Makes me think he's been reading some of the comments on VGC

http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/there-was-too-a-user-generated-content-direction/

There was too a User Generated Content direction

There are people who say that I am making up the idea that Nintendo embraced User Generated Content and chose it as their new direction.

I am very curious as to why people are in denial about this. It was mentioned at Iwata’s investor conferences multiple times. Look at this story for example: “User Generated Content is the future of video-games”, says Fils-Aime.

This is the story in full: (from one year ago, from 2008)

Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America’s CEO, has said the company will focus on user-generated content as the future of interactive entertainment.

Speaking at the BMO Interactive Entertainment conference, Fils-Aime talked of the end of “passive entertainment” and explained how videogames were ideally positioned to take advantage of this.

“If you’re in the entertainment business, any kind of entertainment, this is the game changer because no longer is entertainment a one way street of content created for audiences that just sit back and absorb it,” Fils-Aime said. “The era of passive entertainment is waning, active entertainment is where the action is.”

“Entertainment consumers are moving from react to interact,” he added. “Now fortunately form the start this shift has worked to the advantage of everyone at videogames. It is who we are… Videogames have always been at the front lines of active entertainment and its revolution.”

He went on to underline Nintendo’s past and future focus on user-generated content, going as far to quote, Nintendo president, Satoru Iwata, saying: “We believe that building a foundations where players’ creativity is harnessed and the results are shared is becoming increasingly important.”

My question to you guys is how can you deny that User Generated Content was a huge focus for Nintendo in the last year? The quotes speak for themselves.

While I might sound crazy at times, know that I am trying to not be in the past or present but into the future. I like writing about the future. I can be proven right or wrong when the future becomes present. I find this preferable than writing about the present or past since there is no benefit of hindsight. Decision makers like Iwata and Fils-Aime have to see into the future (in order to make their decisions). Should I be wrong, I just look like a fool on the Internet. But should they be wrong, they lose billions and billions of dollars. So I do not feel there is any risk about writing about the future.

Nintendo’s fall came not due to “no games” or due to some “bad games” but due to a strategic error that goes straight to the top, straight to Iwata, Fils-Aime, and Miyamoto. What they mean by “User Generated Content” is for customers’ creativity to be harnessed and utilized. So a game like Wii Music falls under this umbrella as does March of the Minis.

For all the talk Nintendo execs do about not letting technology dictate strategy, they still fall under the spell of the Technocrati. Everyone in the “Game Industry” fell for the “User Generated Content” dream. Little Big Planet was hailed as the Second Coming. Where is it today? Miyamoto made User Generated Content games. They flopped. Will Wright made a User Generated Content game. It disappointed. Is the failure of User Generated Content because developers, even as celebrated as Miyamoto and Wright, didn’t make the games right? Or is it because User Generated Content is an incorrect strategy for entertainment? I think looking at all the facts points that the latter is correct. It was the wrong strategy.

Another problem is that User Generated Content was not disruptive. Clayton Christensen warned that most people take disruption and misapply it, to use it incorrectly. An analogy would be Einstein coming out with his “Theory of Relativity” and everyone starts running around saying “this is relative!” “that is relative!” The way how Fils-Aime was speaking of disruption lately was incorrect and not in the Christensen way. Disruption is about loving the low end, about making products cheaper and simpler. User Generated Content does none of this. It messes with the fundamental relationship between the entertainer and the audience. It would be like going to the theater and have the actors sit back and have the audience perform the play!

Nintendo’s embrace of User Generated Content reveals a deep resentment for content within the company culture. They want to make gameplay ideas, not the content for them (they would rather dump that on you, the poor consumer). This distaste for content within Nintendo perhaps illustrates why Nintendo rarely adventures into new content. All we get is old content (Metroid, Mario, Zelda) recycled with new gameplay processes. Even with in the universes themselves, little is changed. Link still gets the Master Sword, hook shots, boomerangs, visits Kariko Village and Hyrule Lake, and defeat Ganon still after twenty years. The only difference is that the game is in 3d, or that you are traveling by boat, by train, or using the stylus, or you turn into a dog, or that you have no sword. For a company that champions creativity, Nintendo shows very little of it on the content side. This is perhaps why they keep hemorrhaging customers of the Core Market. People get bored playing the same content over and over again.

But I am curious why people don’t want to accept the obvious: that Nintendo did sail their boat into the mirage of User Generated Content and landed in a squall. The executive quotes are all there. Why the resistance? Why the denial? Why the dodge from reality?

Do people want to believe that Nintendo execs cannot mess up? Do people just don’t want to see that I was correct with my rants and tirades against User Generated Content? Is it because they, themselves, didn’t spot it? I am very curious about this.

Listen to what Iwata recently said:

“The mood of the market got colder than expected,” said Iwata, “and there was a miscalculation.” This comes as Nintendo records its first decline in profits in six years.

Iwata disclosed that there were no extra resources in the company that can combat the slide in profits this year — Nintendo is aware of the weak 2009 software releases. Iwata did mention that the Wii Vitality Sensor will be out in 2010 and stressed that it is more than a simple heart rate monitor and that it will actually be fun.

“Now, we are preparing for next year and thinking about what to do the year after next,” said Iwata. “We’re thinking about our best chances for success.”

Note how Iwata differentiates between the cooling market and the miscalculation. The cooling market he is obviously referring to the recession. “And a miscalculation.” I would guess the “miscalculation” he is referring would be the “User Generated Content” direction.

