I have a curiosity about what makes a game popular. I would like to make a game and make millions. I doubt I have the patience to build such a game. I like skipping to new things and figuring them out. I suppose it is more about feeding my curiosity than actually building things.
Whatever the case, this page is my collection of articles about what makes games great.
For some time I’ve read the blogs and posts of SL users saying the Lindens developing Second Life needed to spend more time in SL. The idea being that if they used the product rather than just developing what they think we need, SL would be a better place. I think it is a good idea.
It seems Rod and Will think that is a good idea too. Hamlet posted, “Linden Launches Monster-Dodging Game for Premium Users UPDATE: Rod Humble Explains — It Was Made With New Tools Coming Soon for SL Game Developers” which is about a new game in Second Life. He has been chasing down his contacts in the Lab to find out what is up with that.
A quote he got from Rod says they built the game not to be building games, but to learn what tools are needed to be able to build games in Second Life. That pretty much is the idea many of us have put forward for Lindens. Walk in our shoes and you’ll understand. The Lab has now done that. They built a game to find out what we are up against.
Whether walking in our shoes is a better idea than listening to us is yet to be seen. I am more and more certain that the idea of transparency for the Lab’s development is a thing of the past. Much like Obama’s idea of government transparency has faded.
One of my favorite Second Life bloggers is Gwyneth Llewelyn. Her posts are infrequent, but they do cover a subject in depth. She has a new article up: Innovation, yes, but wrong turn. One can learn a lot about Second life from the article.
Gwyneth’s viewpoints are usually a fresh look at Second Life and the directions taken by Linden Lab. In this article she lays out a new perspective, basically calling a spade a spade. In her viewpoint Second Life is a niche product/service and she makes a good argument for her point of view. She also makes good points for what can be done with a niche market.
The four page article is worth the read.
While I suspect most of the readers of this blog have interests more Second Life and OpenSim oriented, there are a number of us interested in what makes any computer game popular. In some ways that translates to what may make SL popular. Also, some SL/OS residents are interested in what can make their inside-SL-games popular. Here are some sources of information for those with such interests.
Game Design - Image by: amsfrank @ Flickr
Dan Linden has put up a post asking for mesh testers. Help us test Mesh performance
There is a challenge in regard to testing prim equivalency and parcel prim limits. There are some serous tick-you-off gotcha’s evolved in prim limits and mesh equivalents. This is the testing they need help with. So, if you want a parcel on the Preview Grid and are willing to help out with building mesh stuff, sign up.
Hey folks,
we need your help in testing Mesh within real limitations. We want to get “real world” numbers for render and streaming performance and this means building content on parcels with restricted size instead of region size sandboxes.
See the post for how to sign up. Only 64 parcels available. You need to fill them up with meshes.
Metanomics Studio
I got into playing in Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) by playing the Myst series of games, a series of mostly single player adventure/puzzle games. In the series was Myst Online Uru Live (MOUL), which was Cyan Worlds, Inc’s attempt at a multiplayer game. Ubisoft and GameTap both tried to run the game and discontinued it because it could not maintain player interest and financial support. From seeing what I think is a neat game fail I became interested in what makes a game work and popular. Monday there is an opportunity to learn about game development.
Update: 2010-08-14 (at end of article) – I’m depressed. Gwyneth Llewelyn wrote Good-bye, meshes! Gwyneth works in the RL virtual worlds service fields and apparently has contacts among the Lindens. She writes about the status of the supposed coming Collada meshes. Seems they may not just be delayed but canceled for the foreseeable future. Bummer. (Her blog changed appearance, a nice new look.)
Is Second Life Dying?
Gwyneth describes why this is likely to become a major disadvantage for Second Life’s ability to compete with other virtual worlds. I think it is so important that it may mean the end of SL, not tomorrow or next year, but…
I wrote about Linden Lab laying off 30% of staff here: Linden Lab Layoffs. I wrote that in the next few days we would see more information coming from those with an inside line to Linden Lab (LL). New World Notes (NWN) and Massively are following the layoff story and speculating. NWN’s Au is digging out more facts. I think my favorite SL blogger, Gwyneth Llewelyn, in [Reset] and do a 180º turn gives a vastly different insight than many headlines in the SL-blogosphere suggest.
As usual predicting the future is speculation. However, what Linden Lab is planning is not speculation. Whether they actually get it done… But, a direction is a direction and that can give us perspective. Gwyn’s writing gives us a new insight.
