You don't sell a blank platform and expect the masses to jump over it.  What you need to do is have compelling enough content out of the box, for it to become something.  You then let the users create content.  Most will consume it, but if you get some good developers in there, you have something with legs.  And the content has to be good.  Also, Animal Crossing is "user generated content" or is it a sandbox?  I saw it far more as a sandbox game.

So, people actually into Counterstrike because they can create their own mods and levels for it?  Or are they into it, because it is a cool game that has good replayability, and a hook that keeps people coming back?

also, the youtube mention is full of fail, because it is a free service, hence it can't have customers. plus it's had troubles over the years turing a profit.

The original statement I disagreed with was that 'UGC is not very popular'.

I mentioned counter-strike because people continually say that people prefer professionally-made content to user-generated content. In the case of counter-strike, it was developed by two university students with no experience in game development using game tools included with the purchase of Half Life. The end result was something much more popular than games made by professionals.

I don't think people care that much about who made the content so long as it is enjoyable. At the same time, of course some people have no interest in content creation. This is a given. A good UGC-based game or service should allow people to be content creators and/or consumers depending on what they want.

@vonboy: A free service can't have customers? Zynga (farmville, mafia wars, etc) is a good example here of a company that provides a free service but makes money through micro transactions. Unless you want to argue that a company like Zynga has no customers?

Youtube turning a profit or not is irrelevant to my point. People care and willingly seek out user generated videos on youtube. Saying that UGC is not popular at all would be to willingly ignore of the most popular sites on the internet.

Like LittleBigPlanet.  Content creation is fairly simple for those that enjoy it, but the part of the game that truly shines is the ease with which you can access other people's content.  You simply stream levels ala streaming video from youtube, and this gives you an endless supply of content to occupy your time.

I have invested more time into LBP than any other game this gen, and I have yet to publish a single level myself!

LittleBigPlanet also happens to have the best legs of any ps3 game save Call of Duty.  It sold 15.5k last week, 76 weeks out from release.  This shows that UGC certainly can be popular, if implemented right.

I'd also like to mention the popularity of custom maps in games like Warcraft III and Age of Mythology.  It's arguable that Warcraft III's success is based primarily on the popularity of custom maps like Defense of the Agents and Footman Frenzy.  Hell, the entire Tower Defense genre was created through the editors found in Starcraft, Warcraft, and Age of Empires/Mythology.

And then there's the already mentioned Counter-Strike, which is the ultimate example of user generated content.

The common theme amongst these games is that UGC wasn't required, but was allowed, and was made incredibly easy to access.  This increased the longevity of the aforementioned games for both those who wish to create content and those who simply wish for more content.

I wasn't that interested in the game anymore from the videos I witnessed.