OSM has this much detail? The buildings and such seem way more fleshed out than I'm able to see on OpenStreetMap. Were those added via some other mechanism, or is there more data in OSM than I thought? Like, even height doesn't seem to be available, much less shapes like spires and such as shown in the demo image.
There is more data than you see in the 2d map tiles but you can turn on the Map Data layer on the website or use an editor to see. Here is one of the ways that makes up the spires in the blog post http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/227682021
As a tool for public space redesign it might have a better application. For example say you wanted to show a road with a cycle lanes. However the road widths would need to be reasonably accurate.
Building a gaming environment is only one of the use cases of the engine. There can be many other application areas.
In most cases road widths are satisfactory to show a road with cycle lanes.
Now if one could easily export to a map format supported by games... I have been dreaming of playing Counter Strike in my hometown since ... Counter Strike was fashionable...
