For Context of Practice this year I've had the idea from the start that I wanted to get into User-Generated Content in Video Games. I was inspired by Minecraft initially as I was late to the party in playing it and when I picked it up I realised why it was so popular and saw that freedom given to players by the developers of games to do what they wanted, is incredibly appealing to a large audience of players. As a lover of modding, add-ons and editors in games myself I really wanted to look deep into the subject for my Dissertation and my Practical.
My first thoughts on the project were quite straight forward:
- Mainly focused on Minecraft, the different reasons it is used other than just Gaming, how it started, why it gained such huge popularity.
- Practical Idea on my 1st Proposal Form:
-
Create an Art pack for a programme to be used by players. (Constructor,
Unity?)
-
Make my own assets & textures to be downloaded and used in a piece
of software, creating my own game from.
-
Make my own Game Manifesto for a game world to abide by. Adopting
traditional film methods in creating a specific aesthetic/genre but making it in
a game -> Player interactivity with Manifesto rather than a collaboration of
‘real’ developers.
E.g. Limited colour palette, set number of
pixels/assets, must be made in a certain amount of time.
Almost like a set brief given to a player to
abide by when creating content.
While there is a tonne written online about Minecraft and how it has been used in a number of different ways and why it has progressed the market of User-Generated Content, I also feel like it's quite a narrow line of vision for me to only want to concentrate on Minecraft. Even more than this, I feel like I am missing out on the whole other side of User-Generated Content in Video Games which is the side of non-sandbox created content. After looking into Minecraft so much, I no longer see it as 'just a game' but more of a set of tools which are incredibly easy to understand making it very accessible but can be used in a rather complex way depending on the Users engagement with the tools. I feel like I should also look at the non-sandbox side such as Nexusmods for games such as The Elder Scrolls series and the Fallout series and games with an 'editor' type of platform like Neverwinter.
With the above 'epiphany' I had, I also completely lost all ideas on what to do for my Practical. I felt I had rather a lot to talk about and look into Theory wise for my Dissertation however I was lacking ideas on what to do practically as I didn't want just one Mod/Add-on I had created to be plonked onto my Dissertation and that be my Context of Practice project. I wanted to do more but I couldn't think of what it could necessarily be as I was also aware of being too ambitious - maybe if I'm going to make some huge complicated project to be added into an existing game I'll need technical knowledge that could prove to be a hinderance to my speed of work.
Luckily with the First Critique back at University after Summer I left with much more confidence in what I could do for my Practical. The tutor told me I wouldn't have to do one huge project at all, I could focus on small tests using different game engines, editors and tools and compare them to each other. I'd have an array of different understandings and ways User-Generated content has been approached in Video Games. I liked the idea as soon as I heard it and now I have the idea of trying several games and making my own content within them, posting them publicly online and present them to my peers for feedback and evaluation. This way I'd have a collection of different approaches to User-Generated content made by myself and I can analyse and compare which I enjoyed using, which I felt were more user-friendly and which received positive and negative feedback.
Now after the Critique, it's time to research into a list of Games I'd like to get involved in making my own content within and thinking about what data I want to compile from the different processes.
