Google Moving YouTube Toward Gaming?

A patent application from Google has been raising eyebrows today. The application is titled Web-Based System for Generation of Interactive Games Based on Digital Videos. Filed February 19, 2009, it was only published earlier this month, and describes a way to provide “the collaborative generation of interactive features for digital videos, and in particular to interactive video annotations enabling control of video playback locations and creation of interactive games.” When you read through the description, it also becomes clear that the games could and will be built atop videos submitted to a hosting site. This makes it sound as though Google plans to extend their YouTube site into an associated gaming site.

This development could mean two very different things. The creation of games that can move in and out of popular videos, or a place where people could upload source videos that contain multiple versions of scenes to play out various scenarios and then pull them together through an online interface to create that particular game. Ideally for gamers everywhere, this could open game creation to anyone with enough imagination, a video camera, and an editing suite. Courtesy of industry.bnet.com