The last part is Iwata literally saying they are shifting gears from whatever they were doing in 2008 and 2009. In other words, Nintendo will not be doing this anymore.

Why am I so positive about Nintendo’s “decline”? Aside from my instincts about User Generated Content being right, it is the possibility that Nintendo will act as if they are in the content business.

To the poor Nintendo employee who is assigned to read blogs such as this site, remember the initial reactions to NSMB Wii at E3 2009. People thought, “Is it just a multiplayer game?” “Is this a port of the DS game?” “Is it just recycled levels from the DS game?” All the confusion came that Nintendo, while communicating the new gameplay process of the game, did not communicate the new content at all. Only later when people realized it was a new game, that it could be played in single player, that the Koopa Kids were back, that people became excited for it.

Consumers do not see gameplay processes. They only see the content. In the same way, book readers do not see the writing styles. They see only the content of the book, i.e. the story, not how it is written. This is why User Generated Content games are perceived by the consumer eye as being “bad game” to “game where there is nothing to do”.

UGC is terrible as a substitute for professionally created content.

Malstrom does not discourage UGC unless it replaces that professional content, or causes a reduction in the amount of it.

Games that rely solely on User Generated Content always fail.

I didnt read the whole text but it really feels he's read VGC threads about himself.

It's cool that he said "While I might sound crazy at times,".

User Generated Content has been around a long time, DoTA for Warcraft 3 is so popular that they are releasing actual full games based on that by the DoTA creators. Before that there was the FPS PC game, ah i can't remember the name of it. It has been very very popular on the PC side for ages. But I don't believe there was ever a crappy game that had great UGC.

We already have UGC on the Wii, The Check Mii Out channel, your authoring tool is the Mii creation channel and you enter your Mii's either to show off your creation or to enter in weekly contests. Theres also the Everybody Votes channel, but that is kinda crap. But these are more towards free and 'fun' past times.

Did he just declare himself to be a prophet? Or an analyst?

^neither, he just stated that he writes about the future of Nintendo's direction

Sorry, but Malstrom is redirecting. He keeps on going on about a miscalculation of Nintendo by doing UGC. Fine I don't recall many if at all comments that Nintendo weren't doing UGC. The focus is that Nintendo had only one UGC game. THe problem with Malstroms comments are in fact that he is ignoring that there is very massively successful UGC games out their. Just not on consoles.

UGC requries the right tools, creators AND the right way to share them. The TWO games he focuses on very much lack the appropriate support. The sharing mechanics are very limited and consoles haven't had enough open free form development to attract the mass UGC people. So with limited support it's easy to see that creators will overlook the games in question.

NWN, Half Life, Warcraft 3(nod to scruffy),Oblivion, Morrowind are just a few. Some games that aren't even suppose to have UGC do. Diablo 2, Baldurs Gate, Fallout. These 3 games don't have anyform of UGC design, but by gods people certainly hacked it so they can.

Then Malstrom goes on to ignore the application of BOS, the big element that he's pushing Business and new direction models. BOS clearly states that a new product alone cannot succeed just becuase it's new. It requires approriate support. Yellow Tail wine didn't succeed because of it's taste. It's because they threw out conventions and made sure that is was easily drinkable. WiiMusic miserable failed at that support. But also noticed how the PC UGC games don't have sharing tools, but still succeed? that's because the open enviroment of the internet is the ultimate sharing tool, not the pre structured elements of the software. So WiiMusic BIG FAILURE was that it was too structured in console design. When WiiMusic should have been oriented in Internet design.

Well i've had my word which will not be heard :P

UGC should only be a side part of the game... not the whole thing!
I mean yeesh the only people who wants games that are 100% UGC are people who complain that they want this there and that there for the WRONG REASONS...
also malstorm said that he may be crazy at times... dont worry... we ALL had our crazy times rest assure...

His main examples of UGC failing are Spore, Little Big Planet, and Wii Music.

Now for Spore, did the UGC really have anything to do with it's sales? I thought it was more the fact that it was 5 genres stuffed into one game and that it was all so overcomplicated. In fact, the UGC element of the game, the creature creator, was the best part and probably has a lot to do with the sales that the game did have.

Speaking of Will Wright games, he leaves out one huge game that uses UGC in pretty much the same way as Spore... The Sims. And why did the Sims sell like crack laced with tobacco? Because of UGC. People liked the experience of "creating" as opposed to "killing" or "solving". Same goes for SimCity.

His other claim is Little Big Planet. This is a game that sold 3 million on the PS3. Is that not a success? Certainly it should have sold 10 million, but then again, it is a new IP and it is also a cutesy platformer on a console with an audience mainly of hardcore gamers. So again, is UGC really to blame here?

Then he talks about Wii Music and, again, was UGC really something that people were complaining about with that game?

So, really, I think Malstrom is full of it when he talks about UGC. It's not about game companies passing on their work to the users so they don't have to do it. It's about offering a different experience that can appeal to different audiences. It takes just as much work for a game company to create those tools that allow players to easily have that creativity.

And, really, who doesn't like making their own content within a game? It's fun!

The Sims was not USG. It allowed people to make items online, but the assets were mostly officially made. You're confusing sandbox with USG in this instance.

As for Spore, even if that was the best part, that is kind of what he meant. USG in place of great content.

Little Big Planet was supposed to be a system seller, same as Wii Music. That is where they both fell short.