• lotro

    Jeffrey Steefel on LOTRO Expansion, MMO Culture

    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 »
    09/27/08
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    Comment by Filthy Assistant: LTR stll xsts? nd ppl stll ply t, spclly ngh t wrrnt n xpnsn? Nws t m. 3 Responses | Other threads

  • virtual worlds

    The Business of 'Avatar Rights'

    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 »
    09/21/08
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    Comment by +: NO, they do NOT have ANY value. If you want to get technical, items are just little bits of coding in... 5 Responses | Other threads

  • business

    Evolving MMOs: Changing Business Models

    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 »
    09/21/08
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    Comment by vid3oman64: I can't see that damn mushroom and that damn theif without thinking of how much I hate MapleStory. Really... really... 2 Responses | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    The MMO Showdown: CoH, WoW, and EVE

    '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 »
    09/21/08
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    Comment by Shockadin: WoW is the best, MMORPGs are the most wonderfully built games out of all of them, no video game is... 5 Responses | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    Speaking of Loot: the Ancient Roots

    Yesterday, we mentioned the fact that game designers often walk a fine line when figuring out how best to dangle a nice, looty carrot in front of their audience; somewhat on the same subject (loot!), Roger Travis goes back to the Iliad and even further to illustrate some ancient roots of the same thing we see in modern MMOs: grinding, loot, and boss battles, oh my! And really, even that squad you're running end game content with harkens back to an older group of 'heroes': More »
    09/14/08
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    Comment by alextz: Dear Mr. Travis, As a Greek and a former MMO-gamer, I beg you to stop trying to find connections in completely... 5 Responses | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    Asian MMO Players Love To Smoke And Grind

    As a connoisseur of the MMO genre, I've often noticed that your average Chinese and Korean massively multiplayer online games tend to rely heavily on the mouse, often foregoing keyboard movement altogether in favor of the dreaded click-to-move system that I completely despise. So why do Asian MMO games lean so hard on the mouse? Perfect World product manager Jon Belliss believes he's discovered the answer - smoking. More »
    08/13/08
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    Comment by SwindleUK: @okenny :) ...building bridges (to hide under): england and scotaland have banned smoking indoors as well. you can go for... more » | Other threads

  • gold farming

    Who's Winning the Gold Farming War?

    Steve at PlayNoEvil has some interesting analysis up on the current state of gold farming in MMORPGs (though he does admit that since hard stats are difficult to come by, "any analysis is more akin to reading tea leaves"); using data provided by mmobux, he looks at the pricing trends to try and divine what might be going on in the wild world of selling gold: More »
    04/19/08
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    Comment by ParkerCepheus: If you make minimum wage (something like $7/hr in california I think?) and gold in wow costs ~$20 per 1000g (just... more » | Other threads

  • ncsoft

    NCsoft Shuts Down Illegal Servers

    NCsoft is stepping up the battle against IP theft, in this case targeting illegal servers in eastern Europe (concentrating on Greece and Russia). Last year, they successfully brought a suit against a Greek company who was profiting from the use of illegal Lineage II servers; they're continuing the global fight. Full release after the jump. More »
    04/13/08
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    Comment by ehlaren: @Obijuan: They came up to me and said hp++++++++. I replied adena+++++++++. more » | Other threads

  • stargate worlds

    Joe Ybarra on Stargate MMO, Free To Play, Licensing

    It's hard to fault people for being really ambitious, and Joe Ybarra (producer of games ranging from The Bard's Tale to the Matrix Online, and now of Stargate Worlds) certainly sounds ambitious. Ybarra talked to Gamasutra about the problems of licensing IP, the MMO industry today, where Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment is headed. First, though, there's the Stargate MMO to worry about: More »
    03/30/08
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    Comment by olafson: " Uh, they made THE Bard's Tale, which came out in 2004 " [en.wikipedia.org]'s_Tale_(1985) Original FTW. more » | Other threads

  • lawsuit

    Blizzard Versus Glider: The Motions

    Last year, Blizzard decided to go after Glider (the botting program that lets you skip past the grind and get to the good stuff); Michael Donnelly, the guy behind Glider (who has apparently made nearly $2.8 million off of it) is fighting back, and now both sides have filed motions arguing their case. The summary judgment briefs and analysis have been making the rounds the past week or so: Blizzard claims that Glider infringes on the EULA of WoW by copying portions of code and is pissing of WoW players (as well as gobbling up resources), while Glider is saying that grinding to level 70 is boooooring and they're just helping players get to the fun bits. Both sides are seeking to be declared victorious without having to go through a protracted legal battle. We'll see what happens and who comes out on top. More »
    03/29/08
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    Comment by MurlocCake: Leveling in WoW is way too easy to bother to use glider. Also, your paying $20 so you don't play... more » | Other threads

