Always sad to see an online world close.

It is with a heavy heart that we author and post this message. This message serves as the Official Announcement for the Termination of the vSide service. Please read this entire message carefully for important information regarding the next week.

vSide is shutting down. The last day of vSide operation will likely be Thursday July 16th, 2009. It’s possible that the service will become unavailable before then, but we’re going to try to keep it up until then. It’s also possible that it will stay up a few days after 7/16/09.

– vSide Forums: Official Announcement: Termination of vSide Service.

vSide used to be known as The Lounge, which was itself PCDLounge before that, I think. Doppelganger also did the Virtual Lower East Side for MTV; the old link for that seems to be gone behind a password. They opened in the summer of 2007.

Great question. The blog post announcing it says it’s for netbooks, really, and that the development platform “is the Web”:

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

– Official Google Blog: Introducing the Google Chrome OS.

Except that we’re still quite a ways from games of the Web meaning something other than Flash. The kernel is Linux, which could mean that AAA games that run on Linux (all three of them) could show up. Maybe. But I wouldn’t bank on it anytime soon.

Will Flash show up on here? Hard to imagine a Web-centric Netbook or tablet that doesn’t need it, if only for YouTube videos. So perhaps Flash will simply extend its crossplatform dominance one step further.

Who knows is this OS will gain adoption; one thing for sure, though, people will play games on it if it is possible. And the more possible it is, the more adoption it will see.

Andrew Woolridge has gotten the Metaplace client embed up and running inside of Titanium, which means that you can now grab a downloadable Metaplace client for Windows, Mac, or Linux: MetaTanium.

In his own words:

Titanium is a kinda  open source alternative to Adobe AIR that I’ve been toying around with. As soon at the ability to embed Metaplace worlds was announced I wanted to combine two of my passions into one:

MetaTanium lets you choose a world to run as a desktop app. You can even run it fullscreen!

It’s in an alpha state, but please give me feedback and feature ideas.

I am guessing he wants the ideas posted in the forum thread on the Metaplace site.

There’s two great posts related to Flash surfacing today:

CoderHump.com has an open letter to Adobe asking for them to make Flash the default console for the web. This is a developer-centric post, focusing on weaknesses of Flash as a generic platform for game development:

Adobe, make Flash like unto a console! Give us consistent performance! Give us excellent tools! Flex Builder is not that great, Adobe. Your compilers could be a lot better, too. Don’t worry too much about lots of fancy features. People who have to have super high end 3d and do not want to run everywhere will use tools like Torque or Unity that do 3d really well. Be everywhere, run well, be easy to develop for, and you will be loved and well rewarded.

Adobe, I have a vested interest in you succeeding. Please listen to my words. I have spent years developing game middleware on a variety of platforms. Now I am working with Flash. If Flash dominates the game industry, it will be possible for me to afford to eat.

A lot of the gems aren’t in the post, but in the comment thread that follows — worth reading.

And the inimitable Dan Cook of Lost Garden has a wonderful analysis of the business models behind Flash game development and where they are broken — and what a developer can do to fix it.

When you design your game, pick three or four revenue streams and build them into your game. Here are some categories of users that you may want keep covered.

• People who don’t want to pay: Advertising is a good option to keep around. A few hundred bucks is still money in the bank.
• People who are interested in more of the same: Once you’ve established the value of your game, some players want more. Give them more levels, more puzzles, more enemies in exchange for cash.
• People who are interested in status or identity improvements: Some people see games as means of expression and identity. Give them items that let them express themselves or customize their experience.
• People who have limited time: Some people live busy lives and want to consume your game when they desire and how they desire. Cheat codes, experience multipliers and other systems that bypass the typical progression all help satisfying this customer need.

Looks like this is just part one of a lengthier series of articles — I look forward to the next one!

Awesome! It goes into the cartridge slot for GBA games; too bad the new DSi doesn’t have that slot anymore.

Features

• Converts test results into reward points that children can use to unlock new levels and buy in-game items.
• Includes Knock ‘Em Downs™: World’s Fair video game and Mini Game Arcade for use with the Nintendo™ DS and Nintendo™ DS Lite gaming systems.

