What is content? Is it just words provided to you by a publisher, or could content be more broadly defined as anything that is deliverable? If that is the case, then content syndication is more powerful than anyone has imagined.

RSS is going to be everywhere. Heck, even Chris Pirillo has pointed out that American Express is using RSS to let you know about deals and such. Until recently, the content being pushed has historically been news, text, and blogs. Nowadays there are podcasts, videocasts, and BitTorrent RSS files. Everyone is jumping on the content syndication bandwagon, so what about games?

To be honest, the console portion of gaming doesn’t lend itself too well to content syndication, since gaming consoles are built to run one program at a time (the actual game); however, the story is totally different on the PC end, and especially for MMORPGs.

For those of you who missed the clue boat, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and it is a way for people to receive their content quickly without having to browse to hundreds of different websites. It makes life as a content addict (like me) much easier as we can quickly traverse hundreds of stories in minutes instead of hours.

Most games don’t generally lend themselves to building a community; but, MMORPGs are built to specifically encourage a community, especially with their emphasis on quests that require 20 or more people to complete.

The most obvious benefit is the ability to give people the latest news on the game without having them have to actually start the game. This one feature of MMORPGs (Final Fantasy XI, specifically) maddens me to no end. Why do I have to launch your stupid program just to read that there are going to be updates to the server, and I won’t be able to play? Save me some time, and let me skip waiting for your stupid program to load.

Of course, another obvious benefit is the ability to have updates for the game waiting on your hard drive (using the RSS enclosure tag), instead of loading the game one day, only to have to wait several hours for the hundreds of packages to download and install. MMORPG updates, for some ungodly reason, always come in one huge batch, and always take forever to download. I say let my RSS reader grab the content and install it while I’m sleeping (only because MMORPGs force updates to continue playing the game).

But beyond gaming news and updates, what else could RSS possibly offer us?

Totally Integrated Environment.

Yes, yes, I know you’re looking at me like I’ve got crabs crawling out of my ears, but just imagine being an MMORPG player who is able to see the latest news on their official clan, read a couple of bulletin boards in the game world, read some private in-game messages sent to you by your friends, and check out the latest auctions at the local auction house – all without actually having to enter the game.

I’m talking about being able to “play” the game without actually playing the game – getting the most out of your subscription when you don’t have time to play, but still want to be kept in the loop.

RSS is a powerful medium, and it’s only a matter of time before a game company picks up on the true potential of being able to syndicate content.

Provided by Geekstreak