Raph Koster, the CEO of Playable Worlds, certainly has plenty of thoughts about the creation of a metaverse. First, however, you have to actually make a compelling game. That’s the general point of an interview with VentureBeat, which talks about the studio’s developing MMO from both a technical and communal standpoint.
According to Koster, the sandbox game will be cloud-based, with custom-crafted technology to “allow [the studio] to deliver games as a service and online game operation better than the norm.” Koster also seeks to make the game someplace where explorers, player killers, socializers, and killers can co-exist or even find some interdependencies. And while the tech being developed by Playable Worlds could mean a lot for making a virtual realm, Koster is adamant that the developing title “absolutely is a game. It’s not just a social space.”
On the subject of community, Koster and studio co-founder Eric Goldberg are keen on forming a community as organically as possible. “If you make community first rather than treat community simply as a revenue device, you can do better. You can give rewards to your community and grow it organically,” said Goldberg.
It’s all pie-in-the-sky talk — and things that have brought up before by Koster — but with some successful funding, it would seem that it isn’t only talk. We’ll see hopefully by next year, in which case we can ideally use actual screenshots instead of the Playable Worlds logo as a header image.
