On player-created content

There’s a comment from J. (Vs Jessica Mulligan, hehe) that I really enjoyed:

Yeah yeah, I know, players eat the content, they should be allowed to make their own. No argument there. So why are so many of the supposedly ground-breaking attempts by developers to put the tools in players’ hands so they can make their own content done for games that have user bases that are marginal at best?

I’ll have to take your word on whether Nevrax planned Ryzom Ring from the beginning, but whether they’re being given away free doesn’t make much difference to me, because I don’t know anyone who plays Ryzom. I’ve been wrong about such things before, but unless someone builds some pretty impressive stack of Legos, I doubt much noise is going to be made of any of these projects other than they exist and are available for someone to get busy making more fun, because there’s not enough fun to go around.

I’m not trying to look “edgy.” Rather, I’m annoyed that what many assume is a grand corner-turn in the business of making games looks like one big excuse on the part of developers to shove the business of making games wholly onto their player base. Yeah, it works sometimes. But the developers end up adding a new discipline to their works: Publisher. And that always works well, when a developer decides they’re good enough at business to rely on the work of others, right? No reason to question their motives or future success, right?

Cut me a break, here.

Then let’s talk about PvP :)

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