Bayer Didget – Product Information – Bayer’s DIDGET™ Blood Glucose Meter.

This is a UK website… dunno when or if it is coming to the States.

Someday I should finish and post up the game I did to teach my daughter about blood sugar levels and the glycemic index of various foods…

Apparently, Candyland, Battleship, and Asteroids were optioned for movies. To my surprise, everyone focuses on Asteroids. “How can they make a movie of that??” People keep saying this but they’re wrong!

A motley crowd of ethnically diverse people thrown together by circumstance are traveling in a hermetically sealed spaceship with an incredibly valuable cargo. Inside it is dark, and sweaty, and clangy. The cargo must reach Earth before everyone there dies of the mysterious alien plague. The clock is ticking. Then — SABOTAGE! The ship falls out of hyperspace in the midst of a huge asteroid field, full of giant tumbling mountains, with deep dark crevices and deadly pockets of methane gas that spout forth in majestic geysers. They must jet and shoot to stay alive, and find fuel to get them back out. The ominous alien ships are circling, just waiting for them to make a mistake, and unbeknowst to them, one of the crew on board is a traitor to the human race…

Battleship, now, that movie will suck.

Dara Roesner’s WordPress plugin for embedding Metaplace worlds is now up on WordPress.org. So you can grab it there, or you can go to your Dashboard, click Plugins, click Add New, and search for “metaplace.” There will be two results, actually, because SignpostMarv’s MetaverseID plugin also supports Metaplace.

In any case, from there you can install the plugin automatically! It supports both a sidebar widget and a tag for putting worlds within page or post content.

A few other embedding options have popped up already, by the way. There’s a phpBB setup walkthrough here as well, which will add [metaplace][/metaplace] bbCode to your forums. A few folks have also put it in an iGoogle gadget.

Game Design Essentials: 20 RPGs on Gamasutra is an excellent and in-depth look at RPGs.

I do miss at least some mention of MUD or DikuMUD, rather than jumping direct to World of Warcraft as the sole exemplar there; almost all MMORPGs today draw from those roots. And there’s also a curious lack of mention of the influence of free-form stuff or more storytelling-based RPGs, even in pen & paper.

Still, an excellent article.

The whimper at the end of an era.

CompuServe, the corporate entity, dates to 1969 but the CompuServe Classic online service for consumers debuted in 1979. In 1987 it was the flagship of online services with 380,000 users. A 1991 TV commercial trumpets CompuServe as the only online service with more than a half-million members.

Unfortunately time, and its acquisition by AOL, has not been kind to CompuServe. In recent years it has barely been marketed. Its Web site looks like a throwback to the (gasp!) 20th century. The “build” date on version 4.0.2 of CompuServe for Windows NT, the latest version of the access software for CompuServe Classic, is January 11, 1999.

– The Paper PC: CompuServe Classic: So Long, Old Friend.

I was never one of the hordes of truly hardcore gamers who hovered around the CompuServe and GEnie games — no money, you see. I was in high school at the time. Every once in a while I could sneak on for ten minute snatches — my dad was always horrified at the bill. He used TheSource too, because it was “more useful and had less games and distractions” I seem to recall.

CompuServe 2000 will still be around, but I am not sure anyone cares.

The PlaynoEvil blog has the best summary i have seen of the key issues — and they still have wideranging implications!

- If the service is shut off, customers are entitled to a refund of unused currency.

- “virtual currency should be exchanged only for virtual goods and services provided by the issuer of the currency” (this would cause problems for a lot of the third party currency folks here in the US and elsewhere)

- Companies already involved in virtual currency trading are required to register with the local cultural affairs bureau within three months.

- Minors may not buy virtual money. THIS IS POTENTIALLY HUGE. If enforced, this would essentially shut down most MMOs that use the Free-to-Play business model.

– via Chinese Government DOES NOT ban Gold Farming – Puts Free-to-Play in Jeopardy Instead – PlayNoEvil Game Security News & Analysis.