Since its announcement at GDC ’07, LittleBigPlanet’s developers have kept us enthralled by the game’s creative functionality. Through dozens of live demos and trailers, the team at Media Molecule has shown that the tools they offer in the game will pose no limits to the player’s creative talent, and the ability to share that creativity with the LittleBigPlanet community has only served to heighten public excitement for the game’s October release.

With such a community, there will undoubtedly be an elite group of level designers whose creations deserve more than a high rank on some arbitrary leaderboard. According to SCEE President David Reeves, players who meet certain criteria will be given the option of selling their content to the community, rather than sharing for free. Speaking with Playstation.com, Reeves said:

"What we’re trying to do with LittleBigPlanet is almost iTunes meets eBay in the sense that once an individual or a developer has qualified by producing certain levels or certain add-ons, they will then be able in the future to exchange these and make money out of them. Eventually, it’s feasible that you might well see the first LittleBigPlanet millionaire! Even if you charge less than one euro, it doesn’t take many downloads if you’ve got a really strong LittleBigPlanet level for people to be able to make money. It’s a great way for people to show others what they can do."

I know there will be some who scoff at the idea of pay-for-play, particularly in a game designed around free sharing of user-generated content, and it’s tough to be entirely accepting of such a practice. Why not just distribute these excellent levels in regular DLC intervals, or add a designated section in the game’s "Share" section to display them? That said, having a top-shelf series of levels should help to motivate serious designers, raising quality throughout. I’m gonna start penning an epic RPG for the game; that should deserve a little cash, right?