Now available in the Virtual Worlds Museum Books & Case Studies section:
A downloadable copy of Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds, a milestone book in the history of the technology; first published in 2003, its influence can be seen in countless MMOs and open-ended virtual worlds, especially around player motivation types, likely beginning with World of Warcraft, and definitely with Second Life. (In 2003 it was on the shelf at Linden Lab alongside Snow Crash.)
Hosted in the Museum by generous permission of the author, Richard recently shared with me the sections of the book he finds most relevant for virtual worlds in development now, or as an academic historical reference:
"Chapter 3 [Players] holds up best. Most of what's in it still applies. The Community section is its weakest part.
"Chapter 4 [World Design] holds up well, too. Some of the suggestions sound strangely fresh and new, with modern MMOs (as opposed to non-game worlds) having largely similar ways of approaching world design resulting in largely similar results.
"Chapter 7 [Toward a Critical Aesthetic] holds up well, but isn't of interest to anyone except the budding designer who hasn't had all thoughts that virtual worlds are creative expressions beaten out of them.
"Chapter 8 [Coda: Ethical Considerations] is still relevant, largely for the same reasons it was relevant before: few designers think about this kind of thing, but they ought to."
More notes from Richard below. As a consulting partner for the Virtual Worlds Museum, I'm excited to help expand this resource page with all books / references that have informed my own writing.
Speaking of which, please check out the page, and let me know if there's any books we should definitely add!
Further reference points from Bartle on Designing Virtual Worlds:
Chapter 1 [Introduction to Virtual Worlds] is OK but we've been in the 6th age of virtual worlds since 2012. Some of the historical stuff (on codebases, for example) is now only of historical interest. The material on influences is superseded, because these days most virtual world design is influences by the design of those worlds that preceded them.
Chapter 2 [How to Make Virtual Worlds] is OK; boring, but OK. There are new architectures available now, and the old ones are still viable but rather old hat today. VR is still just around the corner, though.
Chapter 5 [Life in the Virtual World] is fair, but modern ideas of identity politics make some of the points rather edgier than they were back in the day. The section on permadeath remains true, but it's not even something modern players could get their heads around, so it's really a bust in today's context.
Chapter 6 [It’s Not a Game, It’s a...] is state of the art for 2003. Thousands of academic papers about virtual worlds have since been written, so it's the most dated part of the book. Some of the points made by early researchers still hold true, but there are more points and more nuanced takes on the old points in many cases. It's unlikely to be a useful chapter for today's reader.
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