speaking

  • State of Play VI

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 2 Comments

    State of Play VI is coming up June 19th and 20th, and I will be keynoting there and doing lots of Metaplace demoing.

    I’m looking forward to this one — I haven’t made it to a State of Play conference since the first one, and it was incredibly stimulating. A great group of folks is gathering there this year, and the topics are nice and meaty: kids’ worlds, whether virtual worlds have reached a plateau, recent policy developments, and even government worries about terrorism. There’s also a Graduate Student Symposium where students will present their research.

    Here’s the press release:

    Read More “State of Play VI”

  • Idea Exchange talk on Virtual Economies

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 3 Comments

    I’ll be at this Idea Exchange event on Virtual Economies, which is happening cross-world in SL and Metaplace today at noon PDT (which is a bit over an hour from now). You can go straight to the Interval world with this link, and you can just log in with your Facebook or other credentials if you like.

    On April 17th of this year, Alicia Ashby of Virtual Goods News wrote that based upon performance data released by Linden Lab and despite the current downturn in world economies, Second Life’s virtual economy appears to be growing. (The news was also picked up by CNet.)

    In this second in a series of Idea Exchange events hosted by GSD&M Idea City, we will invite Alicia Ashby and several other virtual world industry insiders the likes of Raph Koster of Metaplace, Richard Acton-Maher of Linden Lab, Sibley Verbeck of Electric Sheep Company, Adrienne Haik of Metaversatility, Robert Bloomfield of Metanomics, and others to join us in an open discussion about the role that virtual economies will play within the context of our real-world economic recession.

  • MP/SL event: Emerging Trends in Game Development

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 5 Comments

    I’m going to at this Idea Exchange: Emerging Trends in Game Development virtual event in about an hour.

    The Basics:

    When: Friday, April 10th, 12:00PM PDT
    Where: http://beta.metaplace.com/Interval/ or http://slurl.com/secondlife/Idea%20City/145/129/37
    Topic: Emerging trends in game development.

    Format:

    This event will be an informal group discussion loosely led by Raph Koster, Adri Haik, and myself. We will present some trend that was discussed at GDC, discuss our experience with the trend, how we see it playing out, how it impacts our work, etc, and we will take whatever opportunities we can to engage the audience and encourage group participation in the discussion.

    Possible trends to discuss:
    – Microcontent
    – Social game development
    – Free-to-play MMOs
    – Engagement and retention

    This event will be held simultaneously in Metaplace and Second Life. I will be in both virtual worlds simultaneously, but chatting (via text) through Second Life. Raph will be chatting from Metaplace. Adri will be chatting from Second Life. Attendees will participate from both virtual worlds and will include both people working within the virtual world/gaming industries and consumers interested in emerging trends in game development. You are welcome to invite anyone you like.

  • GDC09: Worlds in Motion Kickoff

    Hours Categories Game talk
    Comments 1 Comment

    My brief kickoff of the Worlds in Motion Summit went well. There’s actually write-ups, which considering I was only on stage for fifteen minutes is slightly surprising. 😉

    Wonderland: http://www.wonderlandblog.com/wonderland/2009/03/takeaways-from-gdc2009-monday-morning-raph-koster.html

    T=Machine: http://t-machine.org/index.php/2009/03/24/gdc09-worlds-in-motion-summit-keynote/

    Massively: http://www.massively.com/2009/03/23/raph-koster-kicks-off-worlds-in-motion-summit-at-gdc-2009/

    Forgive the formatting, but the hotel connectivity is basically non-existent, and I am using my cellphone as a model to post at all!