In tandem with the recent launch of EA Land, the Sims Carnival is now up and running. But a post on Giga Omni Media’s news reader points to the burgeoning battle between the EA platforms and other high profile platforms like Metaplace and Whirled.
Underlying the development of all these gaming platforms are the issues of content ownership, which will be one of the defining features of the virtual economy as well. If games increasingly become a co-creation of users and developers, revenue sharing, distribution rights, and publishing rights all need to be worked out.
Metaplace and Whirled have revenue-sharing plans built into their business models. And so will Sims Carnival, according to the EA spokesperson quoted on the Giga blog:
“[W]e will be rolling out incentives for developers as we move out of private beta…no details to provide now but our goal is to create a developer-friendly community… A player owns whatever original content he or she contributes. EA owns what it contributes. Other players own what they contribute. When you upload your game onto the site, you give EA the right to distribute it, publish it, etc. You also give EA and other players the right to modify it (if it’s a game created using the Carnival Game Creation Suite), and upload it again using all the tools we provide.”
