I graduated from this program in June 2007. Thanks to some fantastic collaborators we were able to raise some funding and we turned my IMD thesis project PMOG into a business venture. In July 2007 we founded a company, GameLayers, on two essential principles: we wanted to leverage the internet to provide content for games, [...]

I had a ton of fun brainstorming, making and testing a game called PMOG with folks in the USC IMD. PMOG was my MFA thesis project – an MMO game built around surfing the web: your web trail evolved a personal profile and gave you tools to prank or guide people online. I graduated in May 2007. [...]

Halo 3 came out recently. Big media event! The team that worked on the game ensured that it will have additional longevity – since the game ships with tools for users to create and upload their own videos and screenshots from within the game. Score a triple kill with two sniper bullets on Narrows ? Render your own [...]

Congrats to IMD graduate Erin Dinehart! It sounds like he’s in a position as “Narrative Designer” at Relic Entertainment to draw on his community and background to make commercial video games more emotionally resonant. At least according to this three-part interview on Gamasutra.com: ” Narrative Design For Company Of Heroes: Stephen Dinehart On Writing For Games .” [...]

After spending three years with folks in the IMD, I was eager to see what their parents looked like. The second-to-last day of school, we mostly got to see!

Many of us have friends offline. We went to school with them, we met them through our parents, we bumped into them at the park. Lots of ways to make friends. Transitioning those friends to “online friends” is tough – you have to find out if they have the right computer or console, then you [...]

When I went to college I got a Mac, and I stopped playing most computer games. Except, one series of games available for my machine: the Warlords series . Puzzle Quest has much of the same feeling – top down kingdom management, heroes, quests, magic items, somewhat anonymous fiction and art, but good rock-paper-scissors unit-matching gameplay. Now the [...]

Reading over my notes on Social Network Analysis, from Michael Steele’s talk, it seems much of the science of creating and managing good communities revolves around social compression – constraints and structures that foster desirable behavior. Applying these ideas to services I’ve already explored: Xbox Live ( my review ): currently, a very basic buddy list, with game [...]

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the advent of the classic board game Settlers of Catan on Xbox 360. How will they implement the design in online space? Joystiq.com has published an excellent interview with the designers exploring the transition from board game to online game; it sounds like they really understand the flavor of Settlers:

Although when you play Settlers of Catan [...]

The New York Times Arts & Leisure section ran a big profile on the game designed by one of the key Everquest team members:” Hero Returns to Slay his Dragons “. What has he done since then? After a brief stint in management, he decided to make another game. 5 years and $20+ million later, Vanguard: Saga of [...]

Winster, an online gaming start-up, is developing games targeted at middle aged women. The games are based around the concept of reciprocal altruism. That is, rather than try to kill each other–the main purpose of several shoot-em-up games targeted at teen boys–the participants try to help each other solve puzzles or gain points. In a puzzle [...]

I’m fascinated with games merging with productivity systems and general life online. Of course, I’m not the only one; I just found this ACM paper: ” Out of the video arcade, into the office: where computer games can lead productivity software , and this post from March of 2006, ” Passive Web Gaming: My New Passion ” by M3mnoch. [...]

I spent most of my gaming hours playing Xbox 360 . Xbox 360 has a brilliant basic feature: connect the device to the internet, and your progress in games is published online. Recently I finished a work deadline, and I looked at my stack of games. I wanted to play something. I realized: I was thinking “which one [...]

There’s a sign hanging outside of FrontierTown: population 27. But to look at the streets here, you won’t see any cowboys or gunslinger girls wandering about. You won’t see them sauntering in the barbershop, the general store, the bank, the train station or at your ranch either. To see other players you’ll have to visit [...]

My Mom helped set up and run a school for teaching math, science and technology to disadvantaged young women in Chicago . When Oprah set out to build a similar school in South Africa, she asked my Mom for advice. Now my Mom has been invited to South Africa to see the opening of this school over New [...]

Eight Thirty PM, 13 September 2006: a video view of the end of 511 seminar in the ZML.

In September 2006, I had the unique pleasure of appearing in Electric Sheep ‘s Second Life Future Salon to discuss “Surveillance in Games.” Here are some screenshots: We met in a large virtual office tower, where they played some introductory videos for the audience (including my talk from Aula, which was wild to watch in that format). Then I [...]

These days I am working hard on my thesis, with a ton of help from Duncan Gough in the UK. There’s some documentation of the Passively Multiplayer idea up on the web; by April there should be a good playable prototype.

Last year with Chris Swain , Bing Gordon lead the Business of Interactive Media class, offering a “peek inside the kimono” of business at Electronic Arts. Students learned about pitching projects and focus testing. This year, Jordan Weisman has teamed up with Mark Bolas for Business of Interactive Media. They are each serial entrepreneurs and accordingly the class has focused [...]

I’m going to be discussing privacy and online games in an online game: Second Life Future Salon tonight. I talk via Skype, and talk on a panel in the Second Life world itself. So join in if you have a SL account! 6pm tonight – sorry for the late notice; setting up my IMD 555 workspace [...]