User Generated Content Done Right with the SPORE Creature Creator
While the idea of a virtual world is by no means new (e.g. Secondlife, the SIMS), SPORE has taken it to the next level for monster lovers. The Sporeverse is all about awesome, crazy, insane, amazing creature creation and evolution, and quite possibly in the future, world building.
It is a multi-genre game that is still in development, but its developer Maxis (same people who did SIMS) released a scaled down trial version last week. The game allows the player to follow the evolution of their “creature” as it goes from a simple spore all the way to space-traveling intelligent being.
Think about the famous ape-man evolution picture, but throw in the development of the squirrel from ice age, and you’ve got an idea about what you’ve got in store.
All I have to say is its a brilliant marketing strategy. Not only did the creators release a trial version that is super cool (not to mention addicting) to gain a greater fan base, they’re also using the trial as a test vehicle for working out the kinks in the main game.Spore also has a Facebook Fan Page that boasts over 2000 fans and continues to grow, as well as a MySpace profile and myriad others.
However, by far the smartest aspect imho is the fact that Spore’s creators have incorporated user-generated content, or UGC, into their strategy. The creature creator has a video uploader built seamlessly into the interface of the game which allows players to upload their own creature videos to YouTube.
Additionally, Maxis is encouraging its fan girls and boys to create a wide-spectrum of user-generated content, including a “MySpore” page for each player, which is part of a social network for Spore creatures. It has similar functionality to Facebook and Myspace in that your Spore Creature can friend other Creatures and share content across the system.
The various community sites will be available in 22 languages and the game will be compatible with both Macs and PCs ( I love when they get it right!).
