Games inside games inside games

Clive Thompson has an interesting column at Wired about Tringo, a game created by a player inside the massive multiplayer game Second Life.

The hook behind Second Life is players can create their own objects and items within the game. I've never played the game, but it seems like a pretty awesome premise. With the upcoming Spore letting players design their own creatures, this kind of player creation seems ready to become a much bigger part of gaming.

Console games let you customize the look of a character, but that's about it. When Microsoft launched the Xbox 360, it made a big deal about the customizable faceplates and being able to download themes and pictures to customize the background screens. I haven't read much since then about those options, and can't imagine they're very popular. They don't have anything to do with gaming, after all.

But being able to create part of the game itself? Now that's cool. As Thompson says, "Imagine if World of Warcraft gave its 6 million-plus players the scripting tools to create new things to do inside the world." Second Life isn't nearly as popular as World of Warcraft, but I have a feeling it'll be just as big of an influence on what comes next.