LittleBigInterview 25
The Guardian Gamesblog has up an interview with Leo Cubbin, a Sony point man on the LittleBigPlanet project. They discuss the aim of the game, some of the challenges of balancing game fun and community participation, ways of ensuring that players contribute, and the future of the Game 3.0 economy. "The idea of creativity can be quite daunting to a lot of people. You give a blank piece of paper and a pen and say, "Be creative!" What do I do? People are looking for inspiration. With LBP we want to create a fuzzy felt experience, where we give the component parts to trigger the creativity. I don't think any of us as kids had a problem with cracking on and creating something when we were given a Lego set; it didn't really matter how it ended up. We're trying to give people the bare bones, and then we'll let them go." For more on the felt-and-imagination fueled title, Stephen Totilo shares impressions from Sony Gamer's day of the game. Complete with virtual puppet-slapping.
Game 3.0? (Score:3, Insightful)
unfortunate! (Score:1, Insightful)
doesn't look like it does.
Re:unfortunate! (Score:3, Insightful)
LittleBigPlanet vs LittleBigAdventure? (Score:3, Insightful)
That was a great, cute, fun adventure game, and Activision had the bright idea of renaming it "Relentless" for the USA.
Hm. Burn, burn, Activision!
How about some actual commentary on the game? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm pretty excited to see Little Big Planet, I would love to see a lot more games embrace user generated content this heavily. It's fun to play with a really good physics engine with a good UI around it. The ability to import your own images or video for use in level creation sounds like it has interesting possibilities, and it sounds like they are thinking through the social aspect of the game very heavily.
The brief description of Home linked to also sounds interesting, but if there's no way to script it I'm not sure how interesting it can ever really be even when fully expanded and polished.
Re:Poor pun (Score:2, Insightful)
Single games rarely make someone buy a system. Is $650 too much to pay for LBP? Yes. Is $450 too much to pay for Gears of War? Yes. Is $300 too much to pay for Super Paper Mario? Yes. It's hardly ever one game that sells you on a platform, but is often one game that tips you over the "price-to-enjoyment" line, or sells you on the fun now, and promise of similar content later.
You have a BIT more of a case with LBP since it seems to run perpendicular to the usual "hardcore gamer" type the rest of the boxed games are selling to, but there are a heck of a lot of them who are interested in such games as well. And you'll be getting LBP and Home at basically the same time, which run along closer lines of interest. The PSN is filling up with more good, casual games and will continue to do so. It also, just simply, adds to and fleshes out their fall/holiday lineup, which is as strong as their current crop has been shruggable (excepting a few gems). That's good for everyone, no matter their gaming type. Heck, it might even attract many NON-gamers, who are more interested in getting an HD DVD player, and are more attracted to the PS3 because of it.
Basically, it's never important that "one game be worth the money," because it's so rarely the case. They'll usually "sell you into buying now instead of waiting later for more games to be out and price drops to be had, because that game is interesting enough to tip the balance."
How many people can honestly say they had ZERO interest in a platform and ZERO interest in anything but playing that one game when they make their purchase? It's all a part of a larger equation, which is usually bigger than people give it credit for, or even think about.