User Generated Content should replace Multiplayer modes

21:11 David O No comments

A lot of people got miscarried away by Iwata's keynote at GDC 2011 which was about the subject based on Content and many miscalculated what he actually meant. As naive I am, I'm not quite sure if I do understand what he meant by that. I did grasp this part when he mentioned his game was based on graphics while Miyamoto was based on content and Miyamoto's game sold better than Iwata.

I will not go in detailed with his keynote as I am going to talk about User Generated Content, we all know what User Generated Content is (referred to UGC from now on).
The particular user generated content I'm talking about is to do with Create, Share, Play or is it the other way round?
I remember playing Dante's Inferno and eagerly awaited for the Trails of St Luca DLC which allows players to create game types and maps so that other players can download and play. The game that successfully reinvented the Play, Create Share was Little Big Planet and now we can see newer games using the Play Create Share feature for games like Modnation Racers.

I believe that User Generated Content is the future of mulitplayer games or the feature that will eventually replace multplayer. When you think about it in context, as the title you can Play contents from developers, Create contents for gamers and Share your contents with other gamers. You are not forced to create a content however if you want to try out a different challenge and experience from other gamer's standpoint and not developers, you can just download a map from other gamers.


Again Sucker Punch introduced this Play Create Share experience that allows you to create maps and challenges for inFAMOUS 2. The goodness about Play Create Share is that many gamers prefer creating contents in games rather than playing them and we can tell by looking at Mortal Kombat Armageddon, Soul Calibur 3 and Soul Calibur 4. I complain about the Custom Characters in fighting games because you 'are' meant to fight not by spending countless hours recreating Video game iconic characters in fighting games.
This play method can then be converted to Play Create Share content, many gamers would prefer to create impressive contents rather than play the game.

Many people will believe Play Share Create content did not start of with Little Big Planet (I never said that as I wrote above it was reinvented), the more appropriate word would be reinvigorate. With games like Halo Reach and Halo 3 gamers could create contents, or even with games like Trackmania, FarCry, Trails HD.
If you look at the criticism of Call of Duty games or overall competitive multiplayer games, you'd find out many gamers dislike playing multiplayer games online. These kind of people prefer Single Player campaign games, other types of gamers love Co-op games (including myself) while many dislike cooperation games.

I believe with developers given more time to create a feature that enables Play Create Share content will allow their games to be played for a longer period of time (if not, possibly the game may not be traded). If you look at today's FPS games; they are shipped with 4-6 multiplayer maps. If Play Create Share was enabled we would see tons of maps recreated by gamers. In fact sales for DLC maps would decrease because many gamers would choose to stick with retail maps rather than new maps.

Publishers can still make money out of this. Gamers would obviously want more of the contents, publishers can charge gamers for content items or item in packs. Instead of having the usual Multiplayer map pack as DLC; publishers can charge for items for content recreation.


When looking at the numbers of complaints from many gamers; they are to do with the game being 4 hours long, no multiplayer, only local co-op or single player only. Come on now what if these problems existed and the only way to give back to the gamers or assure them of a longer playtime; is to do so with User Generated Content? By allowing us to create contents, download them and play them.

I do believe plenty of staffs and hours of work would be required however my purpose is to make sure UGC mode replaces multiplayer mode. I dislike COD multiplayer games because it requires no skills and imagine if I could create my maps. I would make sure there isn't a spot gamers can hide and no spot for campers. Creating my map would be based entirely on my rules, gamers who download my map would try to conquer my map.

Just imagine your favourite game and imagine if it was User Generated Content enabled?



What exactly can we have in terms of creating contents?
*Recreating maps
Arranging props and sets all to your imagination and rules
*Triggering different game modes
Using different mods to change the gameplay experience- one minute you are asked to capture the flag, the next minute the world will be mirrored opposite, or all enemies will have maximum damage.

A game doesn't have to be an open world sandbox for UGC to work. Dante's Inferno allowed us to create content and the best part was giving us 'Option' to play a user created content alone or cooperative.
If you'd played Mortal Kombat (MK9) and tried out the Challenge Towers; you would notice the amount of scenarios and gameplay changers in the tower. Just imagine if gamers could create a map in MK and use many of those mods? Armless combat, bloody battle, classic music etc.


I just believe more publishers allows developers to build User Gener