What kind of video game would a Russian steelworker make? Or a policewoman? Or your mom?
Rod Humble, the head of "The Sims" game development at Electronic Arts wants that question answered and revealed a tool at the Game Developers Conference today that will allow that to happen: "The Sims Carnival."
The endeavor is a free web-based portal for creating, sharing and playing free computer games. That sounds dry, but think of it as a YouTube of video games. And if that sounds quite a bit like the Xbox Live Community Games feature announced by Microsoft just yesterday (the "democratization of game development" is a popular idea at GDC this year). then recognize this key difference: creating games using "The Sims Carnival" requires zero programming skills.
TheSimsCarnival.com is currently in beta, so most Russian steelworkers won't be able to start using it just yet, but any of them reading this post (welcome!) should picture a YouTube-style interface, except with games instead of video clips playing in a rectangle in an upper corner of the screen, games that can be rated, recommended, and swapped. And how these games are made? Humble showed that the process is as simple as navigating a series of menus to pick game-types, to upload graphics, to basically build their video game using plain English.
Humble had started his talk discussing some of the gaming scene's issues: a struggle for mainstream respect, an immaturity of gaming criticism, a lack of varying backgrounds and life experiences among the people who make video games. And he introduced a less familiar issue: the tendency of creative media to be taken over by regular people. It happened with poetry. It's happening with movies. And it's going to happen with games, Humble said. "Professional game design is an anomaly," Humble warned -- and not necessarily an ever-lasting and dominant one. The power to make games is increasingly coming to the people.
Humble showed several games made on "Sims Carnival" during his talk:
- A game the involved putting lines of Elizabethan poetry in their correct order (success was rewarded with the accolade: "Be not afraid of greatness).
- A "Space Invaders" variation that was shown in order to demonstrate how quickly the shooter could be turned into a Ninja Barack Obama and the invaders could be turned into George W' Bush heads (the politicians were chosen by popular vote of attendees at Humble's panel)
- A game called "Save The Pie" which involved slapping greedy hands from stealing pieces of pumpkin pie.
None of these games were that deep, but they were all easily malleable. Humble showed a vertical shoot-em-up and didn't like the movement of the player-character. So he clicked on a menu and selected a different behavior. Swapping graphics appeared to be a cinch. And Humble said that thousands of the best pieces of art made by ardent fans of "The Sims" will be available for people to use in their "Sims Carnival Games." It wasn't clear the extent to which people will be able to create 3D games -- or if at all.
Humble is expecting a huge amount of creativity, because he has already seen the program work. "We released it internally to about 100 people and they made over 500 games in a month," he said. "All the games in talk made in the tool yesterday."
After the presentation I asked Humble if the format and the term carnival meant the games that players could create would have to be small amusements. No, he said. People are trying some longer experiences. And by carnival, he added, he really meant the word in the manner it was used by 20th century Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin: an empowering of the peasant class to be creative in a way that subverts authority and institutions. Power to the people, indeed.
Humble said that SimsCarnival.com will also host Flash games and that ad revenue will be shared with game creators whose works reach a certain threshold of popularity.
"Non-professional game makers are on the rise," Humble said at one point.
So professionals, look out. My mom is about to be able to make a game.
