Too Much love

I don't use my main ourWorld character, Wylde, very often any longer. This is why:

Can I just Reply All?

Each of those '!' is somebody who wants to chat with me. I just can't keep up! Don't worry, I still play ourWorld all the time, I just use less well known characters.

-Adam!!!

Geat Idea, or Greatest Idea?

Plans under way for memorial to gaming icon in Lake Geneva

There are about as many opinions about Gary Gygax as there are numbers in the average bag of D&D dice, but there is little doubt that his influence upon hobby gaming was massive. It can be argued that in regards to gaming, he was the single most influential person, ever. If you narrow that statement down to 'hobby gaming', I don't even think there's an argument.

I'd love to see that statue. Of course, there's some concern that it'd come alive to defend treasure hidden somewhere nearby. We'll deal with that issue when the time comes.

-Adam!!!

The Amazing VooDoo Economics of Farmtown

My obsession of the month has been Facebook's Farmtown. I am particularly impressed with the way the Farmtown designers have bent economics to match the goals of the game, leaving real-world economics behind.

It's Pumpkin Season!

Like most virtual world-type games, the value of Farmtown money isn't based on supply and demand. The supply of both money and goods is, of course, limitless, so the prices are arbitrary. The demand has no impact on price, so the goal is to maximize demand (i.e. players) as much as possible by increasing the size of the player-base. Attracting more players is the baseline goal of all games, and Farmtown uses all of the Facebook viral tricks to achieve that goal. In addition, they use a novel approach to employment economics, which, while simple, is new to me.

If you are a Farmtown farmer, these are your costs to grow crops:

• Plow
  
• Buy seeds
  

Once the seeds are grown, you harvest and get paid:

• Harvest and sell immediately OR
  
• Harvest and store, selling at the Market for +10% price*

Here's paradigm shift. The Market is full of people who want to work for you, and getting that bonus 10% is how you find those players in the first place. Players who work for you get paid BUT:

Unlike in the real world, instead of the farmer giving the workers a cut of the farms income, the farmer gets paid MORE when using a worker and the worker gets paid by the game, NOT by the farmer. That means the farmer's choices are:

• Harvest and sell immediately for the least money OR
  
• Harvest and store, selling at the Market for +10% price OR
  
• Hire somebody else to harvest, selling at the Market for +20% price, plus the worker gets 20% value of the harvest. Note: Harvesting becomes a bit of a chore, so you're saving time and effort as well as making more $
  

Hiring somebody to Plow your fields also is 25% to 50% cheaper than doing it yourself in addition to the worker getting paid. Again, it's a chore you get to avoid while saving money and the worker is thanking you for the 'free' money.

The game simply doles out more money for the cooperative behavior they choose to encourage. Unlike the real world, there's an infinite supply of cash, so this works with no side effects. I've always thought of virtual economies as trying to replicate supply and demand of scarcity based real-world economies, but Farm Town has proved that there are other options, depending on the goals of your game.

* note: I'm totally estimating the % benefits, but the gist remains valid.

-Adam!!!

It would be amazing...

If I could blog from my iPhone.

Yes!

The End of Online

Most online games are played on a computer or video game system. The rise of these systems as a source of entertainment has supplanted TV, toys, sports, and traditional play as the primary source of entertainment for a lot of kids. The conventional wisdom, from the President on down, is that kids need to get off the couch and go play outside. I don't have a problem with that, at all.

My prediction: As being online gets cheaper and easier, smart toys will start appearing that making playing outside as cool or cooler than sitting on the couch. Off the top of my head:

• Bats, balls, gloves, and sporting goods we haven't thought of that automatically record your stats and measure your records against your friends, and the world at large.
• Action figures that allow kids to take part in grand adventures, shared by other kids all over the world.
• Geo-cache style park games, played by individuals, small groups, or as part of a larger world-wide campaign.

These ideas are mostly 'old-toys-only-better', which means I'm certainly off the mark. The idea that people need to be sitting on the couch to get play benefits from the online world is just old fashioned thinking. Once smart toys are priced competitively with dumb ones, a new brand of old fashioned play will return in a big way.

Who wants to sit in from of that stupid screen all day, anyway? It doesn't *do* anything!

-Adam!!!

