Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the ‘stuff’ inside your virtual worlds
Raph Koster has been penning blogs about the metaverse and how virtual worlds work for several weeks now; his new company, Playable Worlds, has...
California’s DFEH files an objection to the settlement between Activision-Blizzard and the EEOC
It probably seemed like Activision-Blizzard had actually finally dodged a bullet in its ongoing lawsuit drama when it reached a settlement with the EEOC...
Final Fantasy XI looks back on the game’s history in 2006 and continues its industry interviews
When Final Fantasy XI released its third expansion, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, the playerbase rejoiced and had a particular love of the new jobs released with...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster is not gonna stop saying the word metaverse
Even though I very much want to play around in whatever weird huge sandbox thing Raph Koster and Playable Worlds are building, I now...
Twitch confirms huge security breach, says credit card and login credentials are safe
Yesterday, we covered claims that a hacker had yoinked 125GB of data from Twitch and dumped it into the wild, where it was leaked...
New World’s Amazon Games has major ambitions for the gaming industry
So New World appears to be Amazon Games' first success after two major stumbles. Is it going to be its last? Amazon CEO Andy...
Perfect Ten: A sampler of crowdfunded MMOs and how they’re doing
I've gone on the record many a time as being deeply suspicious of Kickstarter and crowdfunding when it comes to MMOs. There are reasons...
Guild Wars 2’s PvP community is aflame over win-trading [Update: ANet banned 83 perps]
This past week, the Guild Wars 2 PvP community (don't laugh, there is one, as you know since you read our own Fight or...
Twitch suffers massive data breach as a hacker gets away with source code and streamer payout details
Twitch is having a very bad day today as a hacker has managed to hack and release 125GB worth of data, which has since...
MechWarrior Online restores trans-focused team names after uproar over name changes and suspensions
We're just going to go ahead and offer a free tip for moderation teams across the MMO sphere: Banning people just for expressing support...
DOTA 2 The International refunds live-audience tix because the pandemic didn’t go away
For those who somehow haven't noticed, the COVID-19 pandemic didn't go away. We're still very much in the middle of it here in the...
China adds new rules against games with ‘effeminate males’ and ‘blurred moral boundaries’
The Chinese government is further putting the screws to game developers in the country according to the details of a new internal memo from...
Bear witness to the confounding Coca-Cola ad that tries to appeal to esports fans, MMO gamers, and world peace
What do esports events, MMO gaming, and soda have in common? If you said "Maybe you drink the soda while participating in the other...
Make My MMO: Albion Online’s Harvest challenge, CitizenCon’s date, and Fractured Veil’s Kickstarter
If you've ever wanted to ride around on a ghost bat, your time has come in Albion Online, as its October challenge offers harvest-themed...
Betawatch: New World finally launches
Did it happen? Is it real? Can you believe it? New World has finally launched, after so many beta delays that at one point it...
Here’s Blizzard’s rationale for changing some of World of Warcraft’s emotes, art, and names
In the wake of the ongoing investigations into and lawsuits over Activision-Blizzard's sexual harassment and discrimination scandal, the teams at Blizzard have said very...
Raph Koster says nobody wants a metaverse with ‘Fairyland butting up against World War II’
In his ongoing blog series on the metaverse, MMO developer Raph Koster has been digging through the technical challenges of how to build it...
Working As Intended: Brute-forcing the MMO industry
If you're a music fan, and you probably are since you're a human, you've probably come to grips with the sense that somehow the...
Twitch adds a phone-verified chat option in an attempt to combat harassment campaigns
We've been covering the problem of harassment and hate raiding of marginalized casters on Twitch for a while now, from the #TwitchDoBetter awareness campaign...
Union organizers call Activision-Blizzard’s $18M EEOC settlement a ‘slap in the face’
Monday night, we reported on a planned settlement between Activision-Blizzard and the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC was one of four state...
