Raph Koster

Manifesto Games is closing
June 23, 2009 Game talk
2 Comments

Greg Costikyan has posted on Play This Thing! that Manifesto Games is closing. It was essentially a web-based publisher and distributor of indie downloadable games, something which is perhaps less relevant today than it was when he started it.

An excerpt from his posting:

In the years since we started the company, there have been hopeful changes in the independent games market; Steam has become a profitable and viable channel for some developers, XBLA and WiiWare for others, and the iPhone for still others. In addition, the casual game market has started to experiment with a small handful of titles that break the inordinately restrictive genre mold of that form. Attention paid to independent games by the games media has grown (though why is it that the Independent Film Channel covers the AIAS awards, and not the IGF awards?)

These are all positive signs, but they are dangerous ones, too; Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo have complete, monopolistic control over distribution through their proprietary channels, and while they may, today, generously grant a high revenue share to developers who sell through them, developers are in the final analysis utterly at their mercy…

The Play This Thing! blog will continue.

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Flash for smartphones this fall
June 23, 2009 Game talk
7 Comments

Flash Player 10 beta coming to most smartphones this fall, says CNet. This was promised last year, (see this YouTube video showing the Flash movie playing on an Android Phone, from last November) but now there’s a date.

In a Q2 audio press release, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen confirmed that Adobe will release a beta version of Flash Player 10 in October for a number of smartphone browsers, including Windows Mobile, Google Android, Palm WebOS, and Symbian. In addition, Narayen said ARM, Nvidia, Broadcom, Intel, Texas Instruments, and Qualcomm are currently optimizing the player for their products.

No iPhone, probably because they are betting on JavaScript instead?

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State of Play reports
June 21, 2009 Game talk
17 Comments
I didn’t liveblog, but others did!

Tim Burke at Easily Distracted has a series of liveblog posts.
- On my keynote
- On the governance panel
- On the “magic circle” panel
- On the virtual economics panel
- Some overall thoughts
- On the developers panel (that I was also on)
- On the kids’ worlds panel
- On the media reporting panel
TerraNova has a thread.

Virtual Learning Worlds has a bunch of posts too:
- On my keynote
- On a small group session
- Some overall thoughts
- On researchers
- On “graybeards“
- On the VW’s and education panel
Hakawi Tech also has several posts:
- On governments getting involved
- On the cultural differences panel
- On the security panel
- On my keynote
I think that I will try to write up some of the specific things I was trying to get across in the keynote as a blog post at some point, because the vaious blogs and notes all seem somewhat partial in one way or another… are backchannels damaging liveblogging? In any case, here’s the backchannels, which may not make too much sense without the original actual content being commented on!
- gsssop « Today’s Meet is the web-based backchannel for the conference, including the rather fascinating (and to my mind, somewhat jarring) responses to the panel I was on.
- Even more backchannel went on via Twitter, however, which you can read primarily at the #sop09 hashtag.
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Off to New York for State of Play
June 18, 2009 Game talk
23 Comments

I am flying off to New York in about two hours for State of Play VI. If I have the chance, I will liveblog some of the sessions… but last few conferences, I failed miserably at that, so we’ll see. 🙂

I’ll be giving a keynote all about Metaplace, and also be on a panel on the issue of whether or not virtual worlds have hit a design plateau.

I plan to be live in Metaplace tomorrow around 9:15am Eastern time, so if anyone wants to show up in Central around then, you can wave hi to all the conference folks!

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More homeless Sims: interview with creator
June 18, 2009 Game talk
2 Comments

On CrunchGear, of all places.

Why is this important now? After all, MMORPGs give you real human interaction on a grand scale. Why simulate it?

While I am a huge fan of the potential of virtual worlds, I don’t think this kind of experimenting could be done in an online environment using other players. MMOs aren’t a recreation of life as The Sims is. Nobody is in danger of starvation, nobody is living a difficult life in a virtual world, and if you tried roleplaying it, you wouldn’t get genuine responses.

— Interview: Rob Burkinshaw, game designer and creator of homeless Sims.

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