I recently asked for votes in the TechCrunch Crunchies, and I know many of Moviestorm's fans did put us up ...   more »

This image reminds me so much of dealing with amateurs in mediatech. ...   more »

I'm not saying that just because the BBC just gave an outstanding review of Moviestorm but because I am in ...   more »

So, at last we meet. 20,000 Moviestorm users now and it is ...   more »

I did not quite manage to turn the discussion on Virtual Worlds over the last few days around to my favourite topic: biological analogies. Now I can. Throughout the talks of "design", "aesthetics", "laws", "rules" and "software" I kept hearing one refrain. I was sung in many voices and in different words, but it basically went like this: 'we keep making all this clever stuff with all these clever rules and deep stories and then the darned users go and chose to do something else' Now, it is stretching the Darwinian analogy just a bit far to claim that what we are seeing in Virtual Worlds is the inhabiting species putting selection pressure on the environment. Or is it? Because that is exactly what we are going to see in Little Big Planet (a Virtual World that is a game), and in Metaplace.   more »

Raph Koster was speaking at Living Game Worlds at Georgia Tech, and I think what he said needs wider understanding. Not that he is shy about coming forward. The issue is that a lot of what he said is wrapped up in metaphor and allegory and may not have got out to the audience. Or perhaps we each saw our own meaning in the metaphors. You know how it is with clever people explaining themselves: “the only problem with communication is the illusion that you have achieved it.” Many people at the end of his speech wondered if he had lost his love of games. That was probably because it was hard to extract a clear message. This is what I think he was trying to tell us.   more »

I had a great time at Living Game World IV at Georgia Tech this week. While I am not a hard core Virtual Worlds games designer, the connections between VWs, Social Media, User Created Content and real life are now so great as to be an essential part of any media tech executives thinking. That is the official travel request I put in, anyway. My friends will know that I would not have missed a chance to see the heroes of gaming all assembled in one room and get to talk to them. I got to meet my heroes and talk to them. I saw virtual wonders and met some of the new Wizards of the shared mind. I learned of the history of games worlds and the urgent need for the developers of new worlds to combining learning from past mistakes and exploring new spaces. We can all learn from the past while we move forward with the new media tools we are forging. I look forward to putting the things I have learned about group creativity and ‘playfulness’ into practice. And to think, my mother was right when she said “you should join that computer club at school, you seem to enjoy it, and you never know, it might be useful one day”.   more »