Realtime Worlds: Please License Your Music To Us!

One of the trends I've been most excited about in the past few years has been that of crowdsourcing. It's no secret that fans of a particular game will develop outstanding mods (Counter-Strike, TFC, DotA) for it, if given the opportunity, but when gaming companies give people direct access to add content to the game itself, it can be a very rewarding experience.

Enter Realtime Worlds, developers of the Xbox 360's well-regarded Crackdown franchise, and their new MMO entitled All Points Bulletin (APB). APB is a crime-based MMO, with a criminal faction and a police faction. Players can style their characters, pimp their rides, and, to put it succinctly, do as they please with APB's massive city. But, unlike other MMOs, players can also license music that they create to Realtime Worlds, who have offered to put players' music into the game. APB will also feature an in-game music editor, meaning that players may actually be able to make music for the game inside the game. Or at least that's my theory.

I love this idea and would love to see more of it in the future. It is a value add for developers, who can now spend more time creating different content for players and a value add for players, who can potentially listen to their own music in game. Moreover, things like this really put the community front and center in the game, and generate a great deal of positive buzz for the game.

If you haven't checked out All Points Bulletin yet, you just might want to.

Especially if you have your own band.

-Jon