raph koster
Ex-Blizzard execs Jen Oneal, J Allen Brack, and John Donham form Magic Soup Games
Now here's an interesting collab. Yes, it's yet another "ex-Blizzard people form a new studio and investors give them stacks of money" studio, but...
Avalon is the latest blockchain metaverse project from old-school MMO devs
I know, I know, another one of these metaverse-blockchain-Web3 startups, but this one is one that MMORPG fans will want to at least take...
End-of-Year Eleven: The top MMOs to watch in 2023
You know how some people like to push this narrative that "MMOs are dying?" If that were actually true, then my job to round...
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v6.0
And that's a wrap on this year in history! While everyone says farewell to 2022, here at TGA we're always looking way back at...
Crowfall goes dark today with a slim hope of a future return
For an MMO that's all about death and reincarnation, there's either irony or hope in Crowfall going offline today supposedly for retooling. Whether or...
The Daily Grind: Are you hoping for ‘market disruption’ in the MMO genre?
Over the summer, a Twitter user replied to one of our Daily Grinds suggesting that a certain MMORPG was poised to "disrupt the MMO...
Raph ‘Designer Dragon’ Koster reminisces on 25 years of Ultima Online
While our own Game Archaeologist columnist Justin offered a retrospective of Ultima Online (and its alt ruleset server New Legacy was delayed into next...
The Game Archaeologist: How Ultima Online got made
You know how there’s that yokel in every global chat channel that likes to troll players by claiming that World of Warcraft was the...
MMO dev Raph Koster disambiguates sandboxes, themeparks, simulation, and stagecraft
Veteran MMO developer Raph Koster, who himself is working on a sandbox MMO couched in a metaverse, is back with another dev blog this...
The creation and crash of the forgotten Raph Koster MMO Metaplace
Let's ignore the fact that "decentralization" is shorthand for pyramid scheme grift nowadays and think back to how the internet was once a very...
The Daily Grind: Which upcoming MMORPG has the best chance of succeeding?
There are many MMOs of various designs working their way through the development process right now, but as we well know, not all of...
Working As Intended: MMOs that wish they were Star Wars Galaxies
"My friends and I would skin someone alive for an SWG 2," an old Star Wars Galaxies player recently wrote on Reddit, and that...
Raph Koster talks about the ‘mission’ of Playable Worlds, his vision of the metaverse, and player ownership
Raph Koster is no stranger to talking about the concept of the metaverse - he's done it a couple of times already, trying to...
Massively Overthinking: ‘Every MMO inconvenience is someone else’s game’
A while back, someone in our comments (I can't find it again, so I can't remember who!) dug up a quote from Raph Koster...
Crowfall’s Gordon Walton joins Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO and platform
Raph Koster's Playable Worlds MMORPG has picked up two new executives today: Gordon Walton and Omar Abdelwahed.
Walton will be immediately recognizable to modern MMO...
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster makes bold promises about his studio’s developing sandbox MMORPG
Earlier this week we reported on a big cash injection for Raph Koster's Playable Worlds, with the studio raising $25M in Series B funding...
Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds scored $25M in investment for his ‘modern sandbox MMO’
Raph Koster's Playable Worlds is inching a little closer to a playable world thanks to another cash infusion.
GIbiz reports that the company has raised...
Raph Koster talks metaverse creation and learning lessons from past game design mistakes
"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...
Richard Bartle’s new book seeks to intersect theological thought and MMORPG design
If you're new to our genre, first of all welcome, and second of all you should be familiar with Dr. Richard A. Bartle, a...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go actually nerfed its own support rather than help players
This article is part three of a four-piece series on safety in Pokemon Go as well as other Niantic games. You can read all...