say what you want about this blog entry, Malstrom is still able to put into words what many gamers have been thinking for a long time. More of his articles will be posted.

...even though he overreacted on this one.

Now THAT'S what ownage looks like!

Malstrom is thinking in extremes as usual, but you can't really argue with the point that Miyamoto was wrong for pursuing UGC, and it is especially weird that he didn't change his mind after the failure.

Hm, that sure is interesting.

I can't believe this jackass said Wii Music is "the closest video game ever to become 'art.'" How can this "analyst" be this much of a dooshbag about every issue in the industry if he doesn't even believe games are already art? Super Mario Bros. 1 is one of the greatest pieces of art in the industry, and so's Donkey Kong. (But if you want to get all "interactive art-creation software" then my vote is for Electroplankton.)

Also, epic post Eirk. Catching him pulling a 180 that hard is almost too good to be true. What a wacko.

Nintendo moving away from creating new content is something he sees will kill Nintendo. He thinks Miyamoto is the reason for this move by Nintendo.

Also, Malstrom was talking about the concept of Wii Music. The idea of showing people the fun of making music. He wasn't talking about User Generated Content at all. I don't think he knew back then it was going to turn into that either.

Malstrom overreacted in his post, but he has a point about the danger that User Generated Content is for gaming from a business perspective, not from a user perspective. We may defend Wii Music, LBP, Trackmania, etc., but our standing is from a gamer's point of view. When we look at the business side of things, UGC is a double edge sword that can destroy a company in the long term.

LBP and Wii music, even though they sold many copies (over a million), they failed in the purpose to increase hardware sales. There was no dramatic increase in PS3 or Wii units when these games came out, and both companies appealed for that.

He stated that User Generated Content creates users, not customers. If a developer doesn't get this, they are in serious trouble. Not all customers are users and not all users are customers.

He differentiates Mods from UGC properly, he is a moder as he stated in his post abour warcraft 2 and 3 and the issues starcraft2 will have in the modding community. with a MOD one can create a tollaly different game (like counter strike that is nothing like Half-life) and if you are allowed to, you can even sell it. It's a totally new experience and some see a mod as their first step towards proper game development.

However, with User Generated Contend you are very limited to what the game gives you, you cannot create a differet game, but an extension of it. You cannot modify the gameplay or the game's essence. You do the same thing in an user generated level than in a level included in the game (with just a few differences). And this is what Malstrom attacks and I agree with him.

User Generated Content is a double edge sword that in 90% of the cases harms the developer, because of the implicit danger the concept has even though the purpose is really good: extend the game's lifetime indefinately.

Games that have UGC are ussually games with poor content compared to the ones that do not have it. Developers can become lazy and leave the creativity to the customers, which is the worst decision ever. If a develoepr wants to game with UGC very successful (hardware mover) it must have lots of professional content and leave some space for UFC, which is double the work for a develoer

liquidninja, where do you and Malstrom get the batshitcrazy idea that Nintendo is moving away from creating new content, and moving towards selling content-creating tools instead of games?

There is a gigantic logical leap between Wii Music and a possible sequel.... and the other 8290357109857 games and projects Nintendo is working on, suddenly disappearing. Where are you guys getting this crazy idea?

Do you think Sony's doing the same thing? They have LittleBigPlanet and now ModNation Racers. Does that mean they're not getting Gran Turismo anymore?

They mostly keep reusing ideas from past Mario, Zelda and Metroid games in their sequels. There is a a lot of Mario spin-off being put out by Nintendo. They think User Generated Content should be the primary focus of their new games. I don't think it's so crazy to think they are moving away from creating new content.

Nintendo has been recycling Mario, Zelda and Metroid for 20 years. They didn't risk a holiday season on a UGC game until 2008.

So while Nintendo has a problem in that they have not created new character-centric games on the level of Mario or Zelda in a long, long time, and possibly have an additional problem that they are now about 2 years out from creating a successful new mega-franchise (like Brain Age, Nintendogs, Wii Sports or Wii Fit, which launched in Japan for Xmas 07), the idea that Nintendo is continuing on the path laid out by Wii Music and Animal Crossing Wii doesn't have much support, as far as I can see.

The big Nintendo games showing their strategy now are Sports Resort, Fit Plus, NSMBW, Galaxy 2, Zelda Wii, Vitality Sensor, Zelda Spirit Tracks, Pokemon HG/SS, Mario and Sonic 2, etc. Side projects and experiments are Flipnote Studio, Mario and DK, and Art Style series.