About Raph

Updated on

For the formal version, see my CV. For press materials, visit the Press Kit page.

Currently

I’m CEO and Creative Director at Playable Worlds, where we’re building Stars Reach, a next-generation sandbox MMO using cloud-native simulation technology.

Game Development

I’ve been making virtual worlds since 1993, starting with LegendMUD, a text-based world based on “history the way they thought it was.”

I was the creative lead on Ultima Online at Origin Systems, which opened persistent online worlds to the general gaming public. Later, as Creative Director at Sony Online Entertainment, I led design on Star Wars Galaxies and later served as Chief Creative Officer, contributing to numerous other titles.

In 2006 I founded Metaplace, a platform that enabled users to create their own virtual worlds. At its peak, over 70,000 user-created worlds ran on the platform. We pivoted to social games (Island Life, My Vineyard, Legendary Treasure) before being acquired by Playdom/Disney, where I worked as VP of Creative Design.

From 2010-2018 I consulted with companies including Google, Facebook, and Activision on product strategy and design challenges.

In 2012 I was named an “Online Game Legend” at the GDC Online Awards.

Writing & Theory

I wrote A Theory of Fun for Game Design, which explores why games engage us through pattern recognition and learning. It’s taught in game design programs worldwide. I’ve also written Postmortems and contributed chapters to numerous other books – see the Books section.

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My early work on virtual world governance, including the Declaration of the Rights of Avatars (2000), has been cited in legal scholarship on digital rights and platform governance.

I have an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama and a BA in English (Creative Writing) and Spanish from Washington College. I’m a past member of the Turkey City science fiction writers’ workshop. You can find my fiction and poetry under Writing, and I used to post a poem every Sunday to the blog, collected in Sunday Poems.

My writings on game design are collected under Gaming.

Technology

I am a named inventor on multiple patents in the areas of procedural generation, simulation, and virtual world technology.

I have also contributed to emulation projects for old consoles, including the Microvision and Retropie.

Music & Other Work

I play acoustic guitar, write songs, and compose music, some of which has been featured on television or game soundtracks. My album After the Flood is available at the usual locations – see the Music section for songs, lyrics, and tablature.

I’ve also dabbled in art and graphic design, designed the tabletop game Waddle, and hold patents in procedural generation and virtual world technology.

Background

I was born on Long Island in 1971, spent six years in Peru and time in Barbados and Haiti while my mother worked for UNICEF, then returned to the US for high school in Florida. The first video game I played was Pong. I programmed on CP/M machines and Atari 8-bits, designed board games during recess, and played D&D like everyone else.

During graduate school I taught for a while – loved teaching, hated academic politics. I’ve had various jobs along the way, including getting one board game (Nexus) published as a videogame by Moraffware. If you have a working copy, let me know!

If we knew each other from high school or college, please visit the contact page so we can reconnect.