Great piece by Greg Costikyan on the philosophical question of whether MMGs (massively multiplayer games) are games at all — or something new in the way of imaginary-world creations:
There and Second Life both claim that they aren’t games. The reason they claim not to be games, of course, is that their creators are under the delusion that they will increase their potential audience by making this claim, since games are for geeks, and they want to create MMGs for “the rest of us.” The idea being that only geeks play games, a small percentage of the population are geeks, ergo, to create a 3D world that achieves a mass audience, you must create one that isn’t a game. Let’s start with the assumption that only geeks play games. This is patently false. |
Greg’s an experienced game designer, and he takes the long view, with a historical perspective that goes all the way back to Habitat — arguing that, if you’re designing an MMG, you’d better make it a good game, or people won’t want to spend time in it.
For a somewhat different perspective, Salon contributor Wagner James Au has been serving as a kind of in-world reporter/blogger over at Second life. His Notes from within that MMG make for a fascinating glimpse inside one virtual play-space.
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