I might suggest that the 90% Crap Idea(tm) is pretty much what we already get from the MMORPG companies.

Players are constantly starved for content and wake up their accounts for a month or two and then stop playing and paying (til 6+ months for the next 'drop'). The big games can continue as they have, but have only in those limited genres.

The description Ive given here (above) lacks alot of the details of what the full system I propose would have to be.

Again the things produced by some small percentage of the playerbase (who want to be creators) get selected for use (stringent functional testing at minimum). REUSE is a key element shortcutting further additions.

The collaboration model (only mentioned above ) allows people to build on what other people have already done, thus improving them incrementally. Hardly anyone is good at everything required, so it would take multiple people to produce each of the complete 'Assets' finally used in the game. Someone does good ideas or planning, another basic shapes/structures, another refines that (and possibly others do later), another is good at textures and applying them, another is good at realistic weathering/usifying, another can adapt behavior attributes (tweaking or just installing existing templates) and animations/sound effects , some other can do any needed specialized behaviors. A whole lot can combine objects into scene assemblages (which become someone elses building block for mission scenarios (which have add in creativity for dialogs/story plot/pacing/theater style scripted interplay -- the real aim of this production.

Obviously the Player Creation Community's Vetting and Collaboration is the key to this system, but dedication CAN be found for such. Advice and commenting for revision and testing and inspection would all to be done through a well define process.

Those who have skills and know the tools have much higher efficiency (so its not so tedious for them to do alot in their speciality) BTW SOME people are good at creating tutorials to TEACH others how to be proficient...

The publishing model is to share everything and asset projects are forked and resubmitted (and ANYONE can come along and mod it if they want to try)

A WHOLE lot of the low level fiddley bits would be done by the company (game mechanics, object atrributes systems for standard interactions, etc..)

I didn't mention that the detail level of objects is more along the 'deformable' world type definition and play use (much more genericly interactive and reactive). Thus more you can use things for IN-GAME (and ALOT of creation ALSO can potentially be done by any Player In-Game). There are LOTS of small things to create for a rich world - not everyone has to create A Mech-Tiger-Tank. Many aren't that hard. with so much basic stuff already predone and inherant tweakability and (much more) Idiot Proof Tools and integration of processes.

The GOOD tools (fundamental to this system) comprehensively cover producing all of these things -- thats why they will be as big a project as a AAA game by itself to build (and some players can be better at Tool Making/Improving than most in the companies, and THAT is part of this whole thing TOO)

Creators get credit for the part they do, and add to, and those things they add are structured for reusability and modification.

The company would try to set standards and the community would have to maintain those strong standards (and the company would have the Final Word to enforce adherence). Obviously there are legal issues like copyright infringement which have to be enforced strictly, and the vetting system would be defined to prevent publishing anything with such issues.

I never said it would be easy (and DID say this is Next-Next generation stuff), but the way costs are going up and playtimes going down for these games, the Wodinoneeye Law says that within some number of years with games progressing as they are, they will each cost as much as the US Yearly Economy and playtime will Last a fraction of a second. Well before that, most players will stop buying them.

Consider IF players could create using already defined 'objects' and use them to create higher-order things for the game. Guns already work, chairs already work, NPC already have improved AI. The TEMPLATES are designed for mod'ing with the least needed work. Now large numbers of Player Creators DONT have to fumble around trying to build everything they envision up from scratch (and no longer fail when they couldnt do EVERYTHING so complex and tedious). Now you (many more players) can build the more interesting aspects of the actual game instead of get stuck reinventing all the building blocks.

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I suppose I could say that Open Source never could work because of this Sturgeons Law, but what is the reality there ???

Yep, all all a miserable failure ... right ? Nobody in their right mind will do anything quality for free ... right ?

(now do that in a more organized fashion....)

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This would be a largely new paradigm for game production, employed in a more complex/thorough way. It really has to be done with consistency or wont work (and its a daunting project that only a visionary (with sufficient cash) could attempt and will probably take some such pioneer to eventually do it)

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"Second Life had almost exactly the vision that you lay out."

Vision is one thing, carrying it out is another. This system I speak of is far larger and would need to be much better designed as to expandibility ('Templates', as the fundamental design for EVERYTHING involved - parameterized hierarchical )

Second Life had(has) this fundamental element of people $ELLING their in-game productions/creation which NIXED most/alot of collaboration.

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Result - a constant flow of new APPROVED content, improvement of the assets already deployed. Heavy use of procedurally generated game terrain/scenarios are possible (again via that comprehensive TEMPLATE system the whole thing is based on). Creation On-The-Fly (alot of it) instead of 'static' level worlds.

An interesting aspect in such a system is that Micro Genre games can be built upon generic items already produced (and working), being tweaking instead of a complete rebuilding and then you can so much sooner get to doing the 'good part' of creating the game.

It's a good idea in theory, but in practice most people are not content creators they are content consumers.

They don't have the time or ability to produce content, art and scripting even when provided with a user friendly engine. This is evidenced by the fact that most games that are moddable are still only modded by a small faction of the player base and most of the mods are junk. Only a very small amount of content might make it through quality and legal to the game and probably not enough to keep the game alive.

