My current game, Lord of the Rings Online, is going Free to Play. So is EverQuest II. Meanwhile, the casual game sector has sprouted some virtual-worldy features. The intense grindfest games shrink in significance; huge MMOGs have 90% solo content; asynchronous-distant play is the norm; don't grind, rather, buy virtual goods for real money so you can move forward at your desired pace.
In 2006 we learned from Ducheneaut, Yee, Nickell, and Moore that surprisingly few people play WoW socially. This paper, it turns out, was the first to identify online gaming's future.
One gets the impression that today, a large number of players dip into environments, sample their experiences, then move on. No subscriptions, no raids, no guilds, no groups even. No Ventrilo; only the occasional banter in general chat. No need to specialize the character or the gear. The columns of Richard Aihoshi at MMORPG.com give interesting insights into this mode of play and the business models that benefit from it.
What should we call a platform that caters to alone-togetherness? How about a Massively Single Player Online Game, or MSPOG. You can find a post on the word at FredCavazza.net. It might be a fascinating post, too; I just don't speak French well enough to know.
Inspired by this year's conference in WoW and an appreciation for Second Life discussion groups, some researchers decided to start a weekly seminar meeting in Second Life. So far four meetings have been held, with the fifth and sixth planned. The organizers would like to invite Terra Nova readers to attend the seminars and if they like, present their work.
The format is an informal one-hour meeting, once a week, for VW researchers to discuss problems, methods and results. While the meeting takes place in Second Life, any VW-related topic is suitable. Each week a presenter speaks about their work for part of the hour, then opens the floor to audience discussion. The presenter chooses how long they want to speak for, and the day, time and place of the talk (though lately we seem to have settled on Tuesdays at 2pm SL time). In order to be friendly to all time-zones it is envisaged that this will change week by week. Usually the presenter uses SL voice, and the audience uses text-chat for discussion and questions. As is normal in SL, individual attendees choose whether they want to reveal their RL identity.
Most of the organizing is done via the "SLRL" email list, and seminar details are available at http://vwresearchersgroup.pbwiki.com . Previous topics and speakers are listed there. If you'd like more information or are interested in presenting, please email Greg at greg.wadley@unimelb.edu.au .
So it's nearly 2007, and this is the point where lazy editors tell their lazy pundits to knock out a couple of hundred words structured around the topic: "Top Ten Moments in X for 2006", where X stands for whatever the hell the magazine/blog/thinget is allegedly about.
It turns out that I'm even lazier than those lazy editors and lazy pundits so instead I figure that you can tell me: What are the Top Ten Moments in Virtual Worlds or MMOGs for 2006? Your response only needs to be a couple of hundred words and of course Terra Nova will pay your usual freelance rate on a per word basis.
And as I sit here on the deck of the "Extraneous Load", the newly commissioned TN yacht, sipping an extremely good vodka gimlet and watching distressingly attractive women swim by, can I wish you all our best wishes for the Season. My only recommendation for this time of year is not to get into a Texas Hold'em game with Constance Steinkuehler...but that is a story for another day.
Vili Lehdonvirta over at VERN has posted the links to the documents in l'affaire Blacksnow Interactive. Essential reading.
It was widely reported in the past few days that there was a security breach in Second Life's user database. That opened up a discussion in the Terra Nova backchannel about whether this was worth reporting here. It seems to me that security breaches are old news and germaine to a security blog; there's nothing inherently virtual worldy about them. On the other hand, I received emails from people claiming that we are SL fanbois for not posting about it. So, OK, we can post about it. Your thoughts?
While we're in an editorial moment, the impression is growing on me that Second Life is Web 2.0 more than anything else. So the question arises, is 3D internet something that Terra Nova should cover?
Straight from their mouths: "MASSIVE Magazine Will Be Devoted Exclusively to Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Computer Games Magazine, published by the media division of theglobe.com, today announced it will publish MASSIVE Magazine, the first print publication dedicated solely to massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. It will provide avid online gamers a new source for the latest news, features, and previews. The premiere issue will hit newsstands for a three-month run on September 19, 2006, and will start as a stand-alone quarterly publication by January 2007. It will also include a free DVD packed with MMO demos and games.
...MASSIVE Magazine will include in-depth features on the culture of MMOs, focusing on players, guilds, communities, and their adventures both inside and outside the games. The editorial staff of Computer Games Magazine will produce the content keeping the same style and credibility expected among its fiercely loyal readership. MASSIVE Magazine will be written with a lighthearted and breezy editorial tone that will resonate with anyone interested in MMOs and their place in the world of gaming.
