Web 2.0 + Gaming = Spore?

While it may be a little cliche' to put Maxis' revolutionary new game Spore into a genre called 'Gaming 2.0', it is hard to ignore that some of the concepts that make the game stand apart from the pact are the very same concepts that drive Web 2.0.

The social web is driven by user content and, as such, websites must give over a certain amount of control to the users. This is seen in websites from Flickr to YouTube to Facebook, all of which rely on having a strong community to survive.

Enterprise 2.0, which is the attempt to bring Web 2.0 concepts into the business environment, finds much of its opposition based on a reluctance to give up the control needed for concepts like wikis to truly benefit the company.

This very same idea that fuels Web 2.0 and creates opposition in Enterprise 2.0 is showing its face in the gaming world. Spore, a game where players start with a single celled organism and grow it into an advanced civilization capable of exploring space, is driven in part by user-generated content.

Users have long played an important role in creating content for games. These "mods" -- modifications of the original game -- can extend the playability and thus the shelf-life of a game, and as such they have been embraced by the gaming industry.

But games like Spore are taking it to a different level by giving the user the ability to create and share content seamlessly within the game. Spore has eighteen different editors from a creature editor to a vehicle editor to a city hall editor. These game assets, once created, are then passed to the main servers where they are evaluated and then shipped out to other users. Spore even sports its own YouTube channel where players can show off their creations.

Perhaps the craziest part is that this interaction happens in a single player game.

Spore is not alone in delivering this unique type of game interaction. EA's NFL Head Coach 09 has a similar feature where players can design their own plays and upload them to the main EA Sports servers. Once uploaded, the plays can be downloaded and used by computer-controlled teams against other players.

Stardock's recently announced Elemental: War of Magic is also including this type of gameplay. A turn-based strategy game based in a fantasy setting, Elemental: War of Magic gives players the ability to create their own creatures, technologies, buildings and other game assets and then share them seamlessly with other players.