More not-so-new-news, but a nice update. C|Net has an article today with the very direct headline “Tomorrow’s games, designed by players as they play ” (Link). From the beginning of the piece:

Game budgets are skyrocketing. Development teams are swelling almost to film studio’s proportions. The only way out of this trap is to enlist players to help create their own worlds, a pair of top game creators said Thursday.

Speaking at The Entertainment Gathering conference here, “Sims” creator Will Wright and Microsoft Xbox team head J. Allard both cast a spotlight on the growing role that game players will have in creating content for the biggest games.

Wright’s newest game, dubbed “Spore,” will populate fictional planets with animals and cities created wholly by other game players. Allard said the Xbox 360 will increasingly encourage developers to let their players add on to worlds, and even sell their creations though a central Xbox store system.

If you want more info you can of course read the article, but you also might want to Search this blog for my previous entries on both “Spore” and the XBox360 system. And on virtual markets. And on advertising in games. And on using game models to generate manufacturable product. And on…