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Look, if there's one game that merits a massively multiplayer online experience, it's The Grateful Dead. This has been on our radars for a little while, and it's unclear whether it'll be a proper MMO, a Facebook game, or what. Things become marginally clearer in this new video, called "The Epic Tour," that has been posted to the game's official site. More »
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Gamasutra has a great write-up of a Game Developers Conference Austin panel wherein Tracy Seamster of ZeniMax Online and Steve Danuser of 38 Studios talk massively multiplayer online game writing. More »
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Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia (a billing and fraud protection company), has some words of wisdom regarding the headache that is billing and payment for MMOs — be they the more 'traditional' subscription model or the free to play model. Obviously, there are benefits and downsides that come with each model, and companies are constantly trying to negotiate a balance between profit and player happiness. Even the vaunted subscription model comes with its own problems and a variety of structures within that model: More »
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I had an interesting discussion this week on the topic of microtransaction models, East-West interaction, and the fact that few people pay much attention to such issues (or dismiss them out of hand); Games In Motion has a nice interview up illustrating the 'fly under the radar' nature of a lot of those microtransaction models. WIM sat down to chat with Rob Goldberg, CEO of GMG Entertainment — the company produces branded pre-paid cards for a couple of franchises, sold at big box stores like Target — to talk about where the market is currently and where it's headed. They estimate somewhere between $75 and $100 million in sales this year, but what about the future?: More »
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Surprise! WoW may be good for you (or rather, good for kids): LiveScience has a nice little piece up on the myriad uses of WoW in educational settings, from getting kids to up their reading and writing ability to parents who use it as part of homeschooling. Constance Steinkuehler of Pop Cosmopolitanism organized a group of middle school-aged boys to play WoW after school (for educational purposes, natch), and the benefits derived from the social community that sprung up were obvious: More »
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There's an interesting article over at The Escapist on the rights of players in virtual worlds — covering a myriad of issues (recourse for theft, ownership of items, DRM, etc) on a global scale, Erin Hoffman has a nice look at some of the issues that have been rearing their ugly heads and what players, companies, and even governments are doing about it. Whatever the resolution ends up being, 'virtual' rights are an increasing problem for parties on all sides of the issue(s) at stake: More »
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a nice interview up with Turbine producer Jeffrey Steefel, mostly centered on the Lord of the Rings Online forthcoming Mines of Moria expansion — also discussed are things like how Steefel perceives LOTRO's performance, expansion features, and issues of designing for a license. While WoW is wide open, not being tied to anything but itself, LOTRO has slightly more constraints in what can — or should — be done. Steefel doesn't see this as a problem, however: More »
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The rights of 'avatars' — more to the point, the people who control them and their virtual assets — is an interesting and murky part of legal issues, EULAs, and player-company relations. Court cases have been tried over 'illegal' seizing of assets, and with the amount of time (and money) that people pour into their online characters and assets, we can expect to see more and more real-world legal problems related to virtual issues. But are companies on the ball?: More »
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Among everything else going on at the Austin GDC, an interesting panel took place on the issue of changing business models in MMOs — Free To Play has an easy to read, to the point summation of the panel, which included Robert Ferrari of Turbine (LOTRO), Hilmar Veigar Petursson of CCP (EVE Online), Nicolay Nickelsen of Funcom (Age of Conan), and Min Kim of Nexon (MapleStory). Unsurprisingly, it included discussion of the revenue models — subscription versus free to play — as well as potential audiences: More »
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'Tis the season for non-MMO players dipping their toes in the vast MMO waters; the guys at Man vs. Horse have done a bang up look at City of Heroes, EVE Online, and the ubiquitous WoW. It's always looking at veteran gamers coming to a new genre, and the series is a quick, funny, engaging read. It's also given me an idea of what MMOs I won't be trying: More »
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As I mentioned in my tale of my first MMO, I'm about as solitary gamer as one can be. I was interested in the last of a set of articles detailing the findings of the DGD2 gamer survey, this one on the major motivational differences between gamers who prefer multiplayer games versus those of us who cling to single player experiences: More »
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Gamers can be a finicky bunch, moving from title to title in search of novelty — what does it take to keep players motivated and hanging around? Loot, says an essay over at High Dynamic Range Lying — that's right, the collective 'we' are a bunch of donkeys chasing elusive, just-out-of-our-reach carrots around. I'll buy it as a generalization, since I've spent extra hours obsessively going after rare prizes in some of my beloved RPGs, which have the art of loot baiting down to a science: More »
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Most of the Rock, Paper, Shotgun guys recently posted their thoughts on the Warhammer Online closed beta; they were descended upon by WAR supporters (some rabid, some a little more even-tempered) for drawing more comparisons between WoW and WAR. After this little display of MMO chest thumping, Alec Meer put up a thoughtful piece on why it is that WoW has become a dirty word, both in and out of the industry, and why people are so quick to leap to vociferous defense of their games: More »
