Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Games Of Tomorrow Built By Players Wiki-Style
According to Sim's creator Will Wright and MS Xbox team head J. Allard, most of tomorrow's computer games will be built by the players, not by big budget departments.
(Spore sample world)
Wright's newest game - Spore - will allow players to take over any part of the experience, not just the protagonist. Players should be directors and producers as well.
"(Gaming) is the only medium where we yield control of the protagonist. Let's yield control of the director--and the producer," said Allard, a vice president at Microsoft. "We're going to take on the Wikipedia model. We're going to take on...the open-source model, if you will, for gaming."
Considering the fact that Wikipedia is a non-profit foundation, there seems to be a lot of discussion in corporations about how much money there is to be made in letting consumers do the work of personalizing their experience. The personalize-your-phone ring-tone market brought in more than $600 million last year. Tivo lets you tailor what you see, iPods let you pick the place you watch it. All at a price, of course.
Spore will allow players to control a species as it evolves from single-cell organisms all the way to interstellar space-traveling "Galactic God," creating the appearance of the species and, later on, the very planets they inhabit. Teams of programmers, game designers and artists take much longer than 6 days to create a world; it's cheaper to let the inhabitants do the work. Each player's creations will be uploaded to the company and then downloaded to other players.
Microsoft's Allard also said that the Xbox 360 will increasingly encourage developers to let players add on to worlds and even sell their creations through a central Xbox store system.
The basic idea of letting players build their own games started offline in home-brewed Dungeons and Dragons style gaming environments. Computer users transfered this idea online into Multi-user Dungeons (or domains) in the late 1970's, running on university computer networks and then on dial-up bulletin boards. Ultima Online is the oldest massively multiplayer online game, introduced in 1997.
Science fiction writer Neal Stephenson did as much as anyone to popularize the idea with his 1992 novel Snow Crash. In the novel, he refers to the online characters that correspond to real individuals - he calls them avatars. Here's a description of an online scene; note the importance of personalization by the user:
The couples coming off the monorail can't afford to have custom avatars made and don't know how to write their own. They have to buy off-the-shelf avatars. One of the girls has a pretty nice one. It would be considered quite the fashion statement among the K-Tel set. Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set (tm) and put together her own, customized model out of miscellaneous parts. It might even look something like its owner. Her date doesn't look half bad himself.
(Read more about Neal Stephenson's avatars)
Take a look at a unique online environment - an online multiplayer church - see Church of Fools. And don't miss Rapture of the Avatar. Read more about this story at CNet News. Read a brief review of Spore.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/3/2006)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 7 )
Related News Stories - (" Computer ")
AI Worms That Spread
'...there were so many worms and counterworms loose in the data-net now' - John Brunner, 1975.
Great. Now AIs Have Access To Hacking Tools
'... when you and the Flatline punch through that ice and scramble the cores.' - William Gibson, 1984.
Tongue-Controlled Tong Wearable Mouth Computer
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.' - Greg Bear, 2007.
Interpol Launches Metaverse For Law Enforcement
'CopSpace sheds some light on matters, of course. Blink and it descends in its full glory.' - Charles Stress, 2007.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
SpaceX Wants A Moonbase Alpha
'And he had been sent with troops, supplies and bombs to command Russia's most trusted post, the Moonbase.'
Vast Apartment Living Will Get Even More Vast
'What is your population', I asked. 'About eighty millions.'
NASA Wants Self-Driving Or Remote-Controlled Vehicles For Lunar Astronauts
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street of Hydropole. Robot-guided, insulated from noise and cold...'
Elon Musk Says Robotaxis Will Be Ready This August, 2024
'The car had no steering wheel, and no one drove!'
Moonwalkers AI-Controlled Electric Shoes
Now that's power walking that Hugo Gernsback would have approved.
Steve Jobs: 'Capture The Next Aristotle - With AI'
'It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct...'
No Tips! Robotic Food Delivery In Phoenix
'...he rewired the delivery robot so that it would serve him midnight snacks.'
Electric Catamaran 'Explorer Eco 40m' Has 'Solar Skin'
'On went the electric-yacht faster and still faster.'
Orbital Mechanics, The Liftoff, The Turnover, The Retrograde Burn
'...the huge vessel had spun, with a sickening lurch, through a complete half-circle, the instant the power was reversed.'
Harvest Power From Tears And Blinking With Smart Contact Lens
'...he realized that it was not quite a clear lens. Speckles of colored brightness swirled and gathered in it.'
Europa Clipper Plate Carries A Special Message
'...a universal cryptogram — yet it is one which can be interpreted by any intelligent creature on any planet in the Solar System!'
Micro-Robots Are Smallest, Fully Functional
'With a whir, the Scarab shot from the concealing shadows of the corner where it had hidden itself.'
AI Enhances Images Your Brain Sees
'I could have sworn the psychomat showed pictures almost as sharp and detailed as reality itself'
Illustrating Classic Heinlein With AI
'Stasis, cold sleep, hibernation, hypothermia, reduced metabolism, call it what you will - the logistics-medicine research teams had found a way to stack people like cordwood and use them when needed.'
Deflector Plasma Screen For Drones ala Star Wars
'If the enemy persists in attacking or even intensifies their power, the density of the plasma in space will suddenly increase, causing it to reflect most of the incoming energy like a mirror.'
DIY Robotic Hand Made After Loss Of Fingers
'I made them... with the fine work of the watchmaker...'
