Malstrom addresses UGC comments

[mortono]

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!