Kingdom of Loathing, a deliriously wacky, web-based free-to-play indie MMO where heroes are illustrated by stick figures and mix cocktails and fight villainous monsters [assisted by familiars] like Ninja Pirate Zombie Robots, is "quite profitable", even with a current audience of nearly 50,000. This from a recent Reddit community interview with Josh "Mr Skullhead," Nite, co-writer of the game:
Well this is interesting: Second Life has returned to the latest Top 10 PC Game chart compiled by Nielsen, based on data the venerable ratings service gathers from application activity in 180,000+ US homes. (The latest ratings are from December 2011.) Last June 2011, SL dropped off the Top Ten chart, falling to position eleven, and then last October 2011, fell even further, to rank fifteen. Interestingly, the MMO Dungeons & Dragons online was in the top ten in October, but has been supplanted by SL and another virtual life simulation toy/platform/game/whatever, The Sims 3. At the same time, SL's market share is slightly down from October 2011 to December 2011, falling from .96 to .74. Overall that's a relatively slight drop, but if we look back at the Nielsen charts from 2009, there's a very notable usage falloff:
FRACT is an upcoming indie first person puzzle adventure game with immersive music that looks quite cool -- to solve the puzzles, you do so musically. Watch this demo by its developer:
This game came to me via Robert "Dizzy Banjo" Thomas, who made immersive musical experiences for SL like this one, and now does them for iOS apps like Inception. "It's kinda virtual world/user-generated content meets Tron meets realtime synthesis and music creation," he says.
Continue reading "FRACT: 3D Game Mixes Puzzles & Realtime Music Creation" »
Iris Ophelia's ongoing take on etiquette & ethics in virtual spaces
It seems like complicated social relationships can develop in MMOs faster than they do in real life. Whether it's your SL family or your WoW guild, there are some pretty intricate social expectations that come with these relationships, and navigating them is challenging to say the least. So what do you do when your guildies won't break their routine, or when your DPS can't grasp the concept of crowd control? Keep reading for my advice!
I missed this news when it arrived last month, but it's still worth repeating now: 1 in 4 Xbox 360 owners now own a Kinect, Geekwire reported, meaning 18 million of the 360's 66 million worldwide install base. That's a large (and to judge by the growth trends) expanding market for motion-controlled games and interactivity. All the more reason to root for projects like the real time Kinect-to-SL motion capture system now being developed in Japan.
In her next Miss Metaverse Manners column, Iris Ophelia takes on a touchy, multi-world topic: The etiquette and ethics of playing (and switching) MMOs with friends. Say you really want to try Old Republic but your friends are still really into Bloodlines in SL, and don't won't to come along. Say you want to tell a good friend that their grouping skills suck, without hurting the friendship. Say you don't get along with a guild member, who everyone else seems to like. What do you do? Miss Metaverse to the rescue: Anonymously post your touchy etiquette and ethics questions around friends and MMOs via Iris' Formspring account.
Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion
Even though I wrote about my current favorite MMO just yesterday, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking out for my next big MMO obsession. While The Old Republic is a solidly designed and beautifully written game, after awhile all the very realistically designed gear starts to feel a bit... bland. Where's the panache, the zazz, the razzle-dazzle? That's probably why I'm so excited about TERA, a fantasy themed MMO with some of the most breathtaking and fanciful armor designs available in any current MMO.
Skeptical? Keep reading for more proof!
Iris Ophelia's ongoing review of virtual world and MMO fashion
I've spent a fair amount of time playing Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic since its launch last December, far more than I expected to in fact. I'm not a Star Wars fan at all, but I still gave the game a chance because I love Bioware's design and writing style so much, and because the character customization options are so diverse and interesting (which I wrote about shortly before the game's launch). But there's one feature in this game that I've come to appreciate above all others-- one that gives me almost complete control over my character's clothing so I won't ever outlevel my favorite piece, or be stuck with something hideous that I hate just because it's level appropriate. As far as I'm concerned, this feature belongs in every other MMORPG. Let me explain:
Continue reading "An Awesome Old Republic Avatar Feature Every MMO Needs" »
This is what new world gaming looks like: Double Fine, the widely-admired game studio founded by Tim Schafer, launched a crowdfunder on Kickstarter to raise funds for an independenty-produced and distributed adventure game. To make it, they just wanted $400,000, and set themselves over a month to raise that amount. Instead, donors invested over $700,000 in under 24 hours. Over 9000 pledged $15, which gets them the game and some extras, and an impressive 1500+ kicked in $100 for a poster and other goodies. Now Double Fine will make a game free from a publisher's (often irksome) involvement, create it with the knowledge they have a fanbase already eager for it, won't go broke making it... while about 18,000 Double Fine fans will get themselves a high-quality game for $15.
The coolest thing? This:
Continue reading "Adventure Game Crowdfunder Raises $700K+ in 24 Hours" »
Some two months after launch, Star Wars: The Old Republic now has 1.7 million subscribers, Scott "Lum Lumley" Jennings notes, with over 2 million copies of the game sold. That's very impressive, and surprising to me: I was guessing the subscriber base would top out at 1 million. So clearly there's still some life in the monthly subscription-based model for MMOs, at least for those with massive production budgets like SWTOR. (Estimated cost: nearly $200 million.) As Lum points out, those 1.7 subscribers are actually "a mix of paying customers and customers with billing information entered but still on free trial", so the real test is how long those subscribers stay around, month after month. In six months or so, I'm still thinking that number goes down closer to a million.
Speaking of SWTOR, Iris has a good review of the game's avatar fashion here. We're thinking of doing more coverage of the MMO -- how many of you play SWTOR, readers?
