Inside Social Games

As games become increasingly social, games built on user generated content are becoming increasingly common. Games that allow users to co-create the game play experience can be quite powerful – although whenever you give users control, you always run the risk of a plethora of garbage. That said, it is usually necessary to police the content, but if done well, sharing your own game creations and contributions can be a very compelling part of social gaming.

Here is our list of some of our favorite games and applications that are built with user generated content. Some are well known, and some are new and obscure. Nevertheless, we feel that these titles have great potential as well as excellent tools for the users themselves. Again, though, this list is subjective, and if you feel something is missing, then by all means share it!

10. Guess the Sketch Challenge – Okay, whether or not this contains UGC depends on your perspective. Regardless, players are given a name and have to draw it in some way so that others can guess what it is. As such, each game is affected by the skill and creativeness that a drawing player brings to the table.

9. Quizzes – Not a true game, but certainly a popular application containing user generated content. This app lets anyone jump in and not only take various popular quizzes created by others, but lets you create any type of quiz you can imagine.

8. Name It! – Very similar to Scattergories, a party game provides you with a list of ten categories and a letter of the alphabet. Then, in 60 seconds, you have to type in a word that begins with the selected letter in that category. However, unlike Scattergories which has 192 categories, Name It players can add their own. In fact, within the first week, the app had over a thousand categories.

7. Birthday Cards – Okay, not a game by any stretch, but certainly a great app. Users can come in, mark important dates (duh, birthdays) and create their own custom cards to send to their friends. Nevertheless, the intuitive creator given to the users allows them to create their own ideas, and that hasn’t gone unnoticed, considering its popularity.

6. Bumper Sticker – One of the top applications on Facebook in general. This title lets users join and create all kinds of bumper stickers for the public to use on their profiles. With so many users, there are a vast number of bad ones, but that isn’t too surprising. Nonetheless, there still are some hilarious gems amongst the masses.

5. Social Arcade – This is an interesting bugger. It doesn’t have a whole lot of monthly users, but it contains a plethora of user created platform games. While they are not all good, the cool part of this app is that users can utilize their mini game-engine type tools to design and build your own platform game. Furthermore, there seems to be plans to all for other game templates beyond platforming such as racing, RPGs, and RTS genres. That said, this title has a lot of latent potential just waiting to be unleashed.

3. Photograb – This is a very simple shape recognition game. Players are given a small portion of an image and must find that section within a larger picture within a limited period of time. The more matches they make, the more points they earn. However, players can create their own version of this small game using pictures they have in their Facebook gallery and select what section of the image to display to the player.

2. Pictograph – A new game to Facebook, this word play game lets players try to figure out famous quotes or sayings as they apply to movies, holidays, or just everyday life (i.e. picture of a screw + picture of a baseball = “screwball”). Moreover, anyone can jump in and create their own word puzzles that will be shared and rated amongst anyone that plays.

1. Graffiti – This application is truly cool. Essentially, it gives people that have a little bit of artistic talent and allows them to create some astounding art work and share it with the community and even draw on your friends’ profiles. Can drawing be considered a game? It depends on your perspective, but regardless, this is fantastic app with fantastic UGC.