NeoPets Scam

Just read this and it looks legit:

"If you have children that play on the popular virtual world game Neopets, you might want to warn them of a social engineering scam gleefully targeting 12-year-old kids. Neopets users looking for rare items are sent private messages from the scammers, who direct them to sites hosting keyloggers & trojans. They then use the infected PC as a means to get to data the parents might have stored there, be it credit card details, Paypal accounts or online banking. Seeing the screenshots of some of these people talking about putting these children into botnets is just unbelievable — if ever you wanted proof that people up to no good online will go to any lengths to get their hands on some money (or even just feel good about outsmarting a 12-year-old), here it is."

There is no question that ourWorld players would fall for this sort of scam. I don't think I need to panic and change anything, as our filters and policies already do what's possible to prevent this sort of thing. I guess I just needed one more thing to worry about.

-Adam!!!

Member's Only

That's some cooooool water.

We added our first public Member's Only area to ourWorld yesterday. The players have been asking for a swimming pool since pretty much always, and we finally released a swimming area called the Beach.

Only Resident Subscribers can go there*.

As expected, there is a vocal chorus of "not fair!" from the free-play community. While I understand their reaction, it's hard to muster a great deal of sympathy from my personal perspective. Most of ourWorld is free, but new features more and more are for paying players. You know, the people who keep the site running with their dollars.

It's unfortunate how weak the free-player's position is, really. When they threaten to leave the site and never come back, the net loss to the site is usually close to zero. I wish it was a bigger deal. I wish the free-players could contribute more to the site so they could be given more in exchange.

If wishes were subscriptions, we'd all swim.

-Adam!!!

* Free players can go to the Beach if Grouped with a Resident subscriber, so it's not totally off-limits.

A World Record For OFF TOPIC!!!

Drum roll...

Here 'goes...




-Adam!!!

Now they've got it...

Penny Arcade has hit the virtual nail upon the virtual head, again.

It's Really Quite Simple

OurWorld's payment options.

Credit Card
5.99 for 1 month subscription, automatic billing (150 Gems/month)
49.99 for 1 year subscriptions (150 Gems/month)
5.99 for 100 Gems
20.00 for 600 Gems

Mobile Phone
7.99 for 110 Gems (mobile phone)

Pay by Mail
10.00 for 1 month subscription (300 Gems)
49.99 for 1 year subscriptions (150 Gems/month)
5.99 for 100 Gems
20.00 for 600 Gems

PayPal
49.99 for 1 year subscriptions (150 Gems/month)
5.99 for 100 Gems
20.00 for 600 Gems

What could be simpler?

-Adam!!!

ourWorld - Lookin' Good!

Welcome to the crowd!

No stormy skies in ‘ourWorld’ as virtual world maker raises cash
by John Cook

“OurWorld” has already attracted a whopping 1.3 million registered users. Many of those have signed up in the past two months following a crucial marketing partnership with the online gaming portal, Miniclip.

That’s the same distributor that helped Club Penguin, the wildly popular virtual world for kids that was sold to Disney for up to $700 million in 2007. Morton says that Miniclip has on the order of 57 million unique visitors each month, a tremendous base of traffic from which to draw.

In the next two months, Morton estimates that registered users for “ourWorld” will surpass two million. Much of that growth is being driven by Miniclip deal, which features an embedded version of “ourWorld” on its Web site.

Yep, that's about it.

-Adam!!!

Lions and Tigers and SPIDERS! Oh My!

WOW!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Stan!

What Does It Mean To Be An Industry Leader?

by Stan!

When WotC bought TSR in 1997, one of the first things Peter Adkison impressed upon us all was that he believed Wizards could be BOTH a supremely successful company AND a leader in the hobby games industry. That WotC could make a strong and growing profit and AT THE SAME TIME help grow the other companies and teach them how to make more money for themselves. He saw WotC as an evangelist for gaming as a hobby and leisure-time entertainment ... and was HAPPY when our actions helped other companies to grow stronger. He was close friends with the CEOs (not to mentions designers, artists, editors, and general staff) of MANY other hobby game companies and was HAPPY to help them both professionally and personally. Peter was, and remains, and Industry Leader ... and, as a result, under his management, WotC was a leader, too.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

-Adam!!!

Majority Report

We added a "Report" button to ourWorld this week. Players may now report naughty-doers directly to me and I can evaluate the report and take whatever action I deem appropriate. Usually I do nothing, sometimes I add an extra filter to the person's chat (and send an Email explaining this), and a few require full account deactivation. Of course, there's a catch.

Prior to the Report buttong we got 5-10 'reports' via Email per week.

