There has been much discussion as of late of the moderation that is occurring in Little Big Planet. I want to start off by saying “What did you expect? Media Molecule said that they’d be taking down any level that contained copyrighted or intellectual property, and that’s what they’re doing”…

That’s what I’d LIKE to say, that is.

It has come to my attention that Media Molecule, or Sony, or whoever is handling this very poorly. Instead of notifying someone that a level they worked on for a week needs to be revised before it can be republished, they are deleting it and rendering it useless to the creator who worked hard on it. On top of this, certain levels that have nothing to do with copyrighted works or intellectual property are also being deleted. Someone had posted on Kotaku.com that their level that was called “Failure to Launch” was deleted simply because it shared the title of a movie. This seems a little bit ridiculous to me. If I were to make a level called “This is Super Mario Bros. Level 1-1″ I could see why this would happen, but I don’t understand why it seems to be happening to other people for no apparent reason.

This brings me to my next area of concern. Over the weekend, Larry and I completed our level. It took us two weeks of nonstop working to bring it to completion. My worry is that our level will be demolished like the rest of the ones that didn’t deserve it. All of our art is original, all of our level layout and design is original, and even our story is original. But, because it happens to be BASED on a true story and a real place, I fear they’ll take all of our hard work away from us. I realize this is just me being paranoid most likey, but if that happens, I will be on the phone with Media Molecule so fast it will make your head spin.

My mind keeps going back to the Cafe Press debacle of 2004 when I think about this “moderation” nonsense. I put my artwork up on Cafe Press and they flagged it and told me I was infringing on copyrights. I called them and said to them “is there a reason that you’ve pulled my items that I placed up for sale in my store” and they replied to me “Well, yes, ma’am, do you see that copyright thing that is written at the bottom of your images?” and I said “why, yes I do” and they said “Well, you can’t just take other people’s things and make shirts out of them” to which I replied “Um, did you happen to read the name that’s in the copyright statement?” …. to which they then replied “OH, i’m so sorry, i’ll take this flag off of your items right away!”

The problem with media molecule is that there are no flags. There are no chances to explain yourself. There is just deletion and there is just apathy. I was excited about this game in the beginning, but because of their missteps, I really am reluctant to trust this company or purchase a product from them again.

That being said, they should spend less time deleting someone’s level that has a sonic the hedgehog object as a prize and more time deleting the levels that break as soon as you enter them and don’t have an exit so you have to quit out of them and can’t complete them.

But then again, who am I, right? I’m nobody, and this is my two cents.

ps - by the way, if you guys have little big planet and would like to check out me and larry’s level, it’s called “Centralia - A Ghost Story” We really put a lot of work into it. We also put a video up on youtube of it, so check out that if you want, too.