Player vs. Dev: So there I was on startrekonline.com's forums and I happened to get into a conversation about dynamic MMOs which quickly evolved into a conversation about players building things themselves. I happened to bring up topics like Little Big Planet and Second Life and how they were both created with the intent of having players build most of the game's content.

Its with that that I started thinking what type of game do I like? Well when I was in high school and my first two years of college I attempted to become a game designer, I even went to school for it but eventualy I found that I enjoyed playing more than creating (or rather that creating games often involved a lot of backstabbing and idea stealing as do most artistic jobs). So deep down inside of me I have this desire to create games if not on "true devloper" level. It was with that desire that I was drawn to Second Life for a short while.

Second Life: Though not officaly a game in any real way the whole online world is built by players for players. Real money is exchanged and people have actualy spent a large ammount of time on the game creating true money making positions (don't think its easy though as most people on SL will tell you its extreamly hard to get the position you need to create a money making venture and it even requires a small investment as well). Everything in SL is player created though, from the house you hang out in to the clothing your avatar wears. The client has a built in 3D rendering system which allows you to put shapes and textures together to create interesting objects.

Little Big Planet: I haven't played LBP yet but I'm looking forward to it, what makes this game interesting is that it ships with a whole game but at the same time the developers have given the players the ability to create their own levels. From what I've read/seen of the game you can design very complex levels for other people to experience and as some articles have stated "if you can think of it you can make it in LBP".

So which is better? Honestly this is obviously upto the player, if your an MMOer you'll note games such as Ultima Online (UO) and Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) and though they didn't have any built in systems to let you customize your own content they did have houses. I remember in both games players created some of the most intersting things out of objects within the game... it was like Junkyard Wars but with interior decoration and they did a great job with it. In UO a 2D game I saw people create fish tanks out of cut cloth placed on the floor with fish stacked ontop and visually it looked like a fish tank though the game registered it as fish ontop of cloth. The same things happened in SWG a 3D game where players would turn fountains into pools or baths for their avatars, these players literaly took what the devs gave them and ran with it.

The dark side of player made content is that not everyone is very creative... Second Life proves this for some sections of the game look bland or just plain ugly, I'm sure we'll see things like that in Little Big Planet when it hits the PS3 this fall.

Deep down inside I'm all for player created content even if its not on the scale of LBP or SL and honestly I think more games should have level editors and player design aspects within them, from time to time you find a gem of a level or map that you may have never seen anywhere ealse... I remember seeing some realy great stuff on Half Life online made by players.