A Look at MMO Business Models

09Jun09

It’s heartening to see more non-subscription business models being tried in the current generation of MMOs at a time when innovation elsewhere is sorely lacking. For too long, it’s been the common opinion that a subscription is necessary to develop a quality product; Anything advertised as ‘free’ must surely be of lower quality.
That rather unfair [...]

Filed under: Game Design, Industry   |  3 Comments
Tags: Business Model, Guild Wars, Hellgate, MMO, RMT, Runes of Magic, Subscriptions

A Thought on Games of the Future

08Jun09

In a generation of technology where we are swiftly approaching the ability to render photo-real graphics in real-time simulations, there is an important question to ask:
At what level of immersion do violent games actually start becoming a problem?

Filed under: Personal   |  8 Comments
Tags: Future, Gaming

Left4Dead 2, Really? [pt. 2]

04Jun09

Rock Paper Shotgun recently got together with Valve’s VP of marketing, Doug Lombardi, to talk about the drama stirred up by their announcement of a sequel to Left4Dead.
It wasn’t a massively interesting interview, and one comment in particular stuck out. When asked how the sequel came about, Doug replied:
One of the biggest pieces of feedback [...]

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Tags: Left4Dead, Rock Paper Shotgun, Doug Lombardi

Left4Dead 2, Really?

03Jun09

Despite having poured many hours into the original… I’m struggling to get excited about this.
Reasoning after the jump

Filed under: Game Design, Personal   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: L4D, Left4Dead, Sequels, Valve