Same Meat, Different Gravy
Seeing Raph Koster back in the gaming news headlines has proven a timely reminder that no matter how things change, they remain the same. The video games industry has moved on in many ways with regard to technology and now enjoys mainstream appeal. However there are also areas where virtually no progress has been made. Hence Mr Koster’s protestations that the MMO genre has not yet reached its full potential. I started blogging about MMOs and other games around 15 years ago. I have an archive of my previous posts and spent some time recently looking at material I wrote back in 2007 and 2008. The subjects ranged from bad game launches, broken mechanics, staff redundancies, questionable business models, poor community relations and that perennial favourite, toxic communities. Many of which were written from the perspective of someone who was very invested in the genre and who had a degree of optimism for the future. Silly me to quote Paul Chuckle.
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