Working As Intended is Massively Overpowered Editor-in-Chief Bree Royce’s favorite place to muse about game design, the MMO industry, and worlds gone by. Previous entries published on Engadget. [Follow this column’s RSS feed]
working as intended
Activision-Blizzard and NetEase’s breakup was caused by long-brewing disputes and alleged threats
One of the biggest MMO and gaming stories capping off the end of 2022 and spilling over into the start of 2023 was the...
Activision-Blizzard’s diversity and inclusion goals are out of sync with its corporate action
Activision-Blizzard has released a full-year review of its diversity, equity, and inclusion stats for 2022 this week, and the first thing readers will notice...
For Science: Crit-Rate is another survey-driven attempt to match gamer personalities to games
I have to admit I almost deleted the press release for this story without reading it, but my finger twitched, and let me tell...
Former Trion boss Scott Hartsman illuminates the rise and fall of RIFT
Yesterday, we ran an editorial from MOP's Tyler focused on his reasoning that MMOs are better off showcasing their own special attributes than tearing...
Working As Intended: The MMOs we lost in 2022
Perhaps one of our saddest traditions at the turn of every year is taking stock of all the MMOs we lost along the way....
MassivelyOP’s complete 2022 awards debrief and annual recap
As we did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, today we're going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from...
Working As Intended: The hits and misses of MassivelyOP’s 2022 predictions
Every year we do an MMO predictions post full of obvious, not-so-obvious, and totally-out-there prognostication for the future of the MMO genre. And every...
Working As Intended: My 25 years of Ultima Online
Twenty-five years ago my boyfriend, Paul, and I walked into a shop to find a new game to play together. He picked up this...
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...
Working As Intended: LFD, community accountability, and the balance of power in classic MMOs
At the heart of the WoW Classic argument over the dungeon finder tool is the professed belief that LFD ruined socializing in part by...
SeedInvest tells Shroud of the Avatar investors that Portalarium eluded its accountability efforts
Shroud of the Avatar has been a black mark on the MMORPG genre, Kickstarted MMOs, and genre founding father Richard Garriott for years, and...
MassivelyOP’s complete 2021 awards debrief and annual recap
As we did in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, today we're going to recap our annual awards and other meta articles from the...
Working As Intended: The MMOs we lost in 2021
This is always one of the most depressing roundups I do around the turn of every year, and this year... well, we lost some...
Working As Intended: The hits and misses of MassivelyOP’s 2021 predictions
Last year's MMORPG predictions didn't exactly go to plan, since in 2019, we weren't really expecting 2020 to play out the way it did....
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...
Camelot Unchained boss rebuts theory that its studio finances are in disarray
Dedicated readers of MassivelyOP already know that Camelot Unchained has become an MMO saddled with controversy over the last couple of years. Originally Kickstarted...
Palia is a new ‘community simulation MMO’ from former Blizzard and Riot devs
A few weeks ago, I attended a press event for a new game assuming I would not be impressed by the offerings. Instead, I...
Working As Intended: Touring my new SWG Legends houses (and looking at Bespin deco!)
If you're a fan of MMORPG housing, Star Wars, Star Wars Galaxies specifically, or just chatter about MMOs, then this very self-indulgent Working As...
Hands-on with Amazon’s New World first expedition, Amrine Excavation
The funny thing about our ongoing pandemic is that it didn't really change the way video game previews are done. It turns out that...
Working As Intended: There is no good reason for MMO gamers to fund Dreamworld
Not quite a month ago, we covered the Kickstarter for a wildly ambitious MMORPG, Dreamworld. We were, uh, pretty skeptical about the game's chances....
