Game talk

Speaking of Viacom and MTV, here’s their fifth (!) virtual world in the last nine months.* The Virtual Lower East Side looks like it uses the Doppelganger technology also used for The Lounge — the cel-shaded avatars are a dead giveaway. (BTW, The Lounge just announced digital currency sales…)

VLES is a painstaking replica of all the storefronts and clubs in the real Lower East Side. And it looks like its intended to be MySpace all over again — there’s a prominent sign-up for bands.

Here at the office the question was asked “Are they [Viacom] winning?” And  the answer was “Nobody else is even playing.” The way in which these guys are looking at virtual worlds simply isn’t the same way anyone else is.

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* Virtual Laguna Beach. The Hills. Pimp My Ride. Nicktropolis. And now VLES. You can make a good case that VLB and The Hills are actually two zones of one world though. 🙂 Fine, four.

One of the few advantages to getting old is that you get to see history repeat itself. Today a couple of folks pointed me to this Red Herring article about how user created content sucks.

“There’s a reason some of us are employed and paid to make games, and there’s a reason why most people are not. It’s because they’re really bad at it,” added Starr Long, game director of NCsoft.

Well, of course, I just talked about this (that whole “quit being snobby” thing). But today it strikes me from a slightly different angle. See, I remember a time when there was this whole online gaming industry that made millions and millins, and had all the answers. Their titles were acknowledged as the kings of the hill, and they were quite proud of the fact that outsiders didn’t seem to know how to crack the market.

Then one day a strange confluence happened. A few companies that had money, from outside this cozy online industry, hired a bunch of amateurs. Within a few years, the amateurs had taken that old guard online ggaming industry and dismantled it. A few survivors limped along — some made the shift and changed over. The big money folks, who remained clueless about the way the online world worked, mostly went and acquired and dismantled them.

I am speaking, of course, about the mid-90s, when the moneyed game corps got into online. The old guard were victims like Kesmai, and the new guard was, well, people like me & Kristen, and Damion Schubert, and Daniel James, and Steve Nichols, and Rick Delashmit, and tons of others whose names you haven’t even heard. We came out of amateur, hobbyist muds, and now we’re the old guard. Edit: in case the irony wasn’t clear — Starr is actually one of the guys who hired several of us. 🙂

I vividly recall Jessica Mulligan complaining that the higher budgets that the game companies brought were a tragedy for the industry. I also recall that it took a while for the new guard to be accepted by the old guard. Now, of course, we’re all friends and hang out together at conferences.

So on the panel referenced in the article, who was the new guard? MTV. 🙂

Gamasutra has posted the audio of my GDC lecture ‘Where Games Meets the Web’. You can follow along with the slides which are here.

So, here it is, a few years later, and we’re still seeing articles on the NGE. And honestly, I’m getting a little tired of it. In this case, I actually declined to comment for the article, but there’s nonetheless a giant inset quote from me dug up from ages ago (which irritates me, honestly). I had declined because I just didn’t want to perpetuate the discussion.

Read More “Tired of hearing about the NGE”

Look ma, I’m on TV. The CNN Future Summit on virtual worlds is supposed to be airing on CNN International a whole bunch of times, featuring a whole bunch of us from the virtual worlds community. The bulk of the show is a panel session at Stanford, as I understand it. I taped my segment in New York, in front of bluescreen and talking into a camera.

Show times (All times GMT)
June 13, 16, 17, 20
Wednesday 14:00; Saturday 6:00, 14:00, 19:00; Sunday 6:00, 19:00; Wednesday 14:00

GMT means, I think, that it’s on tomorrow in some parts of the world. I don’t actually see it listed in my cable box’s schedule, however — World News Asia is on in that time slot. This page may provide a clue for your local showings. In my case, I have to wait until the weekend. 🙂 Note, on my cable box it is just called “News Special.”