Game talk

This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.

Virtual goods keep growing…

 Posted by (Visited 6885 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , ,
Oct 142009
 

Sort of an addendum to the previous two posts.

Thanks to the astonishing growth of games on social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, the U.S. virtual goods market is poised to clear $1 billion in revenues in 2009, up more than 50 percent from a year earlier, according to a new report.By 2010, revenues could hit $1.6 billion as users become more comfortable paying for virtual goods in small transactions that are executed in a seamless fashion.

via Virtual goods sales to hit $1 billion in 2009 as social games pay off big | VentureBeat.

Meanwhile, CNet reports that China’s online game market grew almost 40% in Q2 of 2009, reaching over $900m. The bulk of the revenues go to three companies: Tencent, Shanda, and NetEase, which together have over 50% of the market.

China says no to foreign investment in VWs, MMOs

 Posted by (Visited 6333 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Oct 142009
 

These days, it’s more likely that the money flows in the other direction, but it’s interesting to see nonetheless:

Over the weekend the government run General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) and National Copyright Administration issued regulations designed to limit the influence foreign companies have in that region. US companies that wish to operate in China will need to license their content rather then enter into a joint venture.

Virtual Worlds News: China Bans Foreign Investment In Online Games, Virtual Worlds.

The Guardian on virtual currency

 Posted by (Visited 5489 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: ,
Oct 142009
 

Over time, many technologies pioneered or elaborated in games and virtual worlds have become core parts of the web. Reputation systems. User profiles that track achievements and cumulative past experience. Avatars themselves, now degraded in common parlance all the way down to profile pictures. And now the idea of virtual coins is hot again, after some failed attempts in the 90s boom to make virtual currenct standards for e-commerce. The Guardian has a nice article on it:

Startups such as Jambool and Spare Change have launched virtual currencies that are interoperable across a range of games, applications and social networks, but Twofish’s Rutherford believes only a company of Facebook’s size can deliver the “brand promise” that would give a universal currency widespread appeal. Hale thinks that eventually there will be “a few dominant virtual currencies that by dint of their size become exchange currencies, just as the US dollar is to the global economy today”.

— Are online currencies finally striking gold? | Technology | The Guardian

Are we actually on track for something like this? Well, it’s not crazy. I think a bigger question is whether governments will allow or discourage it from happening — China already cracked down on QQ coins, as I recall.

Matt Sturges live chat today at 2pm

 Posted by (Visited 5641 times)  Gamemaking, Reading  Tagged with: ,
Oct 132009
 

I don’t know if I have raved about Matt Sturges’ work in comics here before. House of Mystery (available in two collections to date: Room and Boredom and Love Stories For Dead People) has vaulted onto the list of my favorite ongoing series. He’s also involved with the Eisner-award-winning Fables universe, particularly through Jack of Fables.

But I am a bit biased — I knew Matt back in the days when I lived in Austin, when were both caught up in the variously overlapping writers’ circles around Turkey City (the writer’s workshop best known in SF/F circles for its widely-used lexicon). Matt was a member of the Clockwork Storybook collective, from which several writers of note have emerged.

I’m super happy to have Matt cornered on the Metaplace stage today at 2pm Pacific, to get grilled about comics, writing, and whatever else attendees want to hear about!

Edit: the event is over, but the chat log is available here.

Mike Laidlaw on single-player games

 Posted by (Visited 11299 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , ,
Oct 092009
 

PCWorld ran an article in three parts on Dragon Age, Bioware’s upcoming RPG, and part three leads by posing the question

Is Bioware’s Dragon Age the last of its kind? A solo-player game absent an integrated online component? Or is it actually the next step in what Spore designer Will Wright calls the “massively single player” experience?

Mike Laidlaw, the lead designer on the game (justly well-known for his writing chops) offers up some interesting and nuanced thoughts.  He leads with the observation (boldface mine) that

I think the glory of stories–and I think this is something computers are only now starting to be able to participate in–is that stories are shared experiences. It’s the shaman telling the tale of whatever around the campfire, the boy scouts with the flashlight under their faces. All these things are primal ways that we as a people communicate, share experiences, and quite often, share wisdom and growth. Before written communication, before the printing press, and before computers certainly. Lore and legends were often wrapped up as fables and parables, for the purposes of sharing experiences.

So to my mind, the most valid story is one that can be experienced but also shared…

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