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There is a hilarious article up on the Escapist on one MMO player's experience with Mabinogi, the Nexon free-to-play MMO that was released in North America earlier this year. I had to laugh because I'm not an MMO player and I've been having a culture shock experience of my own adjusting to a Western-style MMO. John Funk of WarCry admits that he's turned a blind eye to MMO offerings coming out of Asia, so a week in Mabinogi offered a lot of culture shock and total confusion: More »
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Poor Shanda. Poor Chinese game companies! A surprising number of suits have been brought against them in the past year, but this — for a more reasonable 11,000 RMB ($1600) — takes the current cake. Shanda froze the account of a Legend of Mir player (for unspecified reasons), who is now suing for emotional distress and the return of his virtual items: More »
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With the discussion generated by 'what I learned by not playing Civilization,', I thought L.B. Jeffries' thoughts on creating a 'universal model' for games was pretty interesting. Part of the issue is convergence — 'pure' games are hard to find, and more and more incorporate various design strategies and elements. Would it be impossible to design a game that would appeal to a really diverse swath of players? Players that are sometimes playing entirely different kinds of games? Refinement is key: More »
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I find security issues facing games pretty interesting; PlayNoEvil is one of my favorite spots for discussion about security related issues. Gamasutra sat down with Gene Hoffman, CEO of Vindicia, a billing and fraud management company, about the issues facing MMOs and ways to mitigate those issues. Of particular concern are the RMT resale markets (if it exists), and chargebacks. And what of the mingling of real and virtual economies? Hoffman has this to say: More »
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Preservation of 'new media' has gotten some attention in recent months — a lot of venerable collections are moving to figure out the best ways to preserve games and gaming media in an archival setting, while building useful collections for the future. The University of Texas at Austin was recently awarded over $250,000 to study the collection and preservation of MMOs. In addition to the obvious bits of preservation problems — software and the like — the project is also pretty broad in scope, including an oral history component, as the project head Megan Winget explained: More »
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Described as an "eternal struggle between two sisters: Little Bo Peep and Little Red Riding Hood," the new MMO Secondhand Lands has just been announced and is currently in closed beta. The game, developed by Austin-based Callipygian, will be distributed Pixel Mind and will utilize their microtransaction system: More »
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Back in April, Dan Rubenfield (Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, etc.) ranted, raved, and put MMO developers 'on notice.' And, at the end, admonished developers to "quit making PC games. It’s a waste of time and money." Unsurprisingly, people hit back, and now over at GameSetWatch, Joe Ludwig (producer of Pirates of the Burning Sea) has a snappy little response detailing six reasons why MMOs are just plain harder to develop for consoles versus PCs. Does that mean it won't start happening in greater numbers? Of course not: More »
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Veteran UK game journalist Jim Rossignol, currently one of the Big Four at the Rock Paper Shotgun blog, has just published a book called 'This Gaming Life,' documenting his experiences in three different cities pursuing and documenting the culture of online games. More »
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Earlier this morning, we reported Trion World Network is teaming up with the Sci-Fi channel to create an MMO based on an upcoming show, a cool idea as the show's direction is intended to evolve depending on what players do in the game. That co-development agreement is not the only thing Trion has in the works, however. More »
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In a Funcom investor briefing, the company has spilled the pricing strategy for their MMO Age of Conan. United States gamers will pay $59.99 for the game and $14.99/month for the subscription. (Meanwhile, European gamers will pay 49.99 Euro and 12.99 Euro/month.) A quick skim through the briefing reveals some other interesting factoids, like that the game has already gone gold, Funcom expects 500,000-600,000 active subscribers at launch and internal surveys show that a "large proportion" of beta testers would like to buy it. Anyone out there considering cheating on their WoW account? More »
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World In Motion has an interesting round up with Nick Fortugno (creator of Diner Dash and co-founder of yet-to-be-launched RebelMonkey) on the state of the ... casual MMO? Seems like a bit of an oxymoron, but with the statement "The casual barbarians are coming!", Fortugno explains the particulars of a 'casual' take on what has traditionally been seen as hardcore territory: More »
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Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great (as always) interview up with Reynir Harðarson, one of the minds behind EVE Online, on EVE, new MMO-in-production World Of Darkness, MMOs in general, and why MMOs should be more like ... Facebook? More »
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Danc at Lost Garden has a blast from the past up, in the form of a snip from a talk given by Dani Bunten Berry on good design elements for multiplayer games (all the way back in 1997). It's quite a list, but just goes to show that a lot of good design elements are pretty timeless. More »
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Over in her Aberrant Gamer column, Leigh Alexander has picked her top five game characters of the year - including the 'you' of virtual worlds and user-generated content. She's expanded on her thoughts on why 'you' sucks sometimes over at Sexy Videogameland, and it's an interesting read through. She even expresses doubt that this open world model can sustain itself: More »
