The most interesting thing about his post is the notion that there should be a marketplace for game characters, settings & stories, and that people could make money by creating & selling individual components — not entire games.

Of course similar marketplaces are actually popping up, on a small scale, for specific environments — The Sims, Second Life, etc. It is not explicitly for game-making, in the way he imagines, but it’s not far off, and is very encouraging.

Hola my snarky pals!

Thanks for trackingback to this… I confess, I’m feeling very discouraged about the whole thing today. I was hoping that people would be positive about the basic idea, but have different ideas about the framework within which to do it. Since at the moment I’m just fishing, it’s the perfect time for discussion.

But the general feel I get from people’s response is that they’re sceptical about the wide scale notion and not that interested in the framework I’m proposing.

On the other hand, I slept *really* badly last night, so I might just be feeling the effects of an unquiet slumber. 🙂

Either way, I’m glad you felt the idea was worthy of note.

Cheers!

Chris.

It seems like there are (at least) two scenarios for such a framework:

Super-wide, all-purpose. Like the web itself, or Second Life — just a platform, and people can do with it whatever they want. Ideally this will include awesome things you haven’t even imagined yet.

Narrower, specified world… with an API. It’s a defined, recognizable setting, but with lots of open-endedness, and a way for people to craft new characters, settings & stories of their own. But it’s all got to fit together — and maybe there are certain constraints in place (on the art, for instance) to enforce that consistency.

For some reason I find myself drawn to the second… it seems more likely you’d get something good.

Also, note Storytronics and Storyworlds.

(“Storytronics”? Seriously? Oh well.)