Since yesterday I have received about 3000 reports with the new button. 90% are useless. Most are too petty to bother with. If we muted everyone in ourWorld who was marginally rude, we'd not have any members at all! Many are completely incoherent. There's room for improvement in the system. The funniest are personal attacks meant for the target of the report, sent to me by mistake. One such report was so profane that I had to take action against the reporter. It included in it the threat of being reported. Oops.

That's not to say it's not working. I've found and taken action again several players who were clearly violating the Code of Conduct. Really bad actors, trust me. The Report button provides info the players don't see which allows me to take action without taking anyone's word for it.

The system just needs refinement. We launched the Report button with too little friction (it's too easy to do) and with too little explanation about what it is and isn't for. No biggie. We'll refine it into an even more useful tool, and then I'll really be the man with the ban...hammer.

-Adam!!!

The Registration Email from Legends of Zork.

Good stuff. Enjoy.

Hail Adventurer!

Are you ready to embark on a life of excitement, fame, wealth, and coconuts?
Yes, we thought you might be. Obviously, the fact that you’ve just registered with us was a bit of a give away...

Speaking of registration, here are the details you’ve registered with us:

Username: XXXXXXXX
Password: XXXXXXXX

Unless of course you haven’t registered with us? Perhaps some vagrant on the internet is running around creating Legends of Zork accounts for random people? Maybe he’s also giving out free candy and puppies, because frankly, if you haven’t just registered with us, that guy has done you a HUGE favour!

Nevertheless, congratulations on registering (or being registered) with one of the fast growing casual adventure games on the internet! This is without a doubt the smartest thing that you’ve done since you bought all that washing detergent at bargain prices, and it will be almost as rewarding. Don’t get me wrong, at Jolt Online Games we know that the work we do is top quality, but no one can argue against the joys of having your shirts whiter than white.

Happy Adventuring,

-The LoZ Team

Your Greatest Adventure Lies Ahead...and Down. Zork.

Legends of Zork

Don't know if it's any good yet, but I'll be checking it out big time in the next couple of days.

I am fully prepared to be eaten by a grue.

-Adam!!!

All the cool kids are on Facebook

And now ourWorld is too. http://apps.facebook.com/danceplanet/

Dance Planet is the gateway into ourWorld.

-Adam!!!

(C)ontent

My favorite new Facebook app is Living Social. I've decided to jump in to the book section with both feet. When you switch a book from 'reading now' to 'read' the app immediately asks you to review the book, which I did.

Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future (Facebook link)

Adam Conus, about 2 hours ago

A compilation of Cory Doctorow penned essays focusing on Copyright, DRM, and technology. Some of the older works (from 2+ years ago) are showing their age. For example, he takes shots at the failures of Amazon's Kindle (1st version) which, at least in part, ring hollow with Kindle 2's release.

A lighter, and slightly more reactionary view of copyright than what is found in Lawrence Lessig's Remix and James Boyle's The Public Domain, it's still full of style and insight. Of the three, I recommend Remix the most strongly, though all three books shed different light on the same subject.

If you find application of copyright in the digital world interesting, like me, or enjoy Doctorow's writing on sites like Boing Boing, also like me, you'll probably get a lot out of Content.

Copyright Copyright Copyright - A 30 year thought experiment

Penny for your thoughts? Or are they copyrighted?

I've just read Remix by Laurence Lessig, The Public Domain by James Boyle, and I'm halfway through Content by Cory Doctorow. I'm swimming in progressive copyright theory right now, and it got me thinking.

What would the US be like if copyright lasted a flat 30 years?

In the public domain:
All the music, movies and TV of the 70's and earlier
Movies like Star Wars and 2001.
All earliest video games
Most of the 'classic' games. Monopoly, Dungeons and Dragons (early editions), Scrabble, Risk, etc.

Peer to peer file sharing would transform from a semi-criminal operation to a completely above board and essential part of everyday life. All of the old material would be available, for free, on the internet, all legal. In addition, an entire industry of compilations, reissues, remixes, and reimaginings would be possible. All free from licencing fees, permissions, and red tape. The majority of 20th century copyrighted works is NOT available in any form, nor are the copyright holders even known in many (most?) cases. Those works go from their current state of almost complete unavailability, to becoming completely accessible, with no effort at all.

The people most negatively impacted by a radical curtailing of copyright would be:

• Large media corporations.
• Artists who make money from work they did years and years ago.
• Lawyers who make their living defending the previous two's "rights".

