Personalized games available at a price

Personalization in video games is nothing new. Character creators have allowed gamers to customize their avatars for decades, but a new service is offering to create whole individualized gameworlds--for the right price.

According to the New York Times, the new service, called Amuse Me, was created by the editor-in-chief of Amusement, Abdel Bounane, and offers customized experiences at three different levels of luxury.

Amuse Me's cheapest offering customizes faces, appearances, backgrounds, and more of the main elements of six different preexisting games for €20 ($27) per modified element. The second level of customization runs from €1,000 ($1,350) to €10,000 ($13,500) and offers a built-from-scratch game. It allows the customer to choose from a group of 10 designers as well as a range of game genres, and it includes a two-hour consultation session.

For the true spendthrift, the "art game" deluxe option offers an original "intricate universe" built by a team of artists and runs up to €50,000 ($67,500). The final game will be delivered on a tablet and may feature custom hardware.

The first orders for Amuse Me's service have already come in, and at least two projects have been delivered thus far. Florent Deloison, who serves as an artist on the project, equated its offering to having a personal portrait panted. "In an era of standardized mass production, true luxury is the uniqueness of an object. This could go as far as conceiving a game where each level would be based on the structure of your DNA," said Deloison.