Convergence: Game vs Lifestyle

Over at TerraNova, Lisa Galarneau posted an interesting article about comments by Thomas Bidaux of NCSoft Europe and his take on what we know about MMOs. I recommend reading both that article and various links from the folks who commented, in particular, the MetaVerse Roadmap.

The whole discussion reminds me of many convergence discussions. Will cellphones become better media players or will media players become between telecom devices? Will cars fly or personal aircraft drive?

Knowing where things are going is as important as understanding who we'll get there. In that regard, I consider the future of VR from two distinct angles.

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Ingame Advertising and Microsoft

Checking up on the daily update ring, I found this article over at Gamasutra interesting for its information on Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. Then I read a shocker at the bottom:

Microsoft bought Massive Entertainment.

Ok, so where the heck have I been since May when this came out?!

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Reverse-projected Games

Ok, so I did have time for one more entry before leaving.

I was perusing this month's issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly and I came across a previously overlooked entry about a new EyeToy game, yet more proof that I seem to have missed half of E3.

This one intrigued me though because I saw what amounts to a working prototype at the Boston Science Museum a few months back.

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Player Politicians

Building off of Character Accountability to seek a more massive solution, I've been wondering about empowered player politicians and policing.

History shows us though that player policing is not a consistently reliable method for the total playerbase to be kept in line. I would extend this into thinking the same about player politicians/governors, given the consistency I've seen in ruling bodies of large guilds and other forms of player organizations.

However, there could be a hybrid solution. As with everything, this has probably been tried before. But old ideas are not bad ideas by default.

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WoW vs Everything Else?

There's been a lot of discussion of late about the success of WoW and its impact on the genre in general. Now, I would have thought that we'd all have collectively long since been tired of talking about how successful this title has been. But I guess it is expected for people who thought they were so right to want to really understand where they were not.

But this isn't about WoW's success nor how wrong so many of us were. It's about what that success means to the genre and how things happen going forward, as an extension to this conversation over at Raph's place.

In my opinion, it doesn't change a thing.

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E3 Day 2- and End

So the daily surprises that are no longer surprises kept me from the show until almost noon. Meetings, emails, teleconferences from what would, in the real world be considered "noisy" but which actually was rather quiet relatively. I've theoretically been at the show for two days and I've gotten to actually walk it for about nine total hours.

But it all ended and I was free once again. While I wanted to hit South Hall again to finish up with games I hadn't learned enough about yet, it was my duty to actually, you know, see the other 2/3 of the show. To Kentia and West I did go.

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E3 Day One

So it's that time of year again. Time to dust off the camera, brush up on your inner geek and get ready for the year's biggest arcade game. Yes folks, the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) is in full swing, and so far it has been pretty interesting.

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Trust, the Future, and VR

Raph has been building a series on Trust. I find the meandering through all things real and virtual, personal and sociological, to be a great springboard for one of the potential themes throughout: the relationship between MMOG developers/publishers and the players.

So, of course, I have my own thoughts. And they sort of meander.

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I have seen the future

And it is not WoW.

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The Price of Innovation

Throughout the history of MMOG-related conversations, three topics emerge most discussed: Innovation and Quality.

Unfortunately, it's been fairly rare to get both in a game.

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