Google has announced that at the end of this year it is to cease running its Second Life copy – Lively. Lively, a virtual world with user-generated avatars and content, rather cleverly allowed you to import content from other Google applications – pictures from Picasa, video etc. But that hasn’t stopped it from the chop because Google wants to “prioritize resources and focus more on core search, ads and apps business.” And that got us thinking – about how much I hate most user-generated content in gaming. Here’s five reasons why you shouldn’t make content for their games:

1. What’s the story?
User-generated content, sandbox gaming, multi-player gaming – the rise of these forms of gaming have come as many companies have realised that they’re just not very good at telling great interactive stories. So instead of getting better, the games industry has often abdicated responsibility for actually gripping gamers and carrying them through a believable, interactive, challenging game. So instead of plot, or enemy AI, everything’s solved by going online. Now, some online games are great. And so are some sandbox games. But too often, letting the player do their own thing comes at the expense of making what they do really exciting.

2. It’s not your content, it’s theirs.
You create the content, but you don’t own it. So when Google decided to shut Lively, it’s answer was to suggest “taking videos and screenshots of your rooms”. In other words, when the game shuts down, you lose your content. And of course, they get to decide whether your content is acceptable in their games. Unlike the mod scene, which could throw up interesting, arty, political and controversial new levels/game designs, user-generated content is kept strictly family-friendly and middle-of-the-road. Those Sporn stars soon disappeared!

3. It’s just stuff.
In the old days, user-generated content was about making levels for games. Out of the mod scene came levels and mods that bettered the efforts of the original game programmers. And this opened up a path for many to move from bedroom coding to a job in the games industry. Now, if you make a jacket in Second Life, it’s just a jacket. And the only career path it’ll lead you to is likely selling your jackets to other Second Life users. User-generated content has become more tightly-controlled, more commodified. It’s just stuff you’re making.

4. You’re doing their work.
My current pet hate is Spore – you create the aliens that populate other worlds. Of course, the question that needs to be asked, considering the random and rather rubbish collection of oddbods you end up with on your worlds, is why couldn’t EA/Maxis have done a better job themselves? We’d rather have a really inventive, visually striking, but somehow harmonic set of creatures from a proper game designer than the mismatched menagerie you end up with in Spore.

5. You have to do it over and over.
The genius of the Mii is you only make it once. And Home and New Xbox Experience open that option for the PS3 and Xbox 360 – your avatars could be used in any game. But all too often, the character we spend hours customising in Saints Row 2 cant’ be used in Spore. Or my Spore alien doesn’t turn up as an avatar on Xbox Live. So, for different games we have to redo loads of work. Why?

There are many exceptions to these issues. LittleBigPlanet is already becoming, despite moderation issues, a real treasure trove of exciting levels that showcase some genius ideas. It’s user-generated content that does something. But all too often, the latest games buzzword is actually a cheap excuse for lazy games designers. Or is it? Answers on a postcard please…