Videogamers and/or future composers?

The latest edition of Guitar Hero, "World Tour," is not more of the same, Mike Musgrove at the Washington Post reports. In it, you can go into "studio" mode, lay down your own tracks, then "click a button and 'publish' the song online so that any other player with a Web-connected game console can download and play your song, just as they would play any other song in the game. If other players like your creation, they can vote for it and you can get the satisfaction of watching your song climb the online charts at the game's online service, called 'GH Tunes'." Even more cool than this, though, is that it's part of a trend. "Many of the hottest new titles appearing this holiday season include software tools that allow users to express themselves and share their work with an online audience." Examples: create your own characters in Spore, design and share your own games in Xbox Live's "community games" (coming soon); write and share your own adventure story in LittleBigPlanet on PlayStation 3; and compose tracks based on your movements with Wii Music.