That's my own thought on this...

Edit: just a thought - you'll probably need a professional content review team skilled in judging good content from poor content and on the ball about legal issues. This definitely can't be left to players who will just approve that "let's marry the incredible hulk" content because they want to play it. This team may cost you as much as a dedicated team of content creators...

Also: There exists companies that review and publish user-generated content already.
Including "virtual world" companies as well as aggregation platforms like Steam.
What, exactly, are you bringing that's new and will change the dynamics for these efforts?

It's a good idea in theory, but in practice most people are not content creators they are content consumers.

They don't have the time or ability to produce content, art and scripting even when provided with a user friendly engine. This is evidenced by the fact that most games that are moddable are still only modded by a small faction of the player base and most of the mods are junk. Only a very small amount of content might make it through quality and legal to the game and probably not enough to keep the game alive.

That's my own thought on this...

Edit: just a thought - you'll probably need a professional content review team skilled in judging good content from poor content and on the ball about legal issues. This definitely can't be left to players who will just approve that "let's marry the incredible hulk" content because they want to play it. This team may cost you as much as a dedicated team of content creators...

Thats why I said its a paradigm shift where players have to have it proven to them that they CAN create and add things for the game.

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Numberwise, consider a medium sized MMORPG maintaining something like 100000 players -- OK lets just take a 1% participation in 'creation' and that for particular elements there is a 10% of those who add significant quality things to the system (remember its all organized around Templates, not finished Assets so the good things produced will have that Template skeleton behind them that allow some lesser gods to customize/modify upon that fundamental work.

This is where the reuse is key. This project is bigger than just one game being produced. Consider that 10 other games of the same size (and dozens of small genre ones ??) will later or simultaneously be built using those existing created Templates and Assets (and ideas) and now with further additions made by THOSE game's 1% / 10% population

OK now as to Vetting/Testing Issue

Some subset of players are good at fixing things or at least spotting defects which then get kicked BACK to the Asset/Templates originator. Important all round is to streamline this process as much as possible to NOT waste people's time. (Like having WELL documented requirements which can be invoked and integrated (FULL) Testrigs that directly PROVE the defect --- to eliminate argument about non-adherence to the standards.)

Important is to get past MOST 'creators' worrying about the building block's mechanical details (handled by those 'Creators' with expertise in those areas) and let them get to the creativity part (which really SHOULD BE the majority of the creation activity, instead of the opposite). Those creations now become more a matter of aesthetics and their fit within a specific game's genre and storyline, etc.., which MANY more Players are capable of commenting upon and pointing out problems (versus some C++ code endcase for the Template physical behavior mechanism that makes a Chair object swivel properly)

Being a unified system, the creation community crosses ALL those games - collaboration now being a much larger pool (definitely) for the building blocks, and even many final objects available for reuse with minimal modification. Anyone can comment and make (preferably helpful) suggestions (and point out fixes). Exposure of the guts of each project allows anyone to look in detail at the Asset and directly point out or possibly even 'mail' the authors a fix for particular problems.

The Processes for the Asset Design/Organization/Collaboration/Testing/Publishing are a BIG part of the design needed to make this whole thing work.

Collaboration, being fundamental to the Community, would include high level game gurus (someone has to make subjective decisions to shape individual games' worlds and to prioritize things to get a consistent content mix) who request certain (flavors of) Assets to be created, and projects within the online community would be set in place with milestone mechansism and integrated tools to pass partial working assets back and forth between multiple people efficiently. Initial stages would see if there areTemplates that preexist meeting much of the requirement (if not then making new/variation Templates becomes the first task) , then followed by fleshing out the customization tasks and eventually farming them out to competant 'experts' at each stage. If a project languishes then the Gurus try to cajole players into becoming involved.

Remember that these 'Assets' extend all the way to Mission Scenarios in their composition, so stitching together existing high level Assets into a cohesive scene will be alot of the 'creation' activity - something a WHOLE DIFFERENT set of players are capable of doing (as long as the Tools are sufficiently useful/efficient)

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Consider what Computer Publishing did for us. Now people didn't have to worry about typesetting or hiring expensive 'experts', when so much was built into the tools. Lots of online assistance and ideas came to exist and Templates for commonly composed things which eliminate much tedious work.

Individuals could now largely get done what they wanted very quickly, with hardly any technical difficulties. THAT is like the goal for this entire system, except that it is far broader in the types of things created.

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The process to develop this whole thing will take time to find 'best ways' and to iron out problems and difficulties (which is part of the reason most game companies wont touch such an idea - too many dependencies and delays when you have a realease schedule to get the CA$H)

But as I said in regards to this threads subject, It is something that game producing needs to break out of the rut and limitations they have been in.

I would love to see you succeed in that vision, I really do!

I would love to see you succeed in that vision, I really do!

Me? I'll let you know when I somehow get about $100 million. Its not exactly something you could crowdfund.

Probably will take one of the big game producers teaming with one of the game engine companies to have the resources needed to break into that model.

The basic templating design scheme might first grow out of improved game engine architecture/toolset used for a couple of AAA games.