  • crime

    Goodbye Gold Farmers, Hello Gold Frauders

    And you thought gold farming was bad. Steve at PlayNoEvil has an interesting analysis up of the next wave of things MMO operators and players will have to worry about: gold frauders. The number of stolen credit cards being used to pay for WoW accounts has led to the UK bank Halifax to block payments to Blizzard, among a few other industry moves to try and deal with the ever-increasing problem of stolen credit cards, illicit RMT transactions, and other money-related issues. What is the problem - and why? More »
    02/24/08
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    Comment by RawSteelUT: @TheResolver: Unfortunately there is no real system against an employee selling off credit card numbers. Only thing I could... more » | Other threads

  • china

    Chinese Game Industry Deals 'Paralyzed'

    The Chinese game industry is hot hot hot, and money is burning a hole in the pocket of some of the big players like Shanda. Unfortunately, the hot market has led to plenty of companies overvaluing their worth, and despite capital burning a hole in the collective pocket of the big companies, they're starting to realize that snapping up small companies for massive prices isn't the giant payoff they're looking for: More »
    02/23/08
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    Comment by Inst: @Cell9song: Due to the massive piracy issue in China, most of the game developers make MMOs. You run the server,... more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    China Launching 'Operation For Tomorrow' Crackdown

    What would modern China be without campaigns? This one's lacking in a snappy name and related propaganda, but the government is gearing up to go after those hotbeds of moral decay, crime, and WoW: internet cafes. Introducing "Operation for Tomorrow," targeting unlicensed websites, internet cafes, and porn. More »
    02/17/08
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    Comment by stopcrazypp: @fyre: Really late response, but don't all businesses needed to be registered even in the US? I know my uncle... more » | Other threads

  • game design

    Multiplayer Lessons of GDCs Past

    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 »
    02/17/08
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    Comment by John H.: The person who gave this talk was the designer of MULE, probably the greatest multiplayer game ever made. I've... more » | Other threads

  • free to play

    10 Reasons Free To Play Growth May Be Slow

    Over at Free To Play, a list of ten potential reasons the free to play model may never take hold in the West like it has in Asia, or at least why it may take a long, long time. It's an interesting roundup of a number of issues facing virtual worlds and some games more broadly (issues with RMT, bad ad campaigns, bad advergaming, etc.) - I'm always interested to see people's attitudes toward the free to play model, which is frequently met with much hostility. One of the most pressing issues is the issue of an onslaught of repetitive MMORPG or virtual space clones: More »
    02/02/08
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    Comment by ashstampede: @highlar: no not like guild wars, you download the game for free and you play it for free. They make... more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    China Trying To Keep Out Foreign MMORPGs

    It's no secret that foreign games, be they WoW or Korean imports, are wildly popular in China - thus, in a clear case of local protectionism, the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) has instituted new regulations to keep out foreign game companies: More »
    01/27/08
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    Comment by UltimatePancakeSensation: Sounds like good news to me; China's corrupt government gets to have things their way, and we get fewer goldfarmers... more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    Chinese Government Cracking Down on Online Gaming

    Despite governmental efforts to the contrary (gaming addiction 'bootcamps,' time-limiting systems and the like), China's gaming population just refuses to be fenced in. The Chinese market is growing by leaps and bounds, which - unsurprisingly - is making the government just a wee bit skittish. Due to rampant piracy, lack of game ratings, and more illegal internet cafés than you can shake a stick at, the government is worried over reports of rising numbers of gaming addicts (and what they see as a related rise in juvenile crime). Will the fact that previous measures haven't exactly had the desired effects mean that the CCP is going to throw their hands up in defeat? Of course not: More »
    01/19/08
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    Comment by astrixzero: @Tarislar: And unlike you, I'm actually a Chinese citizen living in China. We're certainly not the illiterate third-world country portrayed... more » | Other threads

