like BRK, RLW has a forum with people rating the levels and many users have played each and every one of the 6k+ levels available.

It is hard to say for use if this has increased, decreased, or has no effect on sales. I know a lot of players love it and are more likely to tell their friends about the game because of the community, free levels, and editor. We have some members of the community who check the game’s forum 10 times per day. It is going to be hard for me to sell another game to these people since they keep playing the last game. But on the other hard, they know they will get their moneys worth out of my next game and they tell all their friends about the game they play every day for month after month.

To get this kind of community benefit takes more than having a level editor. Polishing the editor itself is not the most important part. You need a place where people can exchange levels they have made and discus the levels. You also need to make sure the game has good support for selecting different level sets and tracking progress in each one separately. This is the part that was missing from Ricochet Xtreme and the reason we never released the level editor for it. We had a decent level editor built into Ricochet Xtreme but we disabled it in the release version because we never had time to add “level set” support to the game itself. The game assumed there was a single linear set of level and could not track a user progress through multiple sets. It wouldn’t have been that hard to add level set support to the original Ricochet, but it was one of the many wish list item that couldn’t get done if we wanted to ship the game in a reasonable amount of time. But in the sequel (Ricochet Lost Worlds) we included support for user made level sets which allowed us to give end users access to the level editor in a meaningful way.

[yanuart]

hmm.. has anyone thought about the problem that might appear if users can create their own contents in your game and share them to others as a part of your game ? especially if you support them at the first place..

Having a level editor and mod capability is what I have in mind to create community for my next game. I was thinking then I'll create an official site/forum for the community to exchange their works.. so it'll be a blast (i hope)!!!

but then a friend of mine tell me I could be in trouble if the contents that the user made can cause lawsuits. Now, I don't think that this won't happen if my game is a simple puzzle game, but my game is a racing game, what happen if some user create a skin/image from copyrighted material (like using the real honda logo on the mod car) ?

have anyone here thought about this before ? if users can create contents in your product and share it to others, who owns the legal responsibility for that contents ??

I'm sorry if my post kinda out of topic, but back the the original question..
I say yes, if you think that having a level editor will bring more joy to your customers.
I think James had said the important point here : if you made a feature in your game (wether it's level editor or mod or else), make sure that feature is exposed and play integral part in bringing the games up to the next level, otherwise people won't even take a look at it.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

I personally don't think a level editor is a particularly useful thing, nor do I believe it would increase sales.

No, I have no previous business-side experience with this, other than I'm facing this decision myself right now. And I've decided against it (for this release.)

The only games where I've personally benefitted from a game being modable, and/or having a level editor were Half-Life (Counter-Strike and DoD) and more importantly, WarCraft III, which did it to a nearly unparalleled degree and had all sorts of other companion features like online mod sharing. I played some truly innovative WC3 mods, which were essentially entirely new games, all for very little cost on my part.

I think that while some people may end up using level editors and modding tools, I think it's because at that point they already love the game, and are indulging in every nook and cranny of it. The level editor might help keep the game in their mind, and therefore talking about it to more friends for longer, but really, how many players use the editors? And then how often is that content worth a damn, and then, and how often does it end up in another customer's hands? And did that latter customer really buy the game for that customer-made level? I think not.

I also think that the people who demand/request level editors are normally the vocal minority. Sure, they're a lot of clamor for those things, raised by a small number of people who would probably have bought (or did buy) the game anyway. In my perception, people in bulk do not use or care about a level editor. Certainly, an 'audience', as a whole, doesn't care.

I think James is right -- level editors may play a small part in creating a community, but it certainly does not *make* a community. It's just one small, tiny part. And even then, I personally feel that the level editor is more symbolic than anything. As a practical tool to improve sales of a game, I believe it generally falls flat -- especially for smaller and more casual games.

-Hiro_Antagonist

p.s. yanuart -- your legal question is a good one, and there is some recent precident out there that pertains to that exact topic, but I would recommend asking that in a different thread.

[Hiro_Antagonist]

Sorry to post-spam, but a counter-arguement to my statement above occurred to me.

I do think that level editors often increase the 'percieved' value of the game for some people, especially reviewers. And my understanding is that review scores, especially in bigger publications, does have a tangible effect on sales.

I think what I said above still holds for most practical purposes, but review scores may be one place where level editors can translate into increased sales.

-Hiro_Antagonist

[James C. Smith]

Originally Posted by Hiro_Antagonist

In my perception, people in bulk do not use or care about a level editor. Certainly, an 'audience', as a whole, doesn't care.

Even people who never use the editor can benefit from it greatly.

Assuming you release the level editor and setup a community for sharing levels and make it easy for the game to play contents downloaded from the community than there can be a big advantage. But 98% of the people who benefit from this are people who never use the level editor. The bullet point you list in the marketing materials is NOT the level editor itself, it is all the free levels you can download that were made by other people who used the editor.

[Dan Prigg]

I think its a nice addition but definitely not a selling point. Since you already have to make a lvl editor for your game it doesnt hurt. It builds community and such but I thinks its a very small percent that use it.

[Kaos]

replayability is what I look for in a game