Ah, see you think I’m going to talk about something that isn’t really what I’m going to talk about.  I said that to confuse you.

In the Web 2.0 world user generated content generally means blogs, comments, photos, videos, etc.  Basically, stuff users create and then other users look at… consume. What is particularly interesting about this is that it means the site owner doesn’t have to produce all that content – they just give users the tools to create it, browse it, look at it, consume it. The sites themselves are basically facilitators.

I’m going to make a distinction before I get to the point.  My view of what a game is might be different than other peoples.  In fact, I’m sure it is.  For example, I don’t consider Second Life to be a game.  I consider it to be a social environment.  In a social environment, like Second Life, user generated content is pretty much the same as the user generated content I mentioned above.  It may be more difficult to create, have to adhere to more complex rules, and/or it may have a larger aspect of commercialization, but it’s not meaningfully different.  (That’s not to demean it, I think Second Life is a great model.)

Every example like this seems to have that ambigous case though. I’ll call the Sims that ambigious case.  In many ways it is a social environment.  But there are more game mechanics there, but still I would argue that it doesn’t past my game test because it is pretty much voyeuristic.

So moving on to games, user generated content could mean users make swords or armor or other in game items.  Unfortuantely, this concept won’t work to well in games though.  Why you ask?  Because of balance issues.  See, if users create their own swords they might be overpowered, because that’s what people will tend to create.  Users could of course be allowed to create graphics but not attributes, but that would create oversight issues and linkage issues.

In certain types of games, this issue can be skirted.  Games like Neverwinter Nights and Warcraft 3 (not World of Warcraft) allow users to generate modules and maps (respectively).  This is not uncommon.  It is good.  It is also traditional user generated content.

So, finally, to the point.  What is different in games?  What is this user generated content in games?  It is the actual game itself. Many games are delivered in beautiful worlds, populated by beautiful avatars, and controlled by complex rules.  This is just like those Web 2.0 sites I mentioned above – the game is facilitating an exchange, but without users creating content they’re not very interesitng. In games this is also critically important because what makes them fun and interesting is also the user generated content:  competition.  The things all the other players do – the one difference is that it is not persistent.

Take two examples:

• World of Warcraft:  In many cases, this is a traditional game and relies on content generated by Blizzard.  But in the PvP arenas (Warsong Gulch, Arathi Basin, and Alterac Valley) much of the “content” is generated by the players (users). Once you are in these areas your goal is to beat your opponent, who is another human.  So all the “action” is generated by other users.
• Battlefield 2142:  I think this game has a single player mode, but I’ve never played it. The fun of this game is massive (32v32) player vs. player team battles.  On each team, a commander is selected, squads are created, orders are issued – all by the players.  Now that’s user generated content in games!

[ Buy from Amazon] [ Official Site ] [ Gamespot: 8.1 Users: 8.0 ]

This is a cool PC game, probably the best since World of Warcraft.  I’m sure it will also make a great console game at some point as well. It is also a better sequel, at least IMO.  Of course, that wouldn’t have been hard in Battlefield series, since the other one wouldn’t run on my computer, which I now realize is a shame since this is a good game and I think its predecessor was probably good too.  (BTW, the reason it didn’t run wasn’t because my computer wasn’t powerful enough, it had some weird issues with the resolutions I use.)

Battlefield 2142 is a first person shooter that simulates military combat.  It allows games of up to 64 players (32 per team) in opposing factions.  (The EU vs. PAC). 

You can choose one of four options:

• Recon:  This is basically a sniper.  They get sniper rifles, explosives, and camouflage.
• Assault:  Basic infrantry.  They get assault rifles and med packs.
• Engineer:  Good at killing armor and air.  They get something akin to a stinger missle launcher.  They can also repair armor, cars, air, etc.  They also get mines, which are quite nice.
• Support:  These are heavy machine gunners.  They can also resupply (provide more ammo).

The other interesting thing about this game is that you can get in vehicles such as tanks, mechs (large, heavily armed and armored robot looking things), cars (little dune buggie type vehicles with a machine gun turret), and various helicopters.  Tanks and mechs are really fun.  You can see the list of vehicles here.

The commander can also issue orders to people and squads (up to six players per squad).   A commander can also launch a UAV to monitor enemy troop positions and movement and can bombard them with an orbital strike. 

GOOD:  It’s fun to play.  32v32 is a blast.  It seems to be relatively easy to find game servers that are popular.  You can play a game pretty quickly, often around 30 minutes, and they are a blast.  You usually get some good adrenaline rushes.  I also admit to have a significant bias towards games where you play against or with other people as opposed to alone.  This is one of only three games I’ve found myself playing for any reasonable amount of time in the last few years (the other two are World of Warcraft and Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne – I’ll discuss them later).

BAD:  The game doesn’t handle Alt-Tabbing very well which I find really annoying.  It also could have better game finding and matching features, sometimes joining with a friend is a royal pain because you have to keep hitting refresh until a slot on a server opens up and then sometimes it puts you on a different team.  Finally, the documentation pretty much sucks, but hey it’s a game and you’ll figure it out.

