We all know about the deal with Media Molecule and Sony being a little heavy-handed on the user-created content of their latest big hit, LittleBigPlanet for the Sony PlayStation 3. Many a creative soul has had their brainchild wiped out from the face of PlayStation Network (and even from their own consoles!) for allegedly infringing on previously copyrighted material. The response to this rather harsh level of moderation has caused such a furor that Sony has decided to intervene and take action before things got a little too ugly. What are they going to do? Here’s their statement regarding level moderation, verbatim:

The level moderation process is something we’re continually improving. The small percentage of levels moderated have been done so after the community has reported them using the Good Grief tool. We never moderate levels that have not been reported in this way.

The vast majority of moderated levels were due to offensive material, however we are evolving the way moderation happens to ensure that creators are made aware of why their level was blocked. More to come shortly.

While we can certainly approve of the effort to block obviously tasteless levels, we can’t help but think that this won’t improve the level of moderation very much. Sure, we might be able to KNOW why this or that level got blocked, but knowing that the creation you spent days or even weeks getting right was deleted because a background element in your level looks kinda sorta like a zombie version of Pac-man isn’t going to help any.

What Sony should do is at least ALERT those who seem to have copyrighted elements in their levels. Notify them with a simple PM to their PSN IDs, and give them enough time to change or take out the offending element so that the hard work won’t be lost. If the deadline passes before the offending level is changed, then block it. There. That’s a bit better than just going on a blocking rampage, isn’t it?

Hardcore and casual games. Hardcore and casual gamers. I’ve spent to much time on the Internet to be surprised when I hear it, but almost once in every argument, it get’s dropped.

“It’s a CASUAL game”

A casual game. A game, that is casual in it’s design? In it’s use? In it’s plot or art? What does that mean? What do you THINK you’re saying?

Video games are NOT casual. Nor are they Hardcore. Video games are video games. There is no such thing as a hardcore game and a casual game. There are obscure games, there are popular games, there are simple games, there are complex games, there are pretty games and there are ugly games. But there is no hardcore game, and not a single casual game. They don’t exist. A game cannot be hardcore or casual. A video game can have a target audience, an art style, a plot, no plot, it can have complex controls, it could use a motion sensor, it might even require you to type words to progress, as opposed to ever controlling anything, but none of these choices will ever make it casual or hardcore.

Katamari Damacy is obscure. It’s also colourful, and it’s simple. It’s kooky and straightforward in design. It’s intention is not to appeal any one demographic. It’s intention is to take a risk in game design. Would Katamari Damacy be a hardcore game or a casual game? Both, and neither. It qualifies for either. So how can we even begin to categorize it with a straight face, knowing full well that it would hypocritical and idiotic to do so?

The same goes for all video games. Another example? Grand Theft Auto. Difficult, traditional, risk taking, and immensely popular. How could this seemingly hardcore game still be hardcore if non-gamers play it casually everyday? GTAIV received endless criticism due to it’s popularity, calling it casual and mainstream when in fact it was ONLY mainstream. I am an avid gamer. I own a slew of consoles, I play them all. I own 2 copies of GTAIV, and will be getting the PC version in December. Now, I do not play it that often. I never play it for more then an hour. I play it, casually, you could say. BUT, it is not a casual game and I am not a casual gamer. It is also not a hardcore game. It is an action adventure open world sandbox game. I am a hardcore gamer, or as I like to say, “gaming enthusiast”. My brother is a casual gamer, he doesn’t spend long on a game, except for GTAIV. He plays the game hardcore, because he payed for it and read into it, and invested himself into it.

Catz and Dogz and Horsez are not casual, they are not hardcore, they are shovelware. Katamari is a puzzle game. Super Smash Bros. Brawl is a party game and Halo is a first person shooter. I own and play all these (with the exception of the shovelware). Famously, on the internet at least, Halo is casual, Katamari is hardcore and casual and Smash Bros. is the epitome of casual. But I’ve played SSBB for at least 100 hours now. How could that be casual playing?

It can’t be, and it’s not. I am a hardcore gamer. People who own Wii’s and play for 40 minutes at most in a day are casual gamers. My friend is a casual gamer, he owns an Xbox 360. My other friend is a hardcore gamer, he only owns a Wii. My brother is a casual gamer, he owns a $1200 gaming PC. How a game could be casual boggles me. Games are not designed like that. Games cannot be casual. It is the GAMER that is casual or hardcore. The gamer plays it their way, invests in it their way, spends as much time in it as they like. There has never been a casual or hardcore game. Only a casual and hardcore gamer. It’s really that simple.

This is what I deal with every day on the internet.

You see, butt-hurt console war crap come mostly from internal regret. From wasting a paycheck and waiting in the rain for a console, or underestimating your mother’s “you can only have one” rule, regret can be, and probably IS the biggest driving force behind console fanboys.

