Gaming by the people, for the people
Microsoft’s Community Games service aims to ‘democratize’ games
Courtesy of Winda Benedetti, Citizen Gamer for Microsoft Games. I’m not sure what to make of “FunnyDancing.”
Cue up this Xbox 360 game and you’re greeted with this: “Welcome to the world of the funny dancing. FunnyDancing is free dance action.”
Free dance action, eh? The mind reels with the possibilities.
Community Games works like this: Just about anybody who’s ever thought “By golly, I could make a video game” (and has some programming skills to back up that fantasy) can download Microsoft’s XNA Game Studio development tools for free and use them to make a game. Then, for an annual fee of $100, they can join the XNA Creator’s Club, where they post their games to be reviewed by fellow Community Games developers.
During this peer-review process, each game is rated on its level of violence, sex and mature themes; is checked for objectionable content (read: some blood and gore is okey-dokey but content that’s racist, hateful, or pornographic, not so much); and is scoured for bugs and other problems. If it passes muster, creators can post their game to Xbox Live, where any Xbox owner can buy the game and download it to their machine.
Microsoft pitches Community Games as a bold move toward the “democratization” of game development and distribution. That is, they have removed the skyscraper-tall hurdles that have traditionally stood in the way of making games for a console. No more big companies deciding what makes for a good game. No more corporate bean-counters telling would-be developers what kind of game is likely to be profitable enough to put in front of the public. The masses get to make the games and the masses get to decide what games they want to play.
October 12th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
[...] post by Brick ONeil [...]
October 13th, 2008 at 7:17 am
Online gamers have had to adapt their play fashion to the changing times. One can select to bend with the current or to stand firm and be broken.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:23 am
[...] Gaming by the people, for the people [...]