LittleBigPlanet Level Moderation Policies Make Users Angry

LittleBigPlanet was hyped up as a game which took user creativity and content sharing to new heights, largely due to the fact that players could change the environment of the game with their own SackBoy or SackGirl character.

Media Molecule, the developer, and Sony, the publisher, both said that players would have freedom in creating different types of levels and sharing them with friends over the PlayStation Network online system. All of the different levels will then be voted and players who have truly interesting ones will be awarded with various special content.

But now it seems like the creative freedom does have its limits, as quite a lot of LBP players have reported that their custom levels had been deleted by moderators. Although this practice was to be expected, as there are users who create levels which might be offensive or inappropriate, this “moderation” of user created content has been extended to any level which is based on another person's or company's IP (Intellectual Property).

As a result, levels which were made as homage to cult games, like Mario or Zelda or other titles, which involved quite a lot of work from the player, have been deleted with no warning, never to be played again. These actions made a lot of players very angry and some of them lashed out at Sony and Media Molecule for such strict policies, “Whats the point of having a community driven game if you're not going to let your community do anything with it in an act to try and please everybody?” asked a user who recently had his hard work taken down by the LBP moderators.

This is quite worrying and if Sony or Media Molecule don't resolve the issue, then we might expect a user backlash to the two companies similar to what happened with Electronic Arts and the DRM scandal it had over Spore. Let's just hope the LBP developer and publisher will make things right and delete only the levels which are offensive or inappropriate.