The purpose of copyright is to provide for the public good by ensuring that content creators can benefit from the fruits of their labors. The original methodology was to give creators an artificial monopoly over their creation that lasts long enough for them to get paid, but no longer. The sooner the content was in the public domain, the sooner the public as a whole could benefit from the work. That second part got lost in the shuffle and copyright has grown from the original, lasting 28 years from the creation of the work, to the current, lasting 75 years past the death of the creator.

Would George Lucas have created Star Wars if he had known he could only control it for 30 years? Would Gary Gygax have made Dungeons and Dragons? Would Dylan have written all that great music? I can't get into other people's heads, but I think most of the great works of the 20th century would still have been created, even with a far shorter shelf-life on the artificial monopoly we call copyright.

Would Lucas still have produced the new Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies if the source material was in, or soon to be in, the public domain? If not, somebody else could have. Is that a bad thing? Lucas is still the only person who can make 'official' movies, but what if they are forced to compete with everyone creating Star Wars content? That competition might have made a difference, quality-wise. Change the equation from 'who can make Star Wars' to 'who can make the best Star Wars'. Now apply that formula to everything (or at least everything 30 years or older.)

Make no mistake. Copyright is not a God given right given to content producers. It is not a reward to content producers. It is a legally created 'temporary' monopoly designed to encourage creative works.

What if anyone could create:

• A Star Wars, Star Trek novel, comic, or movie.
  
• A remix of Led Zepplin, Beatles, Bowie, Dylan, Hendrix song.
• A video game starring Mario
• Anything you can think of, from material created before 1980.
  

I believe there'd be a tidal wave of content using newly public domain works. Most would be terrible, but some would be amazing. Some would be of far greater quality than then current owners of the properties are willing or able to produce from within their monopoly protected walls.

What could you create?

-Adam!!!

Making Fun Obsolete

You are old and slow, Pac Man

I've just read a glowing review of Street Fighter IV (SFIV), recently released on (I think) XBox360 and Playstation3. It struck me that a 2d fighting game can get a 9+ out of 10 rating in a landscape dominated by 3d games. I'm sure at least some of the execs and designers behind SFIV would have preferred they abandon their 2d roots and make a 3d fighting game like all the other top fighters in the 21st century. That would've, of course, been a horrible mistake. The Street Fighter franchise now stands alone as the last great 2d fighting franchise, and a seemingly profitable one at that. Well done, Capcom.

Will there be a Street Fighter V? Will it be 2d as well? My guess is yes and yes. It may be that Street Fighter carries the torch of A-List 2d Fighters to the end of the genre's line. My money's on it, actually. Will anyone try to duplicate their success? Probably, but now that Street Figher is *the* 2d fighter, I doubt the public has any need for another. I also doubt there is the will among developers to try and create a "Street Fighter" killer-type game, designed to knock it off it's 2d fighter throne. There's just easier targets to hit.

Is the 2d fighter, in the form of the Street Fighter franchise, the oldest viable gaming genre? Older game archtypes like the maze game (PacMan), shooters (194x, Galaga, Tempest), seem to have run their course. All that can be done within the framework of those games has been done, it seems. Unlike 2d fighters, driving games, and platform games, some old games didn't have a way to grow as computers became more powerful. I think 3d games, both exploration and shooters replace those older game-types rather than enhance them. The old games were fun, but new games are more fun. The "new and improved" treatment either failed (most new Sonic games), or transformed the game so completely that it no longer resembles the original (Metroid).

If you love the old games, as I do, they are still there. That's all that really matters.

-Adam!!!

Twist and Shout!

Seth Godin once again transforms the obvious into the practical (making me wonder why it isn't easier to do.)

The pillars of social media site success

By Seth Godin

Why people choose to visit online social sites:

• Who likes me?
• Is everything okay?
• How can I become more popular?
• What's new?
• I'm bored, let's make some noise

None of these are new, but in the digital world, they're still magnetic.

If you want to understand why Twitter is so hot, look at those five attributes. They deliver all five, instantly.

Is this everything? If not, it covers a lot. In the case of virtual worlds, making noise isn't the only solution to "I'm bored", but it's a great one. Boredom is the thing ourWorld players complain about the most, at least to each other. Perhaps they need a few more chains to bang around with. I'm not sure I've considered the ability to be heard and seen as a primary solution to the boredom problem, but it might be the key to it all.

-Adam!!!