The Wii had the best launch by far, and is still beating the crap out of the competition, leaving old school Nintendo fanboys and once regretful 1st generation DS owners (who lucked out on the system’s initial lackluster success) laughing all the way to their mother’s basements. The problem is, after Brawl was released, Wii owners noticed not only that there are very few good exclusives, but there doesn’t seem to be many good games on the horizon. Slowly, many are realizing that the Wii may truly be a ‘Gamecube 1.5′.

The PlayStation’s fall from grace is by far the biggest story to come from this generation. The initial failure of the overpriced console left it’s purchases restrained only to Sony loyalists, optimists, graphics whores, and kids that got shafted come Christmas time. Things looked entirely grim, until the turning point at last year’s E3, along with the release of MGS4 and the so-called ‘Blue-Ray victory’ led to pessimists dropping their guards and embracing the console. It’s sudden upturn, in addition to a slew of new exclusives, has not only returned hope to Sony’s eyes, but has led fanboys to strike back at their opposite competition with a violent vengeance.

Which leaves the 360. With good sales and the highest number of quality exclusives, the 360 owners should be the happiest fanboys of the bunch. But lately, with the rise of the PS3’s sales and the Wii’s dominance, the possibility of the 360, once the shining star of the generation, ending up the least successful, has fanboys absolutely livid. Even worse, the constant comments from casual and non-fanboy PS3 owners raving about their new console for no reason other than the fact that they just like to play the games has led to hilariously horrible fanboy wars being ‘fought’ on every corner of the internet.

This combination of groupthink and regret felt on every side has led to the most blatant and annoying generation of video game fanboyism ever seen. Even worse, more and more aging children are being brought into this gloriously unhealthy fandom with this powerful fanboy mindset, which may mean that all future generations of video games inspire the same undeserved rage this one has.

P.S.: Venom is from Spider-Man.

Community-generated content has been a fantastic staple of PC gaming for years. Since the days of Quake, players have enjoyed endless user maps, weapons, models, and even total conversions. To add to all this, the vast majority of it has been totally free, enabling some games–such as Quake and Half-Life–to have an infinite replay value. Some mods are even played more extensively than the original game to the point of fanaticism, such as the dubious Counter-Strike. Some actually make games playable. I’m looking at you Oblivion and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

In this day and age, however, the community seems to dwindle. The popular Source engine is a little more difficult to get one’s hands around than its predecessors and Valve is capitalizing on the best modifications and teams, going so far as to buy up Turtle Rock Studios and Nuclear Monkey Software (which is fantastic for them). The latest stand-alone game released on the source engine, Left 4 Dead, is entirely reminiscent to Community Mods that came before it. This leaves most to pay ten dollars to take funny pictures with Garry’s Mod, and fix broken games such as those previously mentioned. So the PC side of things aren’t as great as they used to be, but there’s still a lot of fun to be had. It’s just strange to have to open up my wallet for Counter-Strike, Team Fortress, Day of Defeat, and a fancy (albeit wonderfully so) version of Narbacular Drop.

With all that monetary success, of course, comes the advent of user-created content on consoles. Well, when I say “consoles”, I mean the PlayStation 3. With Microsoft’s “Pay-For-Everything” platform, it’s rather difficult to get free custom content on the Xbox 360. But it’s not as if the PS3 has been a golden ray of innovation, oh no. It started strong with mods for Unreal Tournament III working almost (but not quite) seamlessly. That inclusion opened the doors for that same experience PC users had 10 years ago with an endless surge of maps, weapons, models, vehicles, and even brand new play-types. This nostalgic experience was perhaps short-lived with the release of Little Big Planet.

The game itself is magnificently akin to Communism. The inclusion of in-game access to the level community and direct download of user-created content was an excellent idea, but they’re fundamentally flawed. We as humans seem to be unable to create original content, if not evidenced by DeviantART’s multiple variants of Sonic the Hedgehog and Soul Calibur IV’s dirge of Street Fighter and anime replicas, then by the many, many World 1-1’s and Mirror’s Edge Demo levels of Little Big Planet. Copyright Infringement is serious business, and while the levels should have more creativity to them, such regulations have no place in freely-distributed content. Players have been replicating their favorite game/television/anime characters for years. Why, even Valve released a mod as blatant tribute to the original Quake.

Even if it’s ridiculous and banal at this point, people have a right to freely create and distribute what they like, and if that’s taken away, many people will lose interest in the game.

But even for those willing to look past it, Sony is still burying itself with its heavy-handed moderation, deleting the stand-out original levels. The game is rated E for Everyone (if you’re in the USA), but an explanation never hurt anybody. Heading over to their official forums, you can see Sony doing it’s best to listen to the community and rectify the situation. But at this early point in the game’s life, and the nature of game sales, they may have buried it indefinitely.

The problem lies in the hosting. Sony’s using it’s own servers to directly download the content into a user’s Game Data file. There’s no alternative. Were user’s allowed to host their own files separately online, and then download and install them through the game (e.g. Unreal Tournament III), then the situation would rectify itself overnight. One can only hope Sony makes the right move to fix this problem, because the game itself is excellent. And if the problem persists, it could easily spell disaster for user-created content, not just on consoles, but on the already limping PC platform as well.