I fly out in a couple of hours for the Austin Game Developers Conference. I will be there until Saturday morning. If you see me, say hi! And if you are trying to email me, be aware that I will probably be slow to respond.
My speaking schedule while there is available here.
Media Machines makes a 3d plugin specifically designed to be embedded in webpages and allow you to share 3d environments with others. One of the key movers behind it is Tony Parisi, who has a long history with VRML technology. Among other things, you can import SketchUp models into their 3d scenes.
They just landed $9.4m in funding, and their website says they’re hiring “virtual world system” folks.
The interesting thing about this, of course, is that here’s something that could be a “universal client” for web-based 3d worlds. Media Machines doesn’t seem to have a horse in the server race. Yet, anyway.
Virtual Worlds News has a great article on the developer of BarbieGirls.com. The company’s name is Studiocom, and they have some interesting things to say about trends in the market. (I shared a panel with Juan Pablo Gnecco, their CEO, at Living Game Worlds at Georgia Tech a year or two ago. They’re the same folks who worked on MyCoke Rewards).
Alas, she won it for writing a novel, not for a game.
This is nice news for the gaming industry because Naomi Novik is a former game designer — she worked on Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide.
So now the question is when a writer will win it for a game, instead of a book (no matter how great the books are).
Today we had an early birthday party for me (the actual date is Friday, but I will be in Austin at the AGDC) and I didn’t get to actually do anything for the Sunday Poem. So I am digging up an old song lyric and posting it.
Number 43
I knew a guy once who wrote a pop song
It was catchy and stupid, about two minutes long
Billboard counted it up to number forty-three
It was as inadequate as mediocre can be
