Be Creative!

 

Two words that when applied to the gaming world can mean apparently a lot of different things. When we, the consumer, look at NFL Madden '10, or Oneechanbara 15, we say c'mon game companies, Be Creative! We applaud games like Assassin's Creed, Skate, or Prince of Persia for following those two words, becoming new IPs in their time where all we see are loads of FPSs coming from American Developers, and RPGs from Japan. And then Little Big Planet comes along and we finally think someone there truly got the idea Be Creative!

No this isn't a review, it seemed like it would become one the millions for the game that exist, but it isn't. It's a possibly small piece about the term creative and it's implications in not only games, but the gaming community. Recently, well recently for me as that pertains from last week to today, Media Molecule and Sony have been put under the hypocritical spotlight for suddenly deleting Little Big Planet levels, without warning, without getting them back. Still having my Lucha Libra level, I've not been so quick to cry bloody murder as many of those that have worked tediously for days just to now have nothing to show.

Oh wait, right, this isn't really about that part, it's about creativeness. Seems a great deal of those levels have had some sort of non-Sony copyright in them, heck some of them have had clear Sony copyrights in them. To jump on the side of logic for a moment, Mm and Sony should've realized quite a few things, the Beta should've shown them that. One, give a person the ability to take a picture of something and place it in a game, they are gonna rip some thing off. Second, give the gaming community the ability to create something(oh so everlovingly coined user-created) and at least 75% of the things created are gonna be recreated from gaming's past. It could be Bubsy 3D, Lemmings, or the even more obvious ones Mario, Sonic, and Megaman, it will happen, it's like a law or something.

And that segues into my point, the title, and a favorite phrase of mine, Be Creative! I've been playing around on Little Big Planet for some time and Mm seemed to have gotten the creative idea down, a lot of the users online have gotten that idea down, so why can't this 75% seem to? I've talked about this on a few forums and the answer to myquestion seems to be that we're game players, not game makers, but aren't game makers game players? And as a user willing to create something, especially in this game a level, does that not make you a game maker? So in essence, do you not have the right to talk about game makers? So why not be creative... I'm sorry Be Creative! and make some levels of idea you have to have in your head. If you came into the game thinking I can't wait to make a level, here comes Level 1-1! Then I'm sorry but you came into this game thinking the wrong thing. Now I'm not complaining, sometimes they are fun to play, those recreations, but much like shovelware on a Wii, most of the levels I've run into contain some form of copyright infringement. Now some of those have been with a little tweaking, able to become great levels on their own accord without the need for the copyright, so why not just do that? When the game came out, there was a great God of War level that came out, the level really would've been just as good without the God of War IP in it, so why did it have to have it?

I hear tribute and parody should be considered under the Fair Use Act, however user-created content is the money maker for this title, it makes the money for Sony and Mm and in that sense isn't the infringement suit therefore justified? Take Activision's Guitar Hero: World Tour, it allows you to create tracks and already GH Tunes has been flooded with notelists for songs. You praise a group, and then simply make their songs... is this tribute, parody, or simply lack of creativity? I wouldn't say it lacks intuition, or work-ethic, but if you can recreate Paradise City, your sense of musical timing seems to be in check, why not just create your own song?

So Be Creative! Words that can apparently mean many things when together. Mm's given catchphrase, Be Creative!, can apparently mean do whatever you want, it can mean create a level of ingenious levels, to simply recreating Dig-Dug. In the world of gaming, it can mean giving me more game options or simply the ability to look down in an FPS and see my feet. Perhaps it doesn't just mean make something new, but isn't that what we as gamers have been whining for?