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Edward Castronova, an associate professor at Indiana University and the guy behind a Shakespeare-themed MMO, published a new book last month entitled Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality. He spoke to BBC News to talk about his new book and the contents within: More »
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This weekend's Korean Times story, full of woe and certain financial doom for NCsoft, may not be exactly on the mark says the online game developer. More »
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Gamasutra has a long (long) interview up with Raph Koster (lead designer of Ultima Online and founder of Areae). It's long. But Koster touches on a ton of stuff - the shift in game design, the ultra-casual market like Habbo Hotel vs. WoW, this idea of 'game grammar', why patents are a necessary evil, and is 'single-player gaming dead'? - and it's an interesting read. Even some interesting ideas on the us vs. them mentality present in the industry (or is it?): More »
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I love me some Sexy Videogameland, and the fairly recent addition of 'best of' contests makes it that much more entertaining. Up this week? Pitch the most ridiculous idea for an MMO that you can, putting the most genuine and sincere PR spin on things possible. While it's an exercise in hilarity, it's true that virtual worlds are getting ever-increasing attention from mainstream media and people looking for a piece of the potentially lucrative pie. In a world where there's a Barbie MMO advertised on TV and money is being thrown at maybe they'll work out, maybe they won't ideas, perhaps it's not so ridiculous after all (could fiction possibly be stranger than Be-Bratz?): More »
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Nexon - the Korean company responsible for MapleStory and KartRider - has been expanding (quietly) beyond its home borders. With MapleStory already in the US and KartRider due to launch sometime in the near future, Nexon's been making a quiet-but-succesful entry into Western markets. Worlds In Motion has an interview up with Min Kim of Nexon America talking about MapleStory, KartRider, the Nexon recipe for success, and what's next for the company. Not surprisingly, great swaths of his thoughts are pretty sensible (in a market glutted with free-to-play games, yours better be fun or else no one's going to play it), but sensible and game company plans do not always go hand in hand. More »
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NCsoft, the Korean developer behind Lineage (among other things), just posted its second quarterly earnings: sales of $82.1 million, which is down 11%, but operating profits of $11.5 million - which is a jump of 533%. Sales were heavily weighted to the local Korean market, but they continue to make in-roads elsewhere in the world. With contracts to develop games for the PSP and PS3 and several new games launching soon, I suppose we can expect those profits to keep rolling in. More »
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Barbie, everyone's favorite anatomically impossible plastic plaything now has her own MMO: BarbieGirls. Following in the footsteps of things like Club Penguin, just a lot pinker and more irritating, it's a brilliant marketing strategy and already boasts 4 million users. And they haven't even gone out of beta yet. And continue to sign up new users at the rate of 45,000 a day. Wow. Not to be left behind, Bratz - the trashier, more badly made up version of Barbie - is also opening their own Be-Bratz MMO. More »
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Despite mandating that all Chinese companies install anti-addiction measures on MMOs and the like by the beginning of July, things aren't going as smoothly as intended: 20 companies have failed to implement the systems and the government isn't too happy about it. Notices have been sent out, and if the companies fail to comply with the requests of the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), they will have their internet service suspended (and the games will be shut down until they do comply). More »
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From GamePolitics comes a Reuters article that will probably make you foam at the mouth, both for its lovely 'how did it take you people this long to notice?' quality, as well as the rather unfair characterization of the industry by an 'expert.' Dr. Sally Black expounds on griefers as well as her personal opinions on gaming, which span from 'games are addictive' to 'the industry is going after your children with advertising,' including nice comparisons to the tobacco and alcohol industries. More »
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Not if they have the appropriate license come September, but with a gambling law getting its final update at that time, MMOs that have competitions or offer prizes may be classified as 'online gambling' and subject to the same laws and penalties as more traditional forms. With all the chatter in the US and elsewhere about where MMOs fit into the overall scheme of online gambling (or not), it will be interesting to see how companies start to navigate the water. In the US, for example, 'games of skill' are - for the most part - exempt from gambling regulations; this is not the case with the new UK law. More »
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In news outside of the console industry, the top ten most popular MMO games have been listed. Not surprisingly, World of Warcraft is sitting pretty at number one, but the rest of the list is a bit of a head scratcher. Habbo Hotel, that Finnish playable MySpace to the youth, comes in second, which begs the question,"How old do you have to be to own a credit card these days?!": More »
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Last month, two Belgian papers reported that police (real) were investigating a rape (virtual) that happened in Second Life. Which begs the question: at what point do virtual crimes become real ones? Regina Lynn over at Wired has her answer: "... the psychological upheaval of virtual rape [isn't] anywhere near the trauma of real rape. And I can't see us making virtual rape a matter for the real-life police. It's a shitty thing to do to someone. But it's not a crime." More »
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No, not over the DMZ. A quick and dirty analysis of hard numbers of some relatively recent South Korean arrivals on the online gaming scene - in this case, ijji.com versus Second Life: More »
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