So, Camelot Unchained is on the cusp of meeting its goal. As I write this, it needs just over $150,000 in 23 hours right now.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
The success of this campaign will have tremendous ramifications on future MMO projects. I encourage you to support it.
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I was busy during GDC last week, meeting with people and making contacts. After a week of hard work, I have a tremendous announcement to make: I'm running a new Kickstarter campaign!
But wait! It's even more exciting than you might possibly imagine. This is the mega-Kickstarter game campaign! I've gathered every major developer who has run a game-focused Kickstarter campaign and I've gotten them to join force into one, ultimate campaign!
Read on for information about the project and the tiers!
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There's been a lot of discussion lately about online behavior after a high-profile troll's name and information were exposed in an article. It's brought up a lot of interesting discussion about the role of online communities and free speech.
Let's take a look at the complicated issues behind these hot-button topics.
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In my analysis of Steam's Greenlight project, many of the solutions I suggested centered around community management. Unfortunately, community management is sorely misunderstood, so I think some people didn't understand how this could help the situation.
Let's take a look at what community management is, what it should be, and how it is treated these days.
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With much fanfare and enthusiasm, Steam announced Greenlight a way for the community to give feedback on what they would like to see. If you've been following the news lately, you might have learned that things didn't go over as well as might be hoped. To the point that Valve has been scrambling to control the damage.
But, I see this as a sign of failure. Perhaps not terminal failure, but let's take a look at what this rocky start means at least in the short term.
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There's a tendency for people to want to boil things down to the very essence. We don't want to deeply analyze an issue and figure out all the complexity, we want to find the one magic element that we can use to understand and/or fix the issue. When facing a problem, we want a magic bullet or miracle pill that solves the problem. When analyzing success, we tend to want to believe that it was something simple that we can copy to duplicate that success.
As any experienced game designer knows, humans are terrific at matching patterns. Unfortunately, that also means that humans are terrific at creating false matches for patterns as well. Often the patterns we find, especially when analyzing something as complex as success in game development and business, tend to not be as simple as we first think. Trying to analyze success often results in more confusion than enlightenment.
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It's been hard for me to remember a more dispiriting week than the previous one. It's been hard to muster a positive attitude as the hits keep coming.
Let's take a look at why we may be seeing the end of MMOs as we know them.
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A quick update about Storybricks. You can play the current Alpha version of Storybricks. We have a contest going on. And, our Kickstarter project is still going.
And I'll make an impassioned plea for your support.
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Sometimes it astounds me to think about my development history. Most of my career I've just worked to make or maintain what I feel are cool games. Part of the reason I still blog even though most people have moved on to other forms of social media is that previous blog entries remind me a lot of where I've come from, what I've learned, and what I've considered important over the years. It's a bit like keeping a diary and using it to reminisce, without the fear of a sibling finding it to use as blackmail. (Although I guess prospective employers could try to hold something I've posted against me in the future.) But, usually when I post on a topic I like to do a quick search to see if I've posted about the topic and see how my perspectives might have changed over time.
So, I hope you understand this next line is said without intending to be cliché and without intending to be hyperbole: it has felt as if my career has build up to this singular point in time. We're taking Storybricks to Kickstarter.
Okay, hopefully that alone excites you, but read on for a bit more information and why you really need to support us.
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I feel like I should write a standard excuse for my sporadic blogging. Something I can cut and paste whenever I finally do sit down to write something. Doing actual creative and innovative work tends to tame my ranty side. The Storybricks project has been demanding a lot of attention.
But, I haven't forgotten you, brave people who still have this blog in your RSS reader, or who haven't removed me from Twitter yet, or those of you who notice when I post on Google+. Let me expound a bit about why Storybricks is a toolset and not a game (even if I mess up and use the wrong term sometimes).
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