Tide’s Horizon and Lum are both talking about this, but I am frankly a little loath to. I don’t want to come across as criticizing, since that’s not really my intent. But lately there’s been a spate of discussion about what community relations is, whether forums should be run, etc.

As you may know, I have fairly firm opinions on this. But that’s not what I want to talk about just now… and really, what I am saying has little connection to the actual original thread that kickstarted the topic yet again. Edit: since the preceding sentence was apparently not clear enough: this post isn’t about SWG or Chris Cao’s statements. It could just as equally apply to Linden Labs switching to a blog mechanism for communicating to their users, or really any company that sees forums as an adjunct to to the world. Please don’t hijack the discussion to debate a given game’s management.

Read More “Players who post, posters who play”

On the plane, I noticed that the center spot on the Marketplace section of the WSJ features an article about Runescape, a title which still seems to inexplicably fly below the radar of the mainstream MMO industry. I didn’t read the article (my seatmate would have objected to my taking the paper from his hands, no doubt!) but I did see that it included speculation as to whether Jagex, the makers of the game, would be the next to be acquired by a major media company, as MySpace was. Alas, the article is hidden behind a for-pay gate, but if you’re a WSJ.com member, I suppose you can get to it.

Read More “Runescape in the Wall Street Journal”

Massive Magazine is apparently out, though I have yet to actually see a copy. I have an article in it, and I don’t remember what I wrote (since I wrote it months ago!).

I’ve mentioned before that weekly uniques is my preferred metric for measuring virtual world populations. You need to have an SL account to see the stats, but the announcement is here.

Drum roll, here they are:

Read More “Second Life posts weekly uniques”