COOL BONUS:  It does have a pretty cool webpage showing your ranks and stuff.  Ranks that you get from playing and badges/awards (which are cool) lead to unlocks (better gear).   This is probably makes the game ten times more interesting.

SEE:  LokiTX (that’s me!)

Xbox 360, Wii, and PS3.  (BTW, XBox wins for best and easiest to find website.  Googling PS3 doesn’t even get you the official site as the top result and ps3.com and playstation3.com don’t go there either…. and it takes 2 clicks from playstation.com.)  They are all finally here and the battle is engaged.  It’s funny, when I set this blog up I went back and grabbed my favorite posts from my old blog and posted them on here with their original dates.  When I did that, I noticed a post from November 28th, 2005 – exactly one year ago – discussing the Xbox 360 launch.  That was the only one of the consoles that I made a half-assed attempt to buy on launch day, but I wasn’t there early enough so I missed out.  I later bought an Xbox 360.  At first I wasn’t blown away by the few games I tried.  Perfect Dark sucked, for example.  Halo 2 was fun to play in higher res, but not a big change.

Then my friend, Adam, introduced me to Call of Duty 2 (buy) and it was the first Xbox 360 game that I thought was really cool.  That was fun to play for a while, but I never really became a junky.  Probably because I was too busy playing World of Warcraft (which still, in my opinion, beats any console game).  But I did keep paying attention to the coming next gen console wars and followed that story with interest.

The outcome is one I never really expected.  First off, Microsoft really did a good job of throwing a monkey wrench into the PS3.  Gears of War (buy) is a great game (it has already sold one million copies) and it launched just before the PS3, accomplishing two things:

• Keeping all the Xbox 360 owners interested and excited about the Xbox 360.  It’s much easier to run out and buy Gears of War than it is to wait in line to get a PS3.  And a lot cheaper than paying a premium.    So I think it was a powerful mechanism for keeping the existing base excited about the X360 platform.
• It is a powerful, and cheaper, consolation prize for the people that wanted a PS3.  Microsoft got a bit of a boost since the PS3 got some bad reviews early on.  Everyone already knew it would be hard to get, but a few bad reviews, a lack of good games, and the general plethora of negative Sony news (exploding batteries anyone), wasn’t good.  The only really interesting PS3 game (IMO) that isn’t on another platform is Resistance:  Fall of Man (Gamespot: 8.6).  But it looks pretty similar to Gears of War (Gamespot 9.6).   And you can get an X360 and Gears of War, and still have almost $800 left over (given eBay’s PS3 resale price averages of $1,186).  So what would you choose?  I have chosen to think about buying a PS3 in the spring when they are plentiful, not marked up, and maybe have some games I am interested in.  Although if Microsoft feeds enough Halo 3 info before then, I might never buy one.

This isn’t from the game.  It’s from another project.  I’ll tell you more soon enough.

Map:  Alpha World

So, I got a Wii.  I paid about $50 over retail through craigslist, which I thought was reasonable to get it now.  I’ve never been a big Nintendo fan, I always thought they made kids stuff.  I mostly bought the Wii because I was curious about how the controller would work and how games would take advantage of it. 

So first I’ll admit:  I have only played Wii Sports – the basic game that comes with it.  (I have Zelda and Red Steel, but haven’t had time to try them yet.)  On Wii Sports I’ve played Boxing and Tennis.  And I have to say:  I like them. 

They are also seem to be good exercise, especially if you playing them standing up, which is how you should play them.  I can’t imagine playing them sitting down, that just seems weird.  The WSJ had a story about this called Wii Workout, which was pretty interesting. 

I’m pretty impressed.  The PS3:  not so much.  And I’m sure not paying a $400 premium for it.  I have an XBOX 360 (see my GamerTag in the gutter) already and I don’t see anything that makes me think the PS3 will deliver anything much better.  I’m sure in a year we might see something.  But until then, I think Gears of War is a killer 360 app.  And hey, in a year there will be Halo 3.

I generally prefer PC games anyway.

Mmmm, robots!

Shhhh! It’s stealth.  😉

Pluck, where I was a co-founder, just announced that they’ve raised $7mm from Reuters.  Reuters will also offer BlogBurst on its site and to its partners. Congrats to the team, they are doing an amazing job!

I’m not sure why anyone will care about what I have to say.  Except, perhaps, for the occasional person looking for start-up advice, info on games and movies, or that wants to follow the projects I’m currently working on.  Maybe one day one of these projects will take off and become really cool.  Until then, well, you’ll just have to pretend to be interested.  Unless you really are, in which case I’m glad.

 So, you ask, what are the projects?

 This is a perfectly reasonable question and I will introduce them all in due time.  Until then, I’ll mention briefly and in a totally obscure and worthless fashion that one of them is called Oxygen Games.  So hey, it’s a game company.  It’s, as is typical of whacky start-ups, in stealth mode.  So, I can’t talk much about it right now.  But soon enough!

Note:  This is not the first post on the blog anymore, I went and grabbed my favorite posts (which I thought might still be marginally insightful) and posted them here with their original timestamps.