Changing the game

The life of a game used to be its playtime. When you finished the game it would be done. There might be some replayability in the games, but overall when you had done your first play through the game was done. This started changing when modding became an option. Now players could create modifications to their games, build new options into the games, design new stories, or create their own multiplayer levels. Social media quickly grabbed the same concept and let you build your own applications, designs, clothes etc. on the different social media sites. Second Life even let you set up shop and sell your own user created content for real dollars.

Player generated content is an interesting topic that i think is just beginning to receive the attention it deserves. First of all the content created by players can often rival the original content, providing a longer playtime for the original product. Secondly the player generated content lets the players take part in the forming of the game. If there´s something you don´t like, you can just change it. Effectively making anyone the lead designer of their favorite game.

There´s been several good tools released for making mods to games, but in my opinion the most interesting one is the one just released for the MMO City of Heroes. First of all City of Heroes lets you put your game changes (missions) directly unto the game server. Its immediate sharing, and the other players don´t even need to make an effort to access your content. Its social game world building. So far the City of Heroes mission architect has give then game more content than was originally released with it. This is an amazing feat. I have spoken about RPG grenades in an earlier post, and this is the EXACT type of thing that will let players develop their roles. No longer do you have to “make-believe” missions for your RP guild, now you can actually just make a quest and add it to the world. Its an amazing concept that i hope will spread to other MMO’s as well.

Player generated content provides a much longer life for games, but also provides a great incentive for getting players to actually play your game. I think that every gamer out there has at one point thought about adding a tidbit of something to their favorite game. The future seems bright for all of us who are like that. It looks like the tendency to let you add content to your game is becoming mainstream. I can´t wait to see how World of Warcraft 2 will implement this (you all know it will be announced at some point…)

What do you think about being able to add your own creations to your favorite game?