  • outspark

    Outspark Gets Lots of Funding, Talks Asian Games in the US

    Worlds in Motion has an interesting Q&A up with Susan Choe and Nick Foster of Outspark, a company that has imported games like Fiesta and Secret of the Solstice for US audiences. Outspark has managed to secure $11 million USD in funding from various sources to "help PC-based online games find the same market in North America as they currently enjoy in Asia," and Choe and Foster talk about everything from importing Korean games wholesale, how they put together the project in the first place, and the carpal tunnel inducing process of picking what games to bring over: More »
    01/12/08
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    Comment by Xorrel: I went over and looked at their current offerings and I gotta say I wouldn't bet on their success. ... more » | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    MMOs Following An Ancient Epic Tradition

    Long, long ago, before I threw myself into my current path of East Asian specialist, I was a classicist-in-training with a focus on first century BC Roman lyric poetry. So I read with interest a piece in the Escapist comparing modern MMOs with the epic forerunners of centuries past - the likes of the Illiad, Odyssey, and Aeneid, among others. Anyone who's ever waded through any of the epic classics can relate to the formulaic nature of the stories - epithets abound (Aeneas is always faithful, Achilles is always swift-footed, Dawn is always rosy-fingered), structure is repetitive, stories are familiar. The repetition isn't merely the mark of a lazy story teller (or game developer), oh no: More »
    01/06/08
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    Comment by Eieio: Catharsis isn't really linked to Epic by the ancients (ie, Aristotle) as an aesthetic term of the viewer's experience. I'm... more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    Zhengtu: Where RMT, Gold Farming and Gambling Reign Supreme

    I was thrilled to come across a most glorious article on Chinese MMORPGs (specifically, the wildly popular Zhengtu Online), translated to English from the original that appeared in the Southern Weekly. As Steve at PlayNoEvil sums it up, "While wimpy Americans can whine about "cheating" in online games, quibble about Real Money Transactions (RMT), complain about gold farming, gripe about power-leveling, and otherwise aspire to a mythical "purity" of game play, the most popular game in China, ZT Online, from Giant Interactive has embraced all of these things.. and online gambling to boot." More »
    12/30/07
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    Comment by playgames: The pictures look like an online casino? Could you give an example? The reason why I ask is because casino... more » | Other threads

  • year end

    2007 - the Year of 'Accessible' Games?

    Leigh Alexander has an interesting '07 wrap up of sorts that's not a top 10 list, but a look at some of the major trends in gaming this year - which can be summed up in the word 'accessibility,' which she defines as many different things. Making the 'entry barrier' to console gaming low with the Wii; allowing people to play in bite sized chunks instead of hours-long grinds; the line between the gamer and the non-gamer is becoming increasingly slim (maybe?): More »
    12/23/07
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    Comment by Jooptang: @fuchikoma: I hear you perfectly on short but satisfying challenging chunk of game play. more » | Other threads

  • education

    Play MMOs, Learn A Second Language

    While perusing GameSetWatch, I hop skipped my way through a couple of blogs and found myself at a very interesting article in T.H.E. Journal on using MMORPGs in educational contexts, specifically on their use in second language acquisition. And here I've been doing it the old fashioned way all these years! It's a lengthy article, but worth a read through - author John K. Waters talks about a number of studies and approaches to the topic, but all of them are focused on use WoW and its ilk for educational purposes: More »
    11/04/07
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    Comment by Shinryoma: I thought this was common knowledge. A lot of people have learned second languages from pursuing their hobbies. I even... more » | Other threads

  • game design

    World of Evecraft?

    Jim Rossignol has some thoughts up over at Rock, Paper, Shotgun on MMO design - a study in why, despite WoW being WoW and 'the' MMORPG in a lot of ways, EVE Online is potentially a better base for future MMO designs. Not in terms of creating a better "PvP-heavy spaceship-centric world," but by applying some of their design principles to games with more mass appeal? The two concepts that Rossignol picks out as being vast improvements over the WoW model are no levels (collecting skills, not level grinding, becomes the object) and money - not XP - would become the driving force in a game. There are some interesting thoughts, but lest you think it's an EVE love fest, he cautions: More »
    10/20/07
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    Comment by Sauceinator: EVE and WoW are two massively different games. A couple things: 1. When I play WoW I expect to be doing... more » | Other threads

