XNA boss: We've got Web 2.0, we need Games 3.0

BRIGHTON, UK--Microsoft's XNA Express development tool has made game design an accessible task for the first time for many, but XNA general manager Chris Satchell isn't satisfied. The executive explained his creative vision for the games industry's future to members of the industry as part of his keynote address at the Develop Conference on the UK's south coast, saying, "XNA Express helps, but we have to go farther."

Satchell likened the evolution of the industry to that of the Internet, which is now popularly said to be "Web 2.0." According to Satchell, Web 0.5 represented the first beginnings of the Internet by a select group of academia and technology companies, and 1.0 as similar to television, where a small number of people make content for the masses to passively read. Web 2.0 then, is sites, like You Tube and Flikr, where the users themselves create the content, and anyone can participate, and 3.0--which might be what it looks like in the future--he envisages as going a stage further, with the masses perhaps combining Web sites to create not only user-generated content, but unique ways of accessing that content too.

Games should also follow this model, believes Satchell. He said Games 0.5 consisted of Web sites developed around a game, for example fan sites. Games 1.0 would be an in-game community such as a clan, a leaderboard, or a friends list. Games 2.0--the stage we are currently at--involves people creating some of their own content, for example making Forza 2 car skins. And Games 3.0 will dawn when the community can create its own games, of which XNA Express has been a start.

Satchell said, "This new creativity is vitally important. We want to expand the gaming audience, but to do that, we need to get all those niche industries and then that long tail." The way to do this, he believes, is to expand the amount of people out there able to make games, and the niche titles will follow and thus attract a wider audience.

However, opening up the market to any Joe Blog will have its challenges too. Satchell confessed, "It's the policy and IP (intellectual property) problems that scare me the most. The others are technical challenges." These challenges include such things as people using game tools to create and release offensive material, IP infringement, whether companies give up creative control, who gets paid what, and how much.

He said, "Is it difficult? Absolutely. But if you could do it, think of how many people you would enable to be creative."