Worlds in Motion Summit - Tuesday
Some brief notes from the Worlds in Motion Summit at the Game Developers Conference two weeks ago in California. Apologies for how late these are, and for the formatting.
LOTRO guy
- was also at there.com
- sense of place focuses creativity
- purpose gives motivation
- communiry = ident & expression
- games. Give structure
- worlds collide with social nets, vws, mmorpgs
- discussed his opinions of some barriers to entry and requirements for mmo games
- be less narrow - contradict sulka
- your mmo place needs a reason to exist
- open up, be mobile
- lotro has middle earth on a google map api interface and tolkienpedia and all of that is wiki
next steps
- fredcavazza.net slide
- nicktropolis isometric 2.5d flash like habbo
- showed a lot if the site, virtual items & shopping
- chat bot built on aiml aitools.org
- restricted chat
- flash flex as 3, java cms, jabber openfire
- electroserver theoworlds
- 3m user rooms, 4.5m users, 50m visits in aug 2007
- xanpo.com design & build
- chat based game wio
- facade landmark lang gaming
- zubek chatbot work
- project horseshoe parser games
MMO economic roundtable, John from Entropia, Craig from Gaia, Eo from EVE Online
- entropia ped backed by $
- can u have mmo w/o econ? U cant eo: have people w/o trade and trade = econ; john: u can try but doesnt work
- why your position on rmt? J: vw w real cash econ was goal always, rt clik any obj 2 view trade hist; eo: whole world is econ but closed so u cant buy in; entrop but selling skills brings players and earns u $; u cant buy skill and knowledge tho; its about starting expectations for the players
- gaia $100k/day auctions
- gaia: usa 1 yr behind korea, china, eur but not cultural just biz cycle
- what about 3rd party rmt platform? John: inevitable; eo, craig agree
- does success eg anshe chung skew expectations? John: not as bad as michael jordan, victors work really hard, still lots of opportunities; eo: stuff has value for people, make value & u make $; craig; creativity more interesting than $ creation
is a cash out game more valuable? Craig; no cash out so dont come to make real $, gaia has economist; eo; humans tend to put $ value but people choose most value and may be not based on $ value; - what about govt regs? John; not a big deal, players should be honest and declare when applicable; eo yes they will come after u for taxes but not in closed econ; craig be smart & legitimize rmt
- what 1 lesson 2 walk away with re virtual econs? Crg: not if, when and move 2 microtrans not subs: jn: agree: eo: no 1 truth will be multiple biz models growing 10-20%/yr & meet player expectations
- gaia has new casual mmo coming
- what do people make per hr in ent? Not much just that there is econ value
is rmt reaction 2 failed game design? Crg Rmt is an enabler to jump barriers: eo demand bring market: diff games need diff econs - audience before monetization
- listen to customers
- stay authentic
