Aug 12, 2004
News About Numbers
Three headlines today: Runescape Hits 100,000 Subscribers; Final Fantasy Grows Enormously; and Girardo Develops Cool Tracking Stats...
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Posted by Edward Castronova on August 12, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (12) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 11, 2004
Quebecois Wanted
Jean-Francois Gazaille, magazine writer in Montreal, is looking to interview French-speaking folk who participate in virtual item trading. Quand c'est vous-meme, um, on sendez-il un, ah... O, BOTHER. If you fit the bill, send him an email at gazaille@cam.org .
Posted by Edward Castronova on August 11, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 10, 2004
When do Themes Collide?
Greg Aleknevicus over at The Games Journal - a web publication concerned with the art and design of the boardgame, poses an interesting cross-over question. In German Games are Fradulent he claims that there should be a thematic <-> mechanical connection to good (board) game design. Is there an equivalent principle for MMOGs: a thematic <-> simulation connection?
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Posted by Nathan Combs on August 10, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 09, 2004
You spent how much!?
As TN readers will know, the development of Shenmue Online - a Sega / JC Entertainment / T2 co-production was announced recently (press release .pdf).
The proposed MMORPG is set in China (including Hong Kong) during the 1980s. It features Kung Fu action (nanaa nanaa, nanaa nanaa, na na naaah, every body was…) and is seen as an attempt by Sega to break into the Chinese gaming market. All good stuff - then I saw the development budget!
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Posted by Ren Reynolds on August 9, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 07, 2004
AvA no DB
This month’s PC Gamer Magazine (UK September Edition p 19 (no I don’t know why publishing is a month in advance here either)) has an ‘Academic Deathmatch’ between: me, Dr C, Proff B and Gonzalo Frasca (of ludology.org), the scores on the doors are:
Edward Castronova: ***** (5 brains)
Gonzalo Frasca: **** (4 brains)
Richard Bartle: *** (3 brains)
Ren Reynolds: ** (2 brains)
Posted by Ren Reynolds on August 7, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (1)
Aug 06, 2004
Where are the Heroes?
Why are there so few opportunities for an epic heroic gesture in MMORPGs? Or do you disagree?
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Posted by Nathan Combs on August 6, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (47) | TrackBack (2)
The Tricky Business of Predicting the Future
A research firm called DFC Intelligence has released an industry report covering the online gaming market. The Table of Contents is posted on the DFC site.
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Posted by Betsy Book on August 6, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 04, 2004
Got a Life
Salon.com and the UKs Guardian Online both feature a piece James Meek called Get a Life. The feature covers the business of MMORPGs both from the publisher stand point and the growing trade in item trading. I did not spot anything that would surprise a TN reader (though of course they have impeccable sources: Dr C, Julian and Professor Bartle are all referenced [edit: scandalously Julian is not cited, but Nick Yee is – sorry I was halucinating]) but it is interesting to see MMO coverage stretching across the media landscape.
Incidentally the Guardian aunched a games blog this week.
Posted by Ren Reynolds on August 4, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Nuclear Family Fallout
The running joke about the Nuclear Family is that it went critical sometime in the 70's and blew up all over the place, with fallout we're still trying to sort out even now. The modern paradigm is the "Blended Family", the product of divorce and remarriage. I'm intimately familiar with that, as the reason I've been so scarce for the last 6 months has been dealing with trying to make a family out of me, my fiance, her two boys and my daughter.
My paternal grandparents once told me that the world had changed so much since they were young, they didn't even recognize it anymore. Born in the 1920's, their childhood was during the Great Depression and their young adulthood during World War II. When they were young, divorces were rare, mass entertainment was movies and radio dramas, and long-distance calls so expensive that you heard from relatives in other states only on special holidays and in emergencies.
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Posted by Dave Rickey on August 4, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (23) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 03, 2004
Virtual World Economy: It's Namibia, Basically.
In my original study, EverQuest's productivity was measured at about $2,000 in terms of annual GDP per capita. This was misreported in the press as "Economist finds virtual economy bigger than Russia!" Absurd. No virtual economy could outproduce, in gross terms, Russia's hundred-million-worker economy. I wonder how many sensible people have rejected the whole line of research on the basis of this misreporting.
But let's address the question head on. Is it possible that virtual world economies might make a gross impact equivalent to that of a real country? Actually, yes. Virtual worlds are already that big, economically speaking. More accurately, some unfortunate countries remain that small.
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Posted by Edward Castronova on August 3, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (37) | TrackBack (1)
Aug 02, 2004
After currency
In this exclusive interview TerraNova talks to Second Life member Jacqueline Richelieu about her plans to create an in-world investment bank and stock exchange.
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Posted by Ren Reynolds on August 2, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (25) | TrackBack (2)
Other Players conference
Due to some technical difficulties the submission deadline for the Other Players conference has been extended to August 16. Papers should be submitted online (contact Miguel Sicart for any questions about the process). The conference is December 6-8 at the IT University of Copenhagen and is sure to be a good one so hope folks can make it!
Posted by T.L. Taylor on August 2, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Aug 01, 2004
It's Academic
Following on from Ted's job news, as of today I'm officially Visiting Professor in the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering at the University of Essex, England. The main consequence of this as far as I'm concerned is that I can use the job title Professor.
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Posted by Richard Bartle on August 1, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (18) | TrackBack (0)
Jul 30, 2004
Rubicite Breastplates & Narrative Nudges
Timothy Burke, who teaches at idyllic Swarthmore College, comments here from time to time, and had some interesting criticisms of Star Wars Galaxies a while back, has just posted a pair of papers on his weblog about design directions for MMORPGs (link link).
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Posted by Greg Lastowka on July 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (49) | TrackBack (1)
Loot, More Loot, and Money
From Slashdot, Dark Age of Camelot is planning to hand out loot (described here) to help out casual players ("Gift of the Realm" system), to encourage players to move to under-populated servers ("Gift of the Realm sped up" system), and incidentally they plan to ban a significant number of cheats and in so doing take a revenue hit. As discussed (Do ya a deal Govna?), deals are springing forth all over the MMO space. Why stop? How about encouraging players to role-play Middle English? Ka-ching for any text-matched against a database of Chaucer? How about a plat for every fun, vivacious adjective you use... How about playing off-peak hours? When do deals become fiction breaking?
He was a veray parfit gentil knight.
Canterbury Tales. Prologue. Line 72.
Posted by Nathan Combs on July 30, 2004 | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)