Haha, clever illustration.

Simon:

Thanks for mentioning the Great Games Experiment and we appreciate your engagement with it. I did want to make one thing clear, however.

My point was not to agree with Au. But it was not to disagree either. His argument, which is shared by others, that game companies have become too monolithic, unidirectional, hermetic, that they produce products in essence for each other that people at large don't want, that game co.s have ceded the advantage to more entrepreneurial types and so on, is a matter of public perception. We'd do well, those of us in the industry, to pay attention to it. Even if we don't agree.

In that context, my assertion was simply this: If there IS any truth to the argument, then the Great Games Experiment--created by a games company--stands as a mitigating factor. GGX is a way for users to talk back to developers (as well as to each other), instead of just sitting quietly with folded hands and only voting with their pocketbooks. I dare say that regardless of the validity of Au's argument, such attempts to reach out and talk, in two way conversations, with users and audience, can only be a good thing for companies, developers and all the many other shareholders in the larger experiment of gaming.

Thanks again for taking the time to talk about these issues.

I love how "web 2.0" and "user generated content" gets thrown in there.

Web 2.0 is actually following the trend started by game communities and MMOs. WoW is more Web 2.0 than Flickr.

And "user generated content" is so misunderstood. Guess what? Users don't care *who* generates the content -- they just want to play what's fun (and free, often times). There's nothing inherently exciting to a gamer about user-generated content as a whole. Its individual pieces of content that manages to resonate with users that is what people get excited.

User-generated-content is a business model. The people who actually care about it are business owners, venture capitalists, and people who wear ties.

I don't always agree with Au, but I think we all know he was talking about the big loud publishers when he said they were losing attention-share, and he's not wrong. GAMES are in good shape, but big publishers who rely on selling shooters to fanboys need to think hard about whether they can maintain a competitive business in that niche alone.

I'm generally a pretty positive person myself, but I find that the drumbeat of the mainstream game industry's endless PR hype machine makes me queasy. Biggest guns ever! Biggest explosions ever! Biggest tits ever! I don't blame Au for occasionally upchucking all over the booth babes' shiny black leather stiletto boots. E3 and all the other products of the hype machine make me feel the same way.

The people whose work I like the best are the indies, not only because they are more creative, but also because they're usually modest about it. "Here's our game. We worked hard on it. We think you'll like it. Please give it a try." Perhaps the best thing of all about indies is that they are too small to have marketing departments.

I agree that "user-generated content" is not the be-all and end-all, but consider all the people who have made "user-generated content" games and environments successful. There are enough of them who seem pretty amped on it. After all, they're users. Using content. I'm saying, why would we in gaming refuse to learn the lesson already learned by newspapers, television and the recording industry? It may not be the End Game of gaming, but it can hardly be dismissed.

The tab next to this one on Firefox has someone complaining that because publishers are increasingly able to make a quick buck on casual games, they're going to stop making games for the hardcore. So I think no-one really knows what's going to happen.

Hopefully it will mean that the enthusiast press have to start working a bit harder to find games to cover and start talking to the indies. I've wondered for a few years now why the enhtusiast press don't take more notice of the indies - one would be hard-pressed to find someone that hadn't run across, N, say, at one point, and yet the first mention of it I see in the enthusiast press was the DS version. If these guys are supposed to be experts, why is the best way to find out about new and interesting games Penny Arcade and indy forums?

I'm generally suspicious of user-generated content for, I suspect, the same reason. I know I'm really looking forward to the penis monsters all over everyone's Spore game (or, a far more likely example considering its appearance in VGcats, a monster that poops to see). I don't trust the mainstream gaming community to deliver a positive experience, and suspect there's going to be no way to peek over the shoulder of people I know have good taste to see what they're checking out.

Curt, I love making games, so I am totally up for users who want to cross over and make their own levels and mods. But the buzz around user-generated content within the VG industry right now is becuase it's seen as a shortcut to producing the actual content.

Perhaps I'm influenced too much by Raph Koster's GDC07 presentation.

Hanford: I agree that companies can choose, and have chosen, to go for lesser quality as a trade off for cheap. Look at 'reality television' and, to my wroth, look at some of the big media companies, who are coopting blog content from people in the thick of things instead of paying for a journalist to get the job done. (After all, if a blogger is worth inclusion in, say, Reuters, isn't he or she worth paying like a journalist?) So I'm sure there _will_ be companies churning out cr/p for free. Or creating good stuff from other peoples' work and not giving them anything for it. Both eventualities are dangerous.

Amen, Simon.