Something else we missed from last week - an excellent Clive Thompson column on Second Life/GBA's Tringo at Wired News, in which Thompson explains "the story of a game that became a hit -- inside another game."

You may have heard the story before - the game was created within Second Life, and was licensed by Donnerwood Media - it's now available for Game Boy Advance thanks to the reliably wacky budget publisher Crave Entertainment.

Thompson's conclusion contains the neatest comments,t hough: "Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of Tringo's already-kooky history, though, is that it shows a new way for games to be born. Many of today's best online games are moddable, which means players can reshape reality into something new. So why don't we actively encourage them to create new casual games? An online environment is a terrific prototyping lab: You can quickly make something, hand out copies to other players, and discover immediately whether your invention is any good."

Of course, this depends if the people playing Second Life (or any other prototyping platform) are actually demographically accurate for your final target market - but it's conceptually smart.