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J Allard: "We're going to take on the Wikipedia model"

Before you panic, Microsoft is not planning on buying out Wikipedia* - J Allard's choice of words mean to reflect the amount of customizability he wants to see in video games (presumably, Xbox 360 titles). Allard, along with Will Wright, see games as the optimal medium for immersion and player control. Wright used his upcoming title Spore as an ideal example, where players control every aspect of life as it evolves from single-cell organisms into a space-traveling civilization. Wright envisions a online mode where players can visit each other's worlds and see how they chose to evolve life.

Allard gave an anecdote involving an "inner-city child...[who] spent two hours creating a pair of sneakers" for his player in an Xbox 360 basketball game. According to Allard, "if only 1 percent of our audience that plays Halo helped construct the world around Halo, it would be more human beings than work at Microsoft...that's how much human energy we could harness in this medium." Odd phrasing aside, we support the idea of customizability - and sharing content via an online service such as Xbox Live - just so long as developers do not use it as an excuse to skimp on pre-programmed content in their games.

* as far as we know

[via Games Industry]

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