SEATTLE, WA – At the Gamefest 2006 video game developers’ conference hosted by Microsoft, the company announced that later this year it will release XNA Game Studio Express, a consumer version of the professional software used to develop games for the Xbox and Xbox 360 gaming consoles.Based on the professional XNA game development platform, XNA Game Studio Express is Microsoft’s bid to “democratize game development by delivering the necessary tools to hobbyists, students, indie developers, and studios alike to help them bring their creative game ideas to life while nurturing game development talent, collaboration, and sharing that will benefit the entire industry,” the company stated in a press release issued Sunday.

Chris Satchell, general manager of the Game Developer Group at Microsoft, announced the upcoming release of the new development tools during a keynote address at Gamefest, saying that the consumer tools will be widely available for the 2006 holiday season.

Satchell was ebullient over the pending release of XNA Game Studio Express and its implications for the future of game development.

“XNA Game Studio Express will ignite innovation and accelerate prototyping, forever changing the way games are developed,” said Satchell. “By unlocking retail Xbox 360 consoles for community-created games, we are ushering in a new era of cross-platform games based on the XNA platform. We are looking forward to the day when all the resulting talent-sharing and creativity transforms into a thriving community of user-created games on Xbox 360.”

Homemade “Porn Games” on the Horizon?

Microsoft’s effort to “democratize” the game development process, combined with the convergence of video gaming and adult entertainment, raises an interesting possibility; a rapid increase in the number of and variety of games that contain sexually-explicit content.

Part of the Microsoft plan is to provide a distribution channel for consumer-produced games via the company’s Xbox Live interactive online gaming service. In an interview with the Associated Press, Microsoft vice president Peter Moore compared the concept with other forms of user-generated concepts already popular on the Web.

“It’s our first step of creating a YouTube for video games,” said Moore. “It will give you everything you need to bring your game to life on Xbox 360.”

It seems inevitable that some enterprising developers will explore the potential inherent to the convergence of video games and erotic materials, although it remains to be seen what content-control measures Microsoft might employ to keep its “YouTube for games” from becoming a distribution channel for sexually-explicit games.

Big Win for the Video Gaming Industry In Illinois

In other industry news, a District Court ruled last week that the State of Illinois must pay the video game industry over $500,000 in attorney’s fees for its effort to ban the sale of violent video games, an effort ruled unconstitutional

Judge Matthew F. Kennelly, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Illinois, ordered the state to pay $510,528.64 in attorney’s fees to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), Video Software Dealers Association and Illinois Retail Merchants Association, the plaintiffs in a lawsuit brought to block enforcement of the Illinois violent video game ban.

In his decision, Kennelly wrote “If controlling access to allegedly ‘dangerous’ speech is important in promoting the positive psychological development of children, in our society that role is properly accorded to parents and families, not the State.”

The ESA long ago predicted that the Illinois law would be shot down and called the decision a clear indication of the futility of enacting such legislation.

“Judge Kennelly’s rulings sends two irrefutable messages; not only are efforts to ban the sale of violent video games clearly unconstitutional, they are a waste of taxpayer dollars,” said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA, a trade association representing U.S. computer and video game publishers. “The sad fact is that the State of Illinois knew this law was unconstitutional from the beginning. Taxpayers have a right to know that over half a million of their dollars and countless government hours were thrown away in this fruitless effort.”

The ESA was not alone in bemoaning the waste of time and money that the law represented; Illinois State Senator John Cullerton, who resisted the law from the earliest debates in the State Senate, noted that the half-million dollars heading to the plaintiffs’ attorneys represents only one portion of the wasted funds.

“I am very disappointed that the state of Illinois has to pay these fees for what was such a clearly unconstitutional law from the start,” said Cullerton, who represents Illinois’ 6th District. “When I spoke against the law in Springfield, I predicted we would have to pay legal fees. The amount ordered paid to the plaintiffs by Judge Kennelly doesn’t even count the substantial fees the state will have to pay its own lawyers.”

Lowenstein added that the lawsuit should serve to remind elected officials that there are better avenues by which to pursue the goal of protecting children than crafting more doomed legislation.

“As we said from the outset of this debacle and repeatedly since then, instead of squandering taxpayers’ money on frivolous lawsuits and attempting to enact clearly unconstitutional laws, we encourage policymakers to focus their resources on a cooperative effort with industry, retailers, parent groups and health groups to work together to educate parents about the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings and content descriptors, and the parental controls available in all next generation consoles to help parents make sound choices about the games their kids play,” Lowenstein said.