I'm back from Austin GDC and getting caught up on tons of work, phew!AGDC was pretty awesome. For those of you who don't know, it's a game developers' conference that focuses on the online side of the biz, largely -- attendees were mainly online game designers and people who make tech for online games, people who have monetization platforms, digital distribution services, stuff like that.
I was there covering for Gamasutra, of course, but another reason I was there was to moderate several panels on the Worlds in Motion track. When I was editor of Gamasutra sister site WorldsinMotion.biz, back in February I ran the first Worlds in Motion summit for the main Game Developers Conference. Like the editorial, the summit focused on what a lot of people like to call "virtual worlds," although my main takeaway from AGDC is the idea that the terminology doesn't mean all that much.
Anyway, Austin added a Worlds in Motion track based on the summit we held in February -- I wasn't involved in putting this one together at all, but I did pitch in a bit during the sessions themselves, moderating some of the panels. The way I explain what Worlds in Motion is about is that it focuses on online spaces that are not purely games, per se, but employ some game-like concepts to build on and enhance the way we do business, use the web, use social networking, things like that. The main thrust of it is the exploration of multi-user environments for things that may include play but aren't restricted to play.
I'll be blunt -- there's a lot of goddamn fluff in that space. Lots of people think if you slap together some kind of 3D world that avatars can dance in, suddenly that means a hell of a lot, when the viability of those things is actually very limited. Believe it or not, there are still scads of folk touting the usefulness of Second Life -- without realizing that they've made it so personal that it's impossible for them to be objective about it from a business standpoint.
Their advocacy is understandable -- they've got an avatar living in those kinds of worlds, most likely, and it's become part of their lives. And there's nothing wrong with these kinds of social environments for entertainment, and obviously there are people to whom those kinds of metaversey things continue to be important, but my theory is that a broader adoption of these so-called "virtual worlds" will be much more measured -- using key concepts like avatar-based interaction, alternate business models or user-generated content to enhance existing technologies and ideas rather than creating their own separate industry in and of themselves.
Anyway, I was interviewed by VirginWorlds on the subject as part of their AGDC podcast coverage -- I answered some questions and explained my thoughts on "the space" in a bit more depth (and clarity!) here.
The fact is, we've got a lot of these "key concepts" traditionally associated with virtual worlds, and as I'd hoped, the world of games is beginning to take interest in them as well. One of the frustrations I picked up on, though, from talking to attendees at AGDC, is the fact that we've got a laundry list of thoughts and ideas (UGC! Microtransactions! Social! Embeddable!), but no clear path yet for implementing them in a useful way.
It reminds me a lot of the sudden advent of 3D into the video game space -- suddenly everything was 3D, even games that are more accessible and enjoyable in 2D. It took a bit of time for game design to parse out what situations were a beneficial application of the third dimension, and which types of things were better left alone.
And it's not that we're not trying to develop paths to useful implementation this time around. But I think a large problem in both games and virtual worlds is that we're developing our roadmaps without a clear picture of what the destination is intended to look like or, most importantly of all, how it will benefit users.
And while I talked to many in Austin who were slightly frustrated with having what felt like the same concept-oriented (rather than implementation-oriented) discussions yet again, I also felt the spirit of creativity and optimism to be very high. Granted, some of those optimists are one of a saturated crowd of those who really do believe they're "the first" on the road to trying out some of these ideas -- but as in any kind of community, the cream will rise to the top before long, to be sure!
I also noticed that the line between "virtual worlds" "casual MMOs," "social games" and regular plain old games is even less distinct than it was before, to the point where even having separate words feels a little bit stupid. The really good takeaway for me from AGDC was, as I said, the ways that games have started to hand-pick a lot of the success formulae from this social-virtual-whatever web game space; I was really glad to hear Raph Koster say, in this panel covered by my colleague Christian Nutt and moderated by the freakishly savvy Susan Wu, that game developers could learn a thing or two from web developers nowadays.
Still, I think that the Web community still could afford to acccord more relevance to the traditional games space than it presently does -- though the broad recognition that "social" alone isn't enough seems to be picking up the pace, encouragingly.
So, a purely game-oriented question -- anyone playing WAR? Whether you are or aren't, today's Gamasutra feature by Chris Remo is an interview with Mythic's entertainingly direct GM, Mark Jacobs. You know I'm generally not into MMOs personally, at least not in any kind of sustained way, so I've been using a pal as a guinea pig. He plays WoW -- not especially hardcore, but that's what he plays. He observes that while playing WAR, he's repeatedly aware of the urge to just go back to WoW, and is working on determining exactly why that is.
My hypothesis is that WoW has single-handedly established the visual and behavioral lexicon for online gaming, and playing something else at all becomes akin to beginning to learn a second language. You're glad you're doing it, but it's still much easier for you to speak English.*
WAR has drawn a bit more faith, I guess I'd call it, than other new MMOs in some time as far as its potential to actually give WoW a run for it. Any ideas why? Is it possible?
*Yes, I know that English isn't necessarily the first language for all my readers, but please, don't be difficult with me on a Monday!
