EVE General Discussion

You think T3s are bad? You have much to learn grasshopper.

This is a good question, and opens up a broader discussion about player-driven content in general, I think.

Speaking briefly about it, I think globally, across many different industries there is a change blowing through. It's moved quicker in some areas, and very slow in others. That change is, for want of a better phrase, the "democratization of creation". Crowdsourcing is a common word to describe what I'm talking about too, although it's a bit buzzwordy and I dunno if it applies to everything.

Anyways, instead of traditional top-down models of creation (content creation, business creation, all sorts of creation) we are seeing interesting new models where the "masses" get an unprecedented level of access and input into the creation of a product.

A few examples:

Wikipedia: Compare the old top-down traditional method of consolidating knowledge: the encyclopedia. Now with wiki, we have something very different. The content is created by the people, resulting in orders of magnitude more knowledge being consolidated. There's a host of other bonuses too - it's a free resource, and the contributors are (largely) unpaid.

Another example:

Kickstarter: Instead of the traditional top-down publishing model, the masses have an unprecedented level of control when it comes to funding, and often through that, dictating core aspects of product design. Products that would have never been able to get funding previously are now flush with cash. The impact globally is small for now, but conceptually, kickstarter has turned the world upside down!

Another example:

Scientific research: SETI has been given a processing boost by using people's idle computers, while idle PS3 processors have been turned towards helping cure diseases. The process of discovering new ways to fold proteins has become a sort of massively multiplayer "game" and resulted in fascinating new discoveries. Scientists, of all people, have really harnessed the hell out of crowds. They seem to understand better than most the benefits of tapping into large groups of knowledge and thinking power, artifical or human!

I could go on and on. The point is that there's a change sweeping across the world when it comes to the importance and role of "the crowd" in the creation of stuff.

In the games industry however, that change is still sort of seeping in, in fits and bursts. There are some great games that kickstarter has helped bring about, for example, but giving money is just one thing out of many that people can do.

Content creation? Having your players create your story? That's not really gotten anywhere as far as it can, yet. Eve is fascinating to me because on one hand, it has this amazing player-driven story happening out in nullsec, and on the other hand, it's "official" story is up in the clouds, almost entirely inaccessible and top-down-driven. It's the strangest mix of "getting it" and not.

Speaking more broadly about the industry as a whole, there's a lot of untapped potential there, when it comes to having players of a game help contribute to that game's content and design. Part of the reason we haven't seen big experiments with this idea is that breaking the status quo here is a little more difficult. Companies are leery about letting their players have too much control over their IP. That can be a frightening prospect, and for good reasons.

But should they really be scared of the idea? Maybe these game companies, CCP included, should look around the world at this emerging trend; at things like Wikipedia, and the simply vast amount of content that can be found there, all of it contributed for free by intelligent people who are happy to donate their time and knowledge. They should look long and hard at the enviable quality of these crowd-driven projects.

They should also look at Minecraft. This game...this fuggen game! It is the IDEA of player-created content gamified in the most simple and profound of ways. It is nothing but a player-driven sandbox, in its purest form. Look at its success! Look at how huge the demand for that idea is becoming!

Much like the concept of a leather-bound Britannica seems antiquated now, I think further down the line, the concept of in-house developers as the exclusive (or even primary) source of game content creation and design will be seen as an inefficient and antiquated model.

My personal belief is that in the future we'll see game developers take more of a managerial and catalytic role with the players; letting them develop the content and design of a game more and more, and instead focusing their efforts and time on harnessing, driving, and indeed inspiring player input, rather than developing their own individual stuff. Think of it like a single writer versus a single person managing hundreds of writers - what seems more efficient on the surface of things, and more likely to produce more bang for buck?

So what then, might be possible if they tapped into 300,000 eager players?

Just some thoughts anyhow. It's been interesting to see this change sweeping across various industries, in the many forms it takes, and it'll be interesting to see how the game industry adapts.

I think CCP is doing quite well at this, by the way, and I think they're in a uniquely advantageous position to pioneer things even further. Live events are a good experiment with this, but they're doing other things too. The eve is real marketing campaign was all about players doing the advertising for CCP. Same concept, very different industry/area. They seem to grasp the concept and as such, I think they'll be a leader in this regard.

Sometimes I blow things up in RL yes...
Was not meant offensive though...

You guys need to stop nerfing things and instead create new and better counters to them. That is how the real world works, already-existing technologies never get nerfed unless there is a huge dark age or something...but that's really on a time-scale too big for EVE right now, the game has only been out for what, 9 years? And who wants to play through a technological dark age, anyhow? *glares at Amarr capsuleers*

CCP is introducing SPACE PANDAS this Winter.

I'd better train up 'Bamboo chewing' to V ...