  • lawsuits

    CDC Games Sues South Korean Company

    Well, the Chinese gaming world is certainly turning into a sue-happy place as of late: CDC Games, the same company that has launched an assault on piracy, is now suing South Korean-based MGame Corporation in both South Korea and Hong Kong. Earlier this week, CDC leveled charges at MGame of providing really crappy tech support for Yulgang, a popular MMORPG, and failing to back up CDC in their quest to end piracy; after filing those suits in Hong Kong, CDC moved on to South Korean courts, alleging MGame breached a contract and failed to provide financial data. While MGame hasn't commented on these charges, CDC notes that MGame has terminated their contract with the company, citing non-payment (oops): More »
    10/20/07
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    Comment by Spartan1308™: @ZWCoolkid: Yeah, the Centers for Disease Control really shouldn't be spending time suing game companies w/this MRSA thing going on. more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    Beijing Perfect World's Video Contest Winners

    Beijing Perfect World, one of Mainland China's biggest players in the online games market, ran a contest for gamers to put together movies showcasing their idea of 'a perfect world.' The interesting thing is that the winning video actually got aired on China Central Television (the national TV network, better known for all sorts of fantastically dramatic Chinese soap operas - at least, that's what I fondly remember it for). I took a look at several of the prize-winning videos - some of them are obviously more game-related than others - and it's good for quite a bit of entertainment. True to BPW form, the press release is a gem in its own right. Take a look at the winning videos here and find the full release after the jump. More »
    10/20/07
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    Comment by HappyWulf: That first one with the kid in the green shirt is really artistic. I hope thats the one that won. more » | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    What About the Losers? Virtual Worlds and Player Loss

    There's an interesting piece up at Terra Nova ruminating on the question of winners and losers in PvP-based games, taking a close look at EVE-Online in particular. Losses can be minimal in a lot PvP games, but the losses can be much harsher in games like EVE-Online - but Nate Combs says that the game has fostered a culture that 'recycles losers' (in a positive way) and helps retain players: More »
    10/14/07
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    Comment by Coherent: You will feel otherwise in three months. more » | Other threads

  • academia

    'A Certain Level of Abstraction' - Game Design and the Abstract

    If your life seems to be lacking a certain academic something, Jesper Juul of The Ludologist (among other things) has posted his conference paper from the September Digital Games Research Association international conference in Tokyo. I admit that since I'm backlogged in slogging through lots of other academic reading, I haven't had time to take a close look at it, but how bad could a paper that covers Cooking Mama, Karate Champ, StarCraft and Dead Or Alive 4 be? More »
    10/14/07
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    Comment by fuchikoma: I read it... found it a bit irrelevant - or not so much irrelevant, but just that it won't really... more » | Other threads

  • china

    Even Shangri-La Is Mad For Warcraft

    This week's "The China Angle," Gamasutra's roundup on what's going on in the wild, wild world of the Mainland Chinese market, leaves behind the urban areas we typically associate with internet cafes and too much time spent with WoW and heads to Yunnan Province, more specifically Shangri-La County (formerly known as Zhongdian County). Despite not having a Starbucks or a McDonald's, the area is relatively wealthy, making it easy to swallow the hourly fees to pay WoW - in China, it's less a matter of geography and more a matter of finances: More »
    10/13/07
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    Comment by cazoo: No Starbucks or McDonalds? Sounds like heaven. more » | Other threads

  • only in china

    Regulating China: 'Crackdown or Censorship'?

    It's been a tough year for China's gaming world: intellectual property disputes, internet addiction boot camps, new government regulations, cafes and companies ignoring those new regulations, all punctuated by the occasional death-by-marathon-gaming. NBC has a roundup of this year's events, and brings up the broader issue of government censorship under the guise of keeping tempting materials out of the hands of minors and/or people who are going to game for 3 days straight, then drop dead of a heart attack: More »
    09/30/07
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    Comment by dirtybacon: @dirtybacon: by current I meant curtain. bah. more » | Other threads

  • game design

    'The Image of the Undercity' - Games, Architecture, and Space

    An entry at Terra Nova links to a rather lengthy paper on architecture, space, and gameplay in WoW and Battle for Middle Earth 2. The paper is well worth a read through, but the Terra Nova entry has some choice quotes pulled out for those short on time. The paper concerns itself with how two different games use their spatial organization and architecture - both in terms of buildings and the fundamental design of a game world - to impact play experiences: More »
    09/02/07
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    Comment by Ambient_Noise: I have alot of trouble finding my way around circular-shaped cities. Its friggan impossible for me to get my bearing,... more » | Other threads

