thats a problem isnt it? If that takes off and the Wii uses UGC too then SONY will scramble to make new content. Just remember, the new content was the motion controls that uses on the Wii and Nintendo wont let any user to tweak it. Even FPS. They can though with traditional controls. SONY relies more on traditional controls and if UGC takes way then theres no reason for SONY and its third parties to make games anymore. What tradtional games that are always played? FPS multiplayer and platformers. thats it. And users can create multiplayer maps and platform stages with UGC alone.

User Generated Content is, yet again, about the community of users owning the product and coming up with cool stuff. You don't allow them to do that, they won't use it. They demand control over things to make it theirs and will stage protests if you get in their way.  Look up Crowdsourcing for more info on this.

This article is a good one. It does show how customers can be lost in the shuffle.

Google doesn't make money off of Youtube and nobody pays for Youtube. So that's a very bad example at best.

Content is NOT created by normal users, if normal users (CONSUMERS, note CONSUME there) are the ones paying money to be entertained.  They pay money to have someone else create it (not themselves).  If the creators are skilled, they eventually get paid.  You don't bank on masses to generate a bunch of noise, and expect the consumer to find that entertainment.  What the whole "User generated content will save the world" bit is, is a bunch of Technocrati believing that their day will come, and the industry will provide them tools to create their own stuff, and tweak.  Consumers don't value the desire to tweak.  What they do value is a product doing what they want, out of the box.

In a nutshell, Technocrati needs to produce and control stuff, and get their meaning and purpose from doing stuff.  Consumers don't.  They just want to consume.  They want stuff to fit into their lives and not change it, but better it.  And they DON'T want to have to put effort into getting there.

And, if you are calling him a whiner, you are a Technocrati, and totally miss what he is writing here.

The reason "User Generated Content" games don't do very well is because they are just the platform you need to build and run a good game on. But for any game to be attractive to customers you have to have a good content for it first.

Most people won't just start making good levels for a game just to watch the games publisher to get rich. If they compensated level creators then UGC could take off but then that would be like paying amature game designers to come up with the selling point for the game.

@Richardhutnik

Was this ironic? As often happens when overwhelmed by discordant buzzing my radar is off.

Btw: technocracy, technocratic, technocrat are words dating back almost a century, look them up. Technocrat doesn't mean tweaker, hacker, modder, fiddler or author. Not even Malstrom is using it in that sense in his rant.

@OP

Is there ever a piece written by Malstrom that doesn't involve a strawman argument? From rabid hardcore mobs, foaming at mouth for hatred against "new" gaming, to an "industry" claiming that "content will become irrelevant", to technocratic engineers that understand nothing about human nature.

The man is either a very poor proponent of his ideas, to need such rethorical crutches every single time, or lives in a state of paranoid delusion :)

As for the "Technocrati" issue he himself seem to suffer of the same tunnel vision he spots in his mythical engineers, as he seem to identify "human" with "consumer". His downplay of any creative process basically implies that consumers are empty vessels, their needs clear and constant and waiting to be fulfilled, and that would have to be the only goal of creators and developers of new technology.

The reality is much more complicated, though. We are human beings before consumers, and our inner needs are expressed outwards in different forms and shapes depending on our habits, culture and environment. When the Internet was born, it was not born to fulfill the general customer's need to be connected 24/7 to an endless source of news and information and personal contacts. And yet today that's a need many people -people!- manifest.

Internet is exactly a case of a technology that was brought down from a mountain (military and scientific institutions) and offered to a public that didn't even know they might have that need. The fact that it flourished to change the world like only a handful of technologies did before is a perfect example of the more complex interplay between conceptual expansion and practical adoption.

Do you know why Blizzard, Valve and Id are still making money even their games are almost 10 years old and why most PC publishers and developers are changing to consoles? THATS RIGHT... UGC. If Nintendo want to the user can mod their existing game THEY WILL. In fact, thats what Nintendo wants they want to be like Valve making money on a old game. Thats why Wii Fit, MK Wii and Wii Sports was still selling and they want to monopolized it more with UGC. Thats what they want and since most games that uses UGC are traditional games theres no loss for Ninty. 

For one thing, you still need to buy on steam the original game to play most mods in HL and HL2. And most of the popular mods were bought by Valve like CS.

Err.. Mods?

Uh.. no, I'm pretty sure that the correct answer is mods. 

As Malstrom said:

"With games like Unreal Tournament and Quake, the mods are almost at the same level as a new game. Since many PC games use FPS engines as a base, these mod makers are extremely close to being full fledged game developers. They are performing similar work.

Modding isn’t user generated content. The entire premise of user generated content is so people who do not know how to program can make their own games. Very, very few people know how to program and have time to do so. PC gamers tend to have some of these types who will do so. Console games? No way. And consoles tend to be a closed environment which limits things even further."...

...There is arrogance among game developers that everyone wants to be a game developer. This is not so. If people wanted to become game developers, they would be learning programming and art design and making games they can sell and market onto the PC. This is why those who are attracted to being a game developer will find no interest in a ‘user generated game’.

^Don't forget quality, competitive scene, mods, and word of mouth. That is why Blizzard and valve games sell forever.