Rock Band and User Generated Content

I've talked about EA's Rock Band before and do not hide the fact that it sits proudly upon my list of most anticipated upcoming titles, but I've been hesitant to blog about it with any depth in the past for fear of disappointment (as a player). Simply put, up until now I've seen very little mentioned of any 'user generated content' for Rock Band. I know they'll have online multiplayer (certainly a plus) but without the ability for players to craft their own songs and share with friends I'm worried it might feel crippled.

Now, obviously there are serious legal issues to be considered here and I'm guessing EA will ship the title without a feature that would allow players to create their own songs knowing full well that doing so would immediately open the doors to Copyright infringement issues. Clearly this is something EA wants to avoid given how closely they are working with various rights holders.

Whether Rock Band supports it or not, though, the fans will eventually find a way. I've recently come across this tutorial for uploading your own custom songs to Guitar Hero II (PS2 only, I believe). You can see an example of this in action in the video embedded below.

Copyright issues here are obviously less of a concern given how complex it is to upload one's own songs. Only the most dedicated players would invest the time and money to do so.

Its a pity really -- I'd still like to see a way for players in Rock Band to be able to easily create their own content in order to get the true 'band' experience in a way the copyright holders could accept. What do you think? Is it even possible? Or would user generated content in Rock Band be a Pandora's box of legal issues and/or crippled functionality?

The Magic of LittleBigPlanet

The PS3 has a couple of upcoming 'killer apps' that will almost certainly make me fold and finally pick one up: If Heavenly Sword or Lair don't do it, Metal Gear Solid 4 almost certainly will. None of them, though, are as 'must have' for me as LittleBigPlanet which has been at the top of my watch list since it was announced at this year's GDC.

If you're not yet familiar with LittleBigPlanet and its online-multiplayer-collaborative-level design process, take a look at the embedded video below.

Update: I Hate gametrailers.com embedded video because it always causes problems with the formatting of this blog. Anyone else have this problem? Regardless, please follow this link to watch the video.

There are a lot of special things about this game (gorgeous graphics, multiplayer, intuitive looking physics based gameplay) but one thing stands out for me more then anything else - they've made 'creating' fun. The game is basically one big playable level editor and an absolute core part of the experience will be working with friends to build one's own maps, playing them on the fly to test out the experience before setting said map free out into the world for others to download, play, and rate (insert customary Youtube and Longtail comparison and analysis).

Think back to when you were young (especially true, perhaps, if you are male and played with G.I Joe or Transformers as a boy) and how a typical 'play' session would unfold. For me, it would go something like this: a friend would come over with his box of G.I Joe, I would unpack my box, and we would spend 2 hours constructing the scenario to be 'played'. I would set up my base, he would set up his, we would argue about tactics and positions and strategy and what our world was supposed to be ("this pillow is a huge cliff").

Then, when we had everything set up just perfectly, there would be 15 seconds of "bang, kapow, I shot that guy with this guy" until, ultimately, everyone of our soldiers was dead and the 'play' was over.

Two hours to set up, 15 seconds to 'play'. Rinse wash and repeat. For us it was always the building and set-up of the scenario that was fun. The actual actions that said scenario was supposed to permit were only a small fraction of the total enjoyment of the experience.

The developer of LineRider understood this very well. This 'game' is 99% about the experience of iteratively building one's level - drawing a line (building and setting up), 'playing' (watching your guy on the toboggon slide down the slope) and then returning to the building phase (draw more lines). This loop continues until you are satisfied with the 'play' output and the final video is generated to be shared with friends.

LittleBigPlanet takes this same philosophy -- make the 'work' part truly fun -- and adds the extremely appealing multiplayer (multibuilder?) component. I'm convinced that this mentality is absolutly critical to avoid the 1% rule and allow user-generated content within videogames to reach the critical mass it needs to become mainstream and mass-market. Game 3.0, as it were.

E3 2007

I'm not at E3 this year, but man do I ever wish I was. The quantity and quality of exciting news coming out of the once-mighty behemoth is staggering. We all knew that this was going to be the year that 'Next-Gen' became Current-Gen and came into its own, but even with my already high expectations I'm finding this a very exciting time to be in the game development industry.

A bunch of games caught my attention as particularly exciting this year. I don't claim that my list below will be particularly unique or uncover any hidden gems that you haven't already heard of, but I'll endeavour to explain a little why I think these games are special from both a player and production point of view.

First off I have to tip my hat to the Assassins Creed team for a truly impressive demo. I had the good fortune of playing through the E3 build myself (one of the perks of working just down the hall from them) and can honestly say that they nailed the free-running, open-world feel. There is an incredible sequence in the demo where you're chasing an NPC through the streets, avoiding the crowd, using the buildings and rooftops to your advantage to take shortcuts, all in the name of catching up to and eliminating him with a satisfyingly dramatic assassination. I played the demo three times and the chase sequence unfolded differently every time. This game deserves the hype and the team deserves all the accolades they're sure to receive!

I've never been the largest Halo fan (although I've purchased, played and won both games) but a lot of attention is being given to one particular aspect of Halo 3 that I'm very excited about. The User-Generated content that is being called 'Halo 3 Game Films' is an idea whose time has come and will revolutionize competitive gaming, meta-game participation and community building in general. One important detail about these films is that they are recorded entirely in-engine and so are only playable by those who have the game as well. This will be important for some of the advanced features (pausing an explosion, rotating around 360 degrees to capture the perfect angle then sending a screenshot to your victim) but will cut out some of the more mass-market appeal of easily uploading one's user-generated videos to YouTube. I'm anxious to see how long it takes for someone (maybe Bungie themselves) to come out with a simple tool that will allow players to feed their video files into an application that outputs a non-interactive video. With that we will see a true explosion of Halo3 content on YouTube.

I'm excited about EA's Skate for many of the same reasons as Halo 3 -- in that Skate is also going to feature a very robust Game Film feature (likely even more so then Halo3) to try and attract the significant culture that revolves around distributing real-life skateboard videos. This talk by Skate producer Jason Balmer doesn't focus on the user-generated content but is an excellent example of how anyone representing a game should act when confronted with a question regarding their competition. Jason is gracious, humble and gives plenty of credit where it is due. I would not at all be surprised to see someone from Activision making it a point to return the favor, giving reciprocal praise to Skate due in no small part to the grace Jason shows here. Oh yah, and Skate looks sh*t hot, too!

I can't pass up Rock Band because I'm pretty sure it will come out of E3 as a front-runner for Game Of Show. I defy you to watch the embedded video without dreaming of all the fantastic parties you'll have while playing Rock Band, your pile of Mario Party games sadly gathering dust in the corner. EA and MTV have lofty ambitions to change the way the world looks at the distribution of and participation with Music entertainment (the way MTV did in the '80s with music videos). It is not yet clear to me how succesfull they'll be in this endevour but I'd bet money that no game will come close to the party appeal. Rock Band is going to help make it cool to play videogames!

I'd really like to know what games coming out of this year's E3 most excite you and why. Are there any titles (*ahem* Bioshock *ahem*) that you're surprised to see not recieving much press? Any 'must-play' titles added to your list because of this year's E3?