Raph Koster

Why do I show as (Unverified) and how do I fix it? Sigh.

-Raph

@Space Cobra I still have the print, too. :)

@Space Cobra Acually, all told about 2500 people read it and there have been arguments and threads on a bunch of sites and blogs. :) You should feel special!

@Deliverator Or maybe those of us who are in social games are there because we think they offer the broadest canvas ever for game design, and the chance to reach and touch far more people with our games than has ever been possible in history. :)

I've noticed a lot of people reading the post as agiong for immersion to go away. I am not advocating that at all, and I think it is pretty explicit in the text. Why do people jump to that conclusion?

@theBeast If you go back and re-read my posts on F2P, you will see that I didn't say I loved it. I explained why in my opinion it was not "evil." I didn't actually express a preference one way or the other.

@Space Cobra Actually, the avatar bit is correct. The word avatar is old, from Hindu religion. The Ultima series used it in that sense. There was also a game called AVATAR on the PLATO system, but again, not the sense we use it.

The use of the term for "characters in a virtual world" was coined by Chip Morningstar, on the LucasFilm Habitat team. Later, Neal Stephenson would use it in that way in Snow Crash and many credited him with it.

A few years ago I helped that correctly credited in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The Myers-Briggs data comes from a wonderful book called "21st Century Game Design" by Bateman & Boon. I recommend folks check it out. :)

I get the Ewok thing a lot. :)

In any case, I have explained my reason for that statement in a lengthy blog post:

http://www.raphkoster.com/2006/02/10/are-single-player-games-doomed/