Games as Platforms

I just read an article about Minecraft’s direction away from a platform towards a computer game , and couldn’t help thinking of one of my recent posts about businesses doing the opposite . If anything, it reinforces the concept of a platform for inverting the responsibility of creating value.

I know I’d much rather sell a game that makes money by itself, and enable others to create value for it by modding it. Hell, you could even let content creators earn money and take a commission.
I guess the only thing you need to be aware of is becoming a lame middleware vendor instead of a consumer product vendor.

Platform as product first, then extendable by the community.