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LGWIV: Am I miserable? :)

December 3rd, 2008

David J Bailey has a nice discussion of my Living Game Worlds keynote up, in which he asks the question posed in the post title.

And there’s another take here from Matt Kelland.

And finally, this brief take at The Unexamined Life.

We saw some of the demos on our lunch break and returned in the evening for the keynote from Raph Koster. Mr. Koster was the lead designer for Ultima Online and a creative force behind Star Wars Galaxies. He prepared a delightful keynote taking us from old train yards in Spencer, NC to folk singing to the decline of the opera; always making interesting analogies to the games industry. I’m going to ask him if the video of the broadcast was recorded and if possible, get it up on YouTube. It was definitely worth hearing and has been the first thing in my life to make me miss college.

I’ll try to get my slides up tomorrow.

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2 Responses to “LGWIV: Am I miserable? :)”

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    1. Michael Chui said on

      My knee-jerk reaction to Matt Kelland’s eventual conclusion is: “WoW is a compromise. It’s a huge compromise. And it’s really good at it.” And when I say compromise, I mean between actual hi-res quality gaming and the mainstream. I guess it’s what the Andrew Lloyd Webber of gaming is, as he talks about it.

      I’ve been stubbornly disagreeing with Eolirin about making WoW-type games because it seems so ridiculous. I mean, if you’re going to do it, either choose art (and accept that you’re not going to become ridiculously popular or swim in gold) or choose entertainment, not both. I don’t know if I like that kind of “Only the Sith deal in absolutes” statement, but there it is. :)

      I was recently made aware of the 1000 True Fans idea. While Kevin Kelly seems to have backed off on the idea, I think it’s got merit. I think that’s the compromise you should go for.

    2. Tim said on

      Ah this is the game my daughter’s been playing the last week. She’s been really hooked on it.

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