Raph Koster

Jack Thompson disbarred
September 25, 2008September 25, 2008 Game talk
25 Comments

Well, it finally happened — Jack Thompson has been disbarred. Naturally, he’s not taking this lying down.

For those who don’t know, Thompson is either the crusading lawyer who fights to keep adult entertainment out of the hands of kids despite persecution from his own profession and the government; or a witch-hunting publicity hound who targets the game industry with outrageous claims.

It’s unfortunate that people with nuanced takes, like Jim Gee or Henry Jenkins, get a fraction of the ink.

Read More Jack Thompson disbarred
AGDC08: The better EULA panel and MP TOS feedback
September 22, 2008September 22, 2008 Game talk, Gamemaking
There was a fair amount of coverage of this panel, despite the relatively small attendance. This was the one where we announced the Metaplace TOS. Some of the coverage:
The discussion has been quite lively, and many excellent points were raised for possible revisions, many posted right here on the site in the discussion thread. I plan to reconvene with the lawyers and this feedback and present another draft for the Internet to argue over. 🙂
Read More AGDC08: The better EULA panel and MP TOS feedback
AGDC08: Moving From MMO To Web: What’s The Story?
September 22, 2008September 22, 2008 Game talk
5 Comments

Gamasutra has coverage of the other panel I was on at AGDC.

Finally, why did all of these developers leave their jobs at major MMO studios for the world of the web?

Koster’s response seemed to sum up a lot of the inspiration among developers who have come to love the web as a platform.

“It isn’t so much about the size of the market, though that’s important,” he said. “And it’s not even about the six year long [traditional MMO development cycle]. To me, it’s about the greater capacity for personal expression. There’s a great capacity to touch people. it was about empowering everybody. Working on the web now reminds me of working on the internet before the web was around, where it was much more community-driven and participatory and exciting and end users have their say. It feels like you can accomplish everything.”

Read More AGDC08: Moving From MMO To Web: What’s The Story?
ExitReality
September 17, 2008September 17, 2008 Game talk
8 Comments

E xitReality launched in open beta today and there is coverage in a few places. Virtual Worlds News has detailed coverage with lots of interview questions, while CNet has a slightly more critical article.

What does it do? It automatically grabs web content and sticks it into a 3d space. You can shape the 3d space if you want, but it does it by default — no work for the site owner. It also slurps 3d content of all sorts from basically anywhere to let you build with it. I don’t know what the scripting is like, and it (like most all the 3d solutions) is based on a plugin, and one that as of yet is still limited to Windows. But that seems like an obvious thing to want to remedy.

I haven’t tried it out yet, but it does seem like an important transitional step in some ways. It’s still the notion that people want to see websites in 3d, which I think is basically wrong, but it does it in a manner that is much more like the web than past attempts.

It will be interesting to see where this one goes.

Read More ExitReality
AGDC08: Tobold is famous
September 17, 2008 Game talk, Misc
7 Comments

Margaret Wallace just put up a screenshot of his blog as an illustration of the need to go after bloggers in order to persuade users to come to your site. 🙂

Read More AGDC08: Tobold is famous

Meta

Policies

Find Raph Online