  • ashes, ashes, we all fall down

    Scientists Studying Warcraft Plague

    A couple of sources (notably Wonderland and GamePolitics) have taken note that a forthcoming paper in The Lancet Infectious Diseases will be taking a look at the World of Warcraft 'Corrupted Blood' plague of 2005. Their purpose? To see how virtual models of epidemics can help real-world research - and they got the perfect case in the WoW plague. Eric Lofgren (Rutgers University) and Nina Fefferman (Tufts University), the two researchers who worked on the paper, say in their abstract: More »
    08/26/07
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    Comment by virus2566: So when you are gaming, and your parents ask you what you are doing, you can respond with, "I'm furthering... more » | Other threads

  • shanda

    Shanda's Co-Founder on 'Hard Choices'

    Shanda is one of China's biggest game operators and while they've been doing well recently (really, really well), they didn't hit their stride for a few years. Chen Tianqiao, former real estate executive and co-founder of Shanda, talked with the Wall Street Journal about what it took to get Shanda off the ground and turn it into one of the dominant companies in the Chinese gaming market (we'll ignore the lawsuits regarding copyright infringement): More »
    08/25/07
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    Comment by CSUSam: I've always been kin of weirded out by articles about this company because my girlfriend's name is Shanda. It's like... more » | Other threads

  • china

    China's CDC Games To Expand Globally

    Further ensuring that Western gamers will have a hard time escaping the sometimes cool, frequently criticized glut of games coming out of China and other points East, CDC Games - operating 13 games in China - is making plans to expand to the rest of the world through the creation of a new creatively-named subsidiary, CDC Games International (that would be 'CGI' for short). Apparently trying to fast-track their way to global success, they plan to launch some of their free-to-play offerings in the Japanese and North American markets later this year. More »
    08/25/07
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    Comment by GameDesign: @SLASHLEN Yes, good games does come out of China. There are a few successful MMOs that are in perma-beta mode... more » | Other threads

  • blame google

    Online Gaming to Get In-Game Advertising?

    The Guardian Unlimited reported on Saturday that Google has "drawn up plans to compile psychological profiles of millions by covertly monitoring the way they play online games". In English, it means that the search engine has registered a new patent that can spy on us. After gathering months of online behavioral patterns, Google could try to make this information available to their advertising overlords for a small fee. More »
    05/14/07
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    By Kim Phu

    Comment by Tarislar: Oh bloody hell people, do any of you whingers know anything about google? Kim Phu, before you criticize them... more » | Other threads

  • weekend gaming

    What Are You Playing This Weekend?

    More »
    10/20/06
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    Comment by PetiePal: You are an evil evil man Florian. And I love you. I had no times for games the past weekend except... more » | Other threads

  • mmorpgs

    World of Warcraft Finally Gets A Decent Group Finder

    You can tell the current obsessions of Kotaku writers by whatever subject they slavishly follow. For Crecente? It's Hello Kitty Island Adventure. Ashcraft? Spelling console names in Capital Letters. Eliza, of course, posts mostly about Playboy editorials she disagrees with. And me? World of Warcraft. More »
    10/17/06
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    Comment by dfltr: now taking bets on whether Wanted: Hogger will be under Quest or Raid. btw: LF39M Hogger - no rogues. more » | Other threads

  • blizzard

    World of Chalkcraft

    More »
    10/09/06
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    Comment by DaveKap: Get out.... get out while you still can Florian. *ponders the thought of Florian never posting because he's too busy with... more » | Other threads

  • south park

    World of Warcraft Meets South Park: The Complete Episode

    More »
    10/05/06
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    Comment by TheForgotenHero: Saw this episode for the first time the other day when my friend downloaded it from the video marketplace. There... more » | Other threads

  • eve online

    Massive Intergalactic Conflict Starts In Eve Online

    More »
    10/02/06
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    Comment by Trackback: In 1964, Stanley Kubrick's cold-war political satire "Dr. Strangelove or:  How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"... more » | Other threads

  • beta

    Burning Crusade Goes Closed Beta

    More »
    09/29/06
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    Comment by Green Armadillo: Open betas for MMORPG's are worthless for testing purposes - you get too much feedback, most of it contradictory, drivel,... more » | Other threads