“Since MASSIVE Magazine will be the first publication dedicated solely to MMO games, we know it will be very well-received by the MMO gaming community,” said Dubin. “We are confident this magazine will be a huge success.”
First?
Let’s imagine that the rumour is true and media-megalopolis News Corp actually does buy NCsoft. Would that be the mainline to mainstream?
It certainly might add spice to the current court rumble. News Corp and Marvel have worked together on projects, I’m sure they have worked with DC too. Though if they felt like fighting on, would they really like to be sat opposite News Corp’s legal team?
But that’s just a momentary thing. I’m interesting in the idea of a major organisation getting into the MMO game and actually cross promoting it.
Disney seem to be doing potentially interesting cross media things with Virtual Magic Kingdom (when some of us TNers are not base jumping in WoW we’ve been shoe shopping in the happily-clapperly-VMK), but how much effort do they really put into promoting online stuff, or Sony for that matter – not a lot.
What if they the latest goings on in Lineage / City of Heros were being mentioned, in a positive way, on Fox and Friends, Sky News etc – that would be interesting.
Steve Salyer, IGE's CEO, takes some tough questions about the secondary market from okratas.
Susan Crawford's blog has a link to the FCC's Proposed Rulemaking[edit to fix href] on "IP-enabled services." Susan points out that this covers email and it obviously covers all sorts of games as well. The thrust of the rulemaking effort is VoIP but the proposal is much broader in scope, including such gems as Section 16:
". . . it may become increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish “voice” service from “data” service . . . ."
Wouldn't it be great if all online games and email had to support E911 service? Section 53:
"Against this backdrop, we seek comment in this proceeding on the potential applicability of 911, E911, and related critical infrastructure regulation to VoIP and other IP-enabled services."
Wait, it gets better. Section 54:
"We also seek comment on whether VoIP and other IP-enabled services are technologically and operationally capable of delivering call-back and location information"
I've previously posted about the improved rulemaking process. Perhaps this is an opportunity to put theory into practice.
The Wall Street Journal (no link, subscription required) reported on March 22 (p. R4) that avatar and virtual item markets are springing up in Asia, but not in the usual places. Games are mentioned in the report, sure. But it seems that avatars are viewed more as personalized ID cards for instant messaging and chat room services than as gaming vehicles. The article mentions There.com not as a spinoff from games, but from SMS: a chat room with pictures.
But whatever the deployment, the interesting thing about the avatars is the secondary market they create for virtual items. If you're going to show a face and body in an IM system, why not give yourself a killer style too? And style, as we all know, costs money.
Excerpts follow. Thanks to my brother, Tom, for the note.
Some excerpts from the article, short enough to keep the IP lawyers at bay... BACK! BACK, I SAY! [hopelessly waving a string of garlic cloves]...
"Microsoft's MSN Korea subsidiary, which sells avatars and accessories to more than a million Korean users of the MSN Messenger instant-messaging service, plans to expand its avatar service to Taiwan this year. Yahoo Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., started offering services in Taiwan last year. Also last year, Neowiz started offering avatar services in Japan.
But efforts to expand the avatar market aren't limited to East Asia. Quarterview Inc., a South Korean Internet-service provider, started an avatar service in India last year. And There Inc., based in Menlo Park, Calif., began an avatar service in the U.S. last year, betting that the attractions of creating a visual online personality will sell even in a society where individual expression offline is less of an issue. It's too early to tell whether this or any of the other bets placed on the avatar market outside of South Korea will pay off.
...
As another way to lure customers, MSN Korea got Ms. Park, the electronics-company worker, started with a free avatar for her instant messages: a cartoon of a ponytailed female in a white T-shirt and blue jeans. She quickly got bored with that. "I wanted to look prettier, I wanted a change," she says. Soon, her digital self was clothed in a princess-like fluffy dress, holding a thin, colorful umbrella to match her classic feminine
look. A regular buyer of avatar accessories was born."
[edit: formatting]
Like Columbus, we stumble upon a new world already filled with happy inhabitants, who - like the residents of the Western Hemisphere in 1452 - don't find the place new at all. Well, MU-Online is new to us (me anyway), but rather ho-hum to the more than 300,000 Chinese and Koreans who visit the place regularly. Thanks to correspondent Unggi Yoon for mentioning this world in a comment.
Indeed, anyone interested in the property rights debate should read his post, under "Who Owns My Lightsaber?" as it refers to recent court cases that have already gone to the highest levels in Korea and China. Bottom line: EULAs are not robust.