For Jonathan Z of CTIN 482, Pizer’s class

 Posted by (Visited 4964 times)  Game talk
Feb 222007
 

There’s now a PDF download of “Storytelling in the Online Medium” available here:

And if you aren’t Jonathan, well, enjoy a blast from the past. This talk is now 5 years old, and although the examples are dated, I don’t think the state of the art has moved forward in most of these areas. Except for that whole little ARG thing, of course. 😉

Buying your way to the top, again

 Posted by (Visited 7701 times)  Game talk
Feb 212007
 

This new gaming site Cafe.com is taking more than a few pages from the Korean model. Its a casual games site with a “game console” — the games are all embedded within this console. This is a common sort of feature in Korean games — the Korean version of Albatross 18, aka Pangya, had a whole desktop, for example. (BTW, I find it amusing that it’s hard to tell the game is about golf from the Korean site anymore… is that a guy drawing a sword over on the right?)

But that’s not the only tip Cafe.com is taking. You play through the “console,” and the reason is that it offers 3d avatars you can use to chat with others. And of course, there’s microtransactions. You can spend money in order to get in-game advantages at multiplayer clones of Zuma, Pipe Dreams, Puzzle Fighter, and so on.

Yes, you read that right — in-game advantages. Continue reading »

The registrations game

 Posted by (Visited 7864 times)  Game talk
Feb 202007
 

Wonderland is wondering about the 67 million figure for NCSoft customers that Robert Garriott gave out in a recent interview. In the comment thread, it comes out that this means registrations, total, ever.

In that case, it’s nice to put stuff in perspective; Sulka Haro from Sulake chimes in with a 70m figure for Habbo Hotel. Which makes the controversy over Second Life’s numbers seem like a tempest in a teapot…

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