“Metaverse.” It’s the one word that, apparently, drives game execs and investors into a babbling frenzy just seconds before they explode into venture capital that rains down on any studio that wants to make it happen. It’s also enough of a concept – nebulous as it is right now – that GamesBeat created a summit about the whole thing, and one of that summit’s speakers was none other than Raph Koster, who talked about how many of the technical challenges in creating a metaverse were already solved in the past.
“We’ve had online worlds for 44 years, and any vision of the metaverse is built on top of the idea of online worlds, whether you call them online worlds, MUDs, virtual worlds social worlds — it doesn’t matter. […] I’m here to just share some high level lessons, some mistakes that have already been made, in hopes that it saves you from making future mistakes.”
Koster recounted the creation of decentralized online worlds as far back as 1992; his own creation of a virtual version of a real-world mall was in 1994. With that in mind, he reasons that the major hurdles for a metaverse creation are more social than technical; players are not interested in item portability, and the option to take an item from one digital place to another requires a set of standards, which are a “social coordination problem.”
Koster also talks about how a 3-D metaverse isn’t necessarily better and further pointed out how technology alone can’t ultimately solve the problems of governance in a digital universe. However, he appears to be optimistic that game devs can work together to solve many of the social challenges of a metaverse’s creation. So long as they look back at the past.
Further reading:
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds teases housing, planetary governance, and languages for the unnamed MMORPG sandbox
• Raph Koster’s nine Playable Worlds teasers (so far) hint at the MMORPG sandbox you always wanted
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds is counting down to… something
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds enlists ‘AI-powered’ character platform Popul8
• Raph Koster has been warning about the death of games innovation longer than most MMOs have been alive
• Raph Koster predicts the future of the metaverse is a ‘virtual Machu Picchu’ – that you can leave
• MMO dev Raph Koster disambiguates sandboxes, themeparks, simulation, and stagecraft
• Raph Koster talks about the ‘mission’ of Playable Worlds, his vision of the metaverse, and player ownership
• Crowfall’s Gordon Walton joins Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO and platform
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster makes bold promises about his studio’s developing sandbox MMORPG
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds scored $25M in investment for his ‘modern sandbox MMO’
• Raph Koster talks metaverse creation and learning lessons from past game design mistakes
• Raph Koster and Playable Worlds won’t announce their MMO until next year
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster explains how feedback loops can create unexpected results in MMO design
• Raph Koster’s ‘modern sandbox MMO’ is teasing concept art for the first time
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on who really owns all the stuff inside your video games
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on gaming’s social design problems masquerading as technical challenges
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the ‘stuff’ inside your virtual worlds
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster is not gonna stop saying the word metaverse
• Raph Koster says nobody wants a metaverse with ‘Fairyland butting up against World War II’
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on why avatars traipsing across the metaverse are a major tech challenge
• Playable Worlds’ lead QA engineer on the industry’s problematic ‘godlike status’ for devs
• Raph Koster’s plan is to build the metaverse tech, build a sandbox MMORPG on it, then open it all up
• Massively OP Podcast Episode 338: No power in the multiverse can stop Raph Koster
• So it turns out Raph Koster is building the metaverse and a sandbox MMO on top of it
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster has all but said he’s building a metaverse
• Playable Worlds’ lead designer: ‘Our industry does not thrive on ideas’
• Raph Koster expounds on MMO fun, retention, and cynicism in the genre
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• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the player-driven economies at the heart of virtual worlds
• Playable Worlds’ hiring page suggests Raph Koster’s upcoming MMO is a AAA sandbox
• Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster posts a manifesto on the future of MMOs
• The folks working on Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO provide clues into what it’ll be
• Raph Koster argues MMOs are much more than ‘a series of kill and fetch quest pellets’
• MMO designer Raph Koster talks about what makes the subscription model a success
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• Raph Koster touches on the technology and community that will bring Playable Worlds’ MMO to life
• Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds studio raises an additional $10 million in funding
• Raph Koster will give more insight on Playable Worlds’ in-development MMO next year
• Raph Koster’s dev studio Playable Worlds opens a new website and begins the search for game devs
• Raph Koster’s new MMORPG will reward social gameplay, not just hack-n-slash
• Raph Koster’s new MMORPG will be more than ‘just hack and slashing your way through levels’
• Raph Koster is making a new MMO and just raised $2.7M in seed funding to do it
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