Lego goes MMO too

 Posted by (Visited 7442 times)  Game talk
Mar 052007
 

The march of the branded worlds continues, as Lego taps NetDevil, makers of Auto Assault and Jumpgate, to create a virtual world about, well, Legos.

It should be interesting to contrast this to Roblox, which is, well, also an online block building environment.

BTW, I am here at GDC, and my schedule looks like hell. Constant meetings. We shall see how much blogging I manage to do. I did do an interview for f13 today, about the games biz and whatnot — and one for Business 2.0 about my laptop (hey, it’s for their “gear” section). Now I am off to dinner, which is another business meeting. I think I will barely get to go to any sessions. *sigh*

The Sunday Poem: I don’t think I wrote this

 Posted by (Visited 8098 times)  The Sunday Poem
Mar 042007
 

So there’s this poem on my hard drive. I do not recall ever writing it. It sits in a folder with other poems I wrote, but I have a suspicion that I actually read it somewhere, loved it, and typed it in to keep it around. Or it was sent to me by a friend who writes, in a letter or something — quite possible, actually. The memory eludes me. Aspects of it don’t sound to me like my writing, though other aspects do.

I have Googled for it, and never found it online. But there are billions of poems that are not online. So I am posting it, and maybe someone out there knows where the heck it came from. It’s in a folder for 1995. And no matter who wrote it, I think it’s worth a read. So maybe the collective wisdom of the Internet can figure it out.
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The Second Life competitors materialize?

 Posted by (Visited 25214 times)  Game talk
Mar 042007
 

So supposedly everyone is trying to clone Second Life. Here’s word via Mobil Avenue on three different takes on the model, each trying to fix what they see as a key issue: HiPiHi in China, which looks like SL with easier tools; Planet Cazmo, which keeps the house decorating aspect but changes it into a browser-based Animal Crossing lookalike; and finally, reviews trickling out of the closed Kaneva beta, which is putting more MySpace peanut butter in your SL chocolate. Are they really SL clones?

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Fox News on Edwards in SL

 Posted by (Visited 6263 times)  Game talk
Mar 032007
 

It wasn’t all that long ago that we saw the John Edwards campaign location in Second Life vandalized. As if virtual feces on his campaign poster weren’t bad enough for the candidate, now we see Fox News videobloggers showcasing the seamier side of SL such as rape fantasies and ageplay, and asking whether Edwards’ campaign is going to take a stand within SL against this sort of behavior.

The tone of the piece is interesting in terms of how it references SL itself — as a place, really. It seems to at least get the distinction between being judgmental of Second Life, and judgmental of its users.

Amped News on Project Horseshoe

 Posted by (Visited 6054 times)  Game talk
Mar 022007
 

There’s an excellent article entitled “Games as Art: Project Horseshoe 2006” on Amped News. It goes into more depth about not just the “Influences” talk I gave, but about many of the broader issues as well.

Which serves as a good reminder to also point to Dan Cook’s summary of development processes in the games biz, advocating stage gate development. This was a major topic of discussion at Horseshoe 2006.

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