AGC Liveblog
 

Here's a good liveblog from the Austin Games Conference (wrapping up today) of a panel between:
* Raph Koster (President of Areae, formerly Chief Creative Officer for Sony Online, and lead design on Ultima Online previous to that. Used to work on LegendMUD as well.)
* Erik Bethke (CEO of GoPets, which does...GoPets. Google them.)
* Marc Jacobs (Studio GM of EA Mythic...did Dark Age of Camelot, doing Warhammer Online. Way back in 1984 launched the text MUD Aradath, and also did Dragon's Gate MUD)
* John Smedley, President of Sony Online (Everquest, Everquest 2, Star Wars: Galaxies, etc)

It's ostensibly entitled, "What are the biggest online gaming opportunities?" but it largely turns into a debate about subscriptions vs. microtransactions and RMT.



--matt

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

Wow, why does the TV series "left behind" spring to mind? :)

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

Heh heh. The guys arguing against RMT and virtual asset sales (well, that'd mainly be Mark Jacobs) do sound really out of touch don't they?

--matt

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

I didn't mean that, I meant some of the earlier MUD guys and what they're doing now....

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

Ahhh.

I don't get it....

I'm going to blame the Saturday morning mental haze for this. I keep trying to figure out if you're making some clever reference that requires knowledge of the Left Behind books/tv/movie stuff or if I'm just being incredibly dense and missing the obvious.

--matt

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

I'll take a stab...he means guys like Koster and Jacobs who turned their college-age obsession into MMO stardom?

Re: AGC Liveblog
 

Yeah my bad, given that I never watch TV and have never actually seen a single episode of "Left Behind" I figured if I had heard of it then it was commonly known enough to use as a frame of reference.

If I remember correctly, it's a somewhat religious series about Earth after the rapture and the folks who got left behind...