for science
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster explains how feedback loops can create unexpected results in MMO design
What's a feedback loop? And, more importantly, why should MMO players care about them? According to Playable Worlds' Raph Koster, this part of game...
Lawful Neutral: Managing toxicity in the MMO industry
When I'm playing games, I make a lot of use of the reporting function. If I see a moonkin zerg farming a spot in...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on gaming’s social design problems masquerading as technical challenges
In case you hadn't noticed, Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is basically handing out a free 101 course in how video games work in his...
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...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on why avatars traipsing across the metaverse are a major tech challenge
Virtual worlds... how the eff do they work? Playable Worlds' Raph Koster has an idea or two, and he's dishing them out in a...
For Science: Men roll more female characters than women roll male toons, new survey shows
Do you play MMO characters who reflect your gender in real life? Apparently, the answer depends a bit on which gender and how old...
The Daily Grind: Do you engage in ‘parallel play’ in MMORPGs?
Thanks to a random Tweet in my timeline a while back, the term "parallel play" has been rattling around in my brain lately. According...
GDC 2021: Navigating player behaviors and cheating in online video games
GDC 2021 has now offered several panels on player behavior and cheating that are aimed at devs but still provide some good information for...
GDC 2021: Research on online video game voice chat has come a long way
Covering studies about video gamers often reveals a glaring problem with the science on the topic: Most of it looks has traditionally surveyed text...
PAX East 2021: Gaming streamers are frontline workers, not mental health experts
Since PAX East 2021 is virtual again due to that little virus that's been going around for over a year now, it should come...
Lawful Neutral: Defining toxicity in the MMO industry
One of my earliest memories from World of Warcraft isn't really a positive one. It was in back in the Wrath days. My guild...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster shares the secret of good social design in MMOs
Raph Koster, the game designer behind Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, and Playable Worlds' upcoming project, has posted yet another essay about MMORPG design,...
No, Twitch’s move to investigate off-platform toxicity is not ‘novel’ for the industry
Twitch is changing its hateful conduct and harassment policy once again, this time to allow moderators to take into account problematic activity that occurs...
New UK research finds opening lootboxes is ‘structurally and psychologically akin’ to gambling
The mountain of research-based evidence against lootboxes has had another leaflet added to the pile. A recent report from researchers at the universities of...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on the player-driven economies at the heart of virtual worlds
Playable Worlds' Raph Koster is back with another blog post that serves as a tip-off for what kind of MMORPG he and his team...
Massively Overthinking: Retaking Quantic’s survey to determine our ‘gamer type’
Five years ago - yes, it's been that long! - we did an Overthinking in which our staff all took Quantic's survey to see...
World of Warcraft gamers move 21B gold through the player economy every day
IT-centric Splunk's .conf is not generally an event we cover here on MOP, but the .conf20 edition held back in October had a presentation of...
A look back at the MMO and gaming science topics of 2020
It's now become a long-running tradition on Massively OP to track science-related and science-adjacent stories that touch on the MMORPG world, but this past...
Cooperating in violent games like Fortnite is good for children, actually
Here's something that might bake your noodle: A new study suggests that children playing violent video games cooperatively such as Fortnite are actually more...
Ten-year study finds no link between game violence and aggressive behavior from adolescence to adulthood
We've got another leaflet of evidence on the already towering pile of research suggesting no link between video game violence and aggressive behavior. A...
