Satchell: game design could follow web development

The future of game design could follow a path that's already being set out by the advances in web site development according to Chris Satchell, head of Microsoft's XNA division.

He's predicted that the user-generated content in Web 2.0 will build into new user-generated creations in Web 3.0 - arguing that this could be mirrored over time in the games industry.

Satchell's comments came in a keynote session delivered at the end of the first day of the Develop Conference in Brighton, during which he also outlined some of the inevitable challenges involved in such a step. However, Satchell admitted, there are no solutions those challenges just yet.

They include the protection of intellectual property, action over offensive material, how users' spending may change over time and the need to hand over control of a game's destiny to the community.

On the other hand, once solutions are found - both in development policy and in law - Satchell is confident that the rewards could be enough to draw in a very large audience that currently uses the Internet, but doesn't play videogames.

To illustrate his point, Satchell demonstrated a new piece of Microsoft software currently under development called PopFly. This uses the metadata embedded in content to enable the combination of content from existing Web 2.0 sites, such as Flickr, into new applications defined by a user's parameters.

While this sort of application doesn't currently exist in the game design arena, Satchell finished off the session as an opportunity to show off some of the entries in the recent Dream-Build-Play competition on the XNA platform.