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Jan 04, 2004

Comments

1.

For me the best moment was walking into State of Play and seeing all these smart people whom I knew only by name energetically gabbing with one another about virtual worlds.

Low point(s): I kept running into smart people who don't get it. I.e., rejection letters from senior editors at economics journals..."Dear Professor Castronova, [snip] We are much more interested in phenomena that are 'real' rather than 'virtual'..." Bah, I say. Bah. Just wait til next year! Or if not then, next decade anyway. Couple weeks ago I was at UCI's day-long confab about grid tech for MMOGs, and at the very end, I got into a conversation with a very nice fellow, who, after a few minutes, said - "wait a minute. You mean people spend ten or twenty hours a week in these places??? No way!" This as the confab was OVER, i.e., after 8 hours of exposure to the technology. It's what the technology means - that's the hard part for people to understand. The French generals of the 1930s saw roads and cars, they even saw tanks. But did they see the Bliztkrieg? Nooooo.

And, in the case of avatar communication technology, there's a big blitzkrieg coming, I can feel it. Indeed, to close on another high point of 2003: Reading in Wired that there's now a technology by which 3D characters can, in essence, evolve their own neural nets. Yes, it's AI with a rudimentary brain, first deployed in the third LOTR movie to help blasted simulated orcs crumple and die in a believable way. Coming to a FPS near you within a few years, and MMORPGS pretty soon after that. It's the world of 2029, coming closer each and every day.

2.

The highlights of last year as I can think of them.

The good:

Turbine buys back independence from Microsoft. I thought this was pretty amazing, really. It's made my imagination run wild with speculation; how could Turbine get enough money to make buying AC from Microsoft a good business proposal?

MUD-Dev Conference '03. Yeah, I have a soft spot because I helped organize and I spoke, but I thought it was a pretty good conference. Showed that a conference focused on online games can work.

Austin Game Conference '03. Same as above, but I didn't help organize. Was another example showing how a conference focusing on online games can work.

TerraNova blog starts. I bitch, I whine, I flame, yet I still post. Great idea, glad to read and post.

And, on a personal front: Meridian 59 survives into its second year after being relaunched! We began internal testing for our new graphical client in December, so things are looking good as we head into year 3.

The bad:

MCO shut down. This is the first big-name game to be shuttered of the modern online games. Should have been a wakeup call to everyone that these games aren't simply licenses to print money.

TSO wasn't a million-seller. This isn't necessarily that bad, I guess. ;) Definitely shows that single-player game development and online game development is radically different.

Lukewarm reception to various new games. A politically nice way of saying, "Boy there was a lot of terrible launches this year." Extra dose of humility for lots of developers in the stockings this year, I figure.

The notable things I can think of on the spot. Let's hear more!

3.

Pssst, didn't Horizons break the 100K mark? The latest and last game to come out this year?

4.

Dan > Well, to contradict myself and emboldened by the fascinating thoughts of the hivemind on 2004, perhaps it's worthwhile asking people about 2003.

Its never too late to look backwards.

Ren
www.renreynolds.com

5.

High \ Lowlights

• The Great Half Life 2 code theft

• A Tail in the Desert – just generally. See things can be different !

• Star Wars Galaxies - though the whole Jedi thing needs to start to settle down

• State of Play conference – Especially Hi - the Raph \ Richard \ Julian double act, I mean triple act, Low – mm there were quite a number of very low points.

• People waking up to the fact of Lineage

And of course…

terranova

ren
www.renreynolds.com

6.

I would also add the Mythic v. Black Snow case although it didn't really do anything.

7.

Posted by: Lee Delarm at January 4, 2004 07:18 PM
Pssst, didn't Horizons break the 100K mark? The latest and last game to come out this year?
---

My sources indicate it is running at about 35K subs right now. I haven't cinfirmed that with any of the Wolfpack principals, though.


8.

Posted by: Brian 'Psychochild' Green at January 4, 2004 06:38 PM
Turbine buys back independence from Microsoft. I thought this was pretty amazing, really. It's made my imagination run wild with speculation; how could Turbine get enough money to make buying AC from Microsoft a good business proposal?
----

Well. we also announced an $18 million financing deal with two funds, Highland and Polaris, in the same week.

9.

The Good:

1) SecondLife doing something totally different
2) SecondLife continuing to break the mold with their license agreement and their access fees
3) Ultima Online's custom housing tool
4) Toontown Online
5) Eve Online
6) Lots of noise / lots of shelf space in stores

The Bad:

1) SWG Launch with 10%-20% of the content I would expect
2) Shadowbane production server wipes
3) TSO being a red district
4) Market has not expanded explosively as foretold with the coming of SWG

The hopes:

There's still plenty of room and ways to attract larger segments of couch potatoes like me -er, customers...
This is an orchestra, and we all play our own instruments; lets get some heads together and figure out what song we're going to play or nobody is going to listen to our cacophony.

10.

Jessica> Well. we also announced an $18 million financing deal with two funds, Highland and Polaris, in the same week.

I'd say that this deal, even more than Mythic's deal, was a major event of 2003. Always nice to see VC's switching from "Is online gaming a sector?" to "Holy *@&#!! Online gaming is a sector and we need to get in now!!"

OK, it hasn't quite reached the second mode yet, but it is nice to see the VC's moving again.

Cory

11.

Cory > Always nice to see VC's switching from "Is online gaming a sector?" to "Holy *@&#!! Online gaming is a sector and we need to get in now!!"

I dont mean to be a downer, but vc's investing in the sector now really surprises me. But i assume that Jess's investment is for support \ consulting services (i.e. someone else taking the major capital risk) not MMO creation itself and i can see a decent market for experienced help comming up real soon

ren
www.renreynolds.com

12.

Ren> I dont mean to be a downer, but vc's investing in the sector now really surprises me.

Actually, VC investment in a pure game company _always_ surprises me, given the gap between usual VC investment timelines/goals and game development realities.

13.

Alan Stern>I would also add the Mythic v. Black Snow case although it didn't really do anything.

And although it was over and done with by mid-2002? :)

14.

Hehe, my mistake!

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