Interactive entertainment + User Generated Content = Potential to create the next media giants of the future.

Spore is the next game from Will Wright, designer of SimCity and The Sims that represents a new breed of games being developed by companies large and small across the video game industry. These user generated content oriented games allow players to create and share their own content including characters, worlds and other user generated content as well as play with other peoples creations.



The ability to connect with other people online, share content and communicate with other users have created some of the largest and well known companies such as FaceBook, YouTube, MySpace and LinkedIn.

The content and ability to share with others increase the overall experience of these types of social networks, where the content and experience actually improve over time proportional to the number of people actively connected, creating and sharing with each other.

With Spore and other games such as LittleBigPlanet, the fundamental design change is centered around the concept that the game developer provides the framework for the players to build what they want, how they want and with who they want to.

This transforms the game from merely being a static, repetitive experience to one where the game becomes the distribution platform for never ending, evolving stream of user generated content and social interaction (much like Facebook, etc).

Ultimately game developers have the opportunity to create companies that rival the success of the YouTube’s and FaceBook’s of the world – adopting many of the same principles those platforms have been built with and integrating them into the actual games.

As the premier investment firm focused on the game ecosystem, we are actively investing in innovative ideas. As we see the traditional US markets move toward a more online centric business model – moving away from retail – we are seeing publishers and developers alike exploring alternative revenue models, game designs that support sharing of content and connectivity between game players. Spore and games like it represents an evolutionary step towards that and the potential to accelerate and fuel the growth of the overall interactive entertainment ecosystem – this is just one of many sectors that GCube Ventures actively invests in.