New World Notes

Read an Excerpt from Game Design Secrets, My New Book from Wiley Out This Week!

Game Design Secrets, my new book from Wiley, is coming out this week in paperback and e-book -- for a 40% discount, click here and use code “GDS12″ at checkout -- and you can read an excerpt on GigaOM now: "What top VCs look for in gaming startups", which as the title suggests, is advice from well-known venture capitalists to game developers on getting money from them. While the book is specifically about game design for iOS, Facebook, and the web, most of it also applies to other platforms (yes, including Second Life). For example, consider this point from VC Nabeel Hyatt:

Pitch games that give players long-term aspirations

Hyatt puts a lot of stock in the long-term goals a game creates for a player:

Will Wright on the Future of User-Generated Online Game Worlds (Circa 2002)

Back in 2002, I had a long conversation with Will Wright, who was then helping release The Sims Online and quietly developing what would eventually become Spore. While TSO ultimately did not succeed, Wright described his original vision for that virtual world, much of which is applicable to user-generated worlds like Second Life or less open-ended but much larger worlds which emphasize user creativity, such as Habbo and Club Penguin. This interview was incorporated into a much larger Salon story on MMORPGs, but Wright's thoughts below stand on their own:

The Story of Nethack, the Groundbreaking RPG Classic of Collaborative, Open Source Creation

This is a story I wrote for Salon early on in my writing career (2000), when I was just beginning to shape my thoughts on gaming, Internet culture, and user-created content online. Hope you enjoy this long weekend read - Hamlet

Nethack has been around for nearly 15 years [now 23! - ed] and doesn't require a soundcard, a 3D graphics card or even a VGA monitor. Indeed, the entire game is usually played with graphics no more ambitious than ASCII text. But as any hacker worth the title will tell you, Nethack is still one of the best games ever made. What's more, it's one of the best open-source games ever made -- meaning anyone who cares can grab ahold of the game's source code and make changes and improvements. The player's guide is even authored by none other than open-source ontologist Eric S. Raymond, perhaps best known for his essay, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar," in which he argues that the open-source software methodology produces technically superior software.

Does that suggest that Nethack is a technically superior computer game, despite its lack of graphic zap? Depends what you are looking for. Still beloved and played by many, Nethack embodies all that is obsessive, brilliant and geekishly lovable about hackerdom. And while open-source advocates are more likely to vaunt the movement's ability to transform desktop and network computing, this endearingly pokey dungeon adventure is perhaps its most accessible exemplar, demonstrating how its core virtues seem to work even in the unlikely realm of computer gaming: