Odaily Translator |
Sometimes there's a fine line between game makers and gamers, but the latter can beat games much faster than the former can create them. Therefore, in a high-risk, high-reward industry such as games, creativity is very important, but creativity is relatively scarce at present. Talent can be one of the biggest bottlenecks for the industry, which is why for game studio heads, user-generated content can be fertile ground for a creator economy. Large and engaged communities where people create and consume on platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch are now at the center of a growing creator economy. Now, the creator economy has entered the game industry.
Of course, over the decades, game studios have been tapping into the potential of fans to provide themselves with a source of innovation. Possibly the most famous first-person shooter game of all time, Doom achieved success in the 1990s, and it has to be credited to one thing it did: open up its underlying layers to anyone willing to build additional levels and add-ons Source Code - It's the original game granddaddy that drives the "modding" phenomenon. After completing the release of the first-person shooter game "Half-Life", Valve has gradually developed from a publisher to a full-fledged digital platform (including Steam, the world's largest digital marketplace for PC games). To this day, Valve released one of the most successful games of all time, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, which is also the product of their own spin-off.
We're seeing the creator economy permeating the games industry, with players exploring new ways to monetize their contributions, whether by building original game worlds, creating and selling in-game items on the blockchain, or through new Game streaming tools to engage with fans. At the same time, studios and game developers realized that contributing to player creation opportunities -- while sharing in the profits -- was actually a competitive advantage. This is critical to reviving the underlying economy in game design and publishing.
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The economics behind the UGC boom
The rise of user-generated content (UGC) is no accident: it's largely a necessity. You know, the cost of making games continues to rise. A pre-pandemic analysis by game design legend Raph Koster found that the effective cost of creating a $5 million indie mobile game was the same as a $100 million cross-platform megagame on a per-megabyte basis. . This explains why large publishers tend to be risk-averse — or at least weigh their investments very carefully.
Still, even the investments of large publishers can't be the driving force behind constant innovation. The competitive advantage of a game studio stems from its ability to develop cool new experiences. If there is "too much alike, a little bit different", it will be difficult to survive in a click-driven market. By opening up creation to both players and outside developers, publishers effectively outsource the innovation process and reduce their business risk. By shifting development responsibilities from a small team of professional designers to a large group of fans and enthusiastic gamers, the overall design process can be greatly expanded. Opening up the game's building blocks and encouraging players to access and develop in-game items and experiences for others can unearth more novel content, and this is the beta testing process that has been going on in the early days.
Over the past five years, Electronic Arts game developer Maxis has created approximately 5,000 individual costumes for The Sims, according to Electronic Arts senior vice president Samantha Ryan. She noted in a recent panel discussion:
"But if you look at one of our largest user-generated content sites, they've created 39,000 titles in the same period. As a professional development company, we just can't keep up with our players."
For game developers, there's another benefit: Much of the publicly traded and private industry now generates revenue through service models, so there's a glut of content. Digitization and the accompanying free-to-play revenue model have made gaming accessible to everyone. With the plethora of games available, it becomes more expensive to connect consumers with content. User-generated content, on the other hand, offsets marketing costs because it makes it easier for companies to retain players and reduce player churn. Being part of an active community and providing a steady stream of new content for your favorite games encourages players to stick around for longer. At the same time, this also has a positive effect on the average game lifetime and reduces threats from opponents.
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Make social games, not just play
When participating in most traditional forms of entertainment, we are actually very passive: such as the "squid game" carnival brought by Netflix; or going to a concert. But games are completely different, the audience can actively participate in it, and even embody the spirit of entertainment, so games are changing all this. From our experiences with games like Roblox, The Sandbox, and Rec Room, we've found that the focus of these games is on making games. UGC isn’t just a new way to play — it’s an increasingly viable way to monetize, a form of identity, and a form of social bonding.
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Summarize
Summarize
Over the past three decades, as the experience of the game has slowly enriched, players have begun to participate more deeply in more and more important decision-making, and eventually to higher-level customization, which means that we are moving towards a single Objective experience waved goodbye. Perhaps, we are playing the same game, but we gradually begin to experience it in our own way. Today, through the development of user-generated content, we are also able to share and sell these tailored experiences with others.
