2006-12-21: Exclusive Interview With Raph Koster: Areae “…doing Microtransactions.”
Exclusive Interview With Raph Koster: Areae “…doing Microtransactions.”
by Amber Night
Amber Night: When choosing a company name, were there any other names on the shortlist that were simply too pronounceable for consideration?
Raph Koster: I did consider Aereae, Aereaae, and Aeaereaeaeae, as well as kooky crazy stuff like radixynth, tecelao, synthikat, various names based on the Sanskrit word “ylem,” and so on. They just didn’t have the same quality of simplicity and confusion, although they did meet the pretentiousness quotient. (You may now Google for word fragments out of that in order to ascertain what other dead languages I tried to steal from).
Raph Koster: Finding a name is, by the way, a pain in the ass. Now we have to do it all over again but with the product. I’m thinking no vowels this time. We used up our quotient anyway. How about Tghtgrddwq? Or maybe a name in Welsh.
Amber Night: That cute little graphic on the Areae website depicts everything from an ancient castle, to future tech, to androgynous silhouetted dancers, emphasizing the message of "many places." There is also a half hidden dog behind a building. Why do you hate pet classes? Also, does this idea of many worlds imply, perhaps, player-created worlds (or content?) within the context of a single game? Or is the truth much more sinister?
Raph Koster: I don’t hate pet classes! You’ll notice that the pet here is actually larger and more impressive than the car, the rocket, or the people. Be glad it’s only a puppy – if the graphic had included a full-grown pet hippo, all we’d see would be giant purple butt.
Raph Koster: Truth is never sinister. It’s more like callous, indifferent, unconcerned with how people view it.
Raph Koster: Notice how nicely I ducked the middle question there?
Amber Night: * shakes fists at heavens. Kosterrrr!)
Amber Night: On your website you mention that "we've got a cool world or two incubating on the back burner." Does it make your investors nervous that you don't know exactly how many worlds you have?
Raph Koster: Upon occasion they ask me about it, but then I dazzle them with doubletalk.
Amber Night: The website says "we're working on some new tech that will literally change how virtual worlds are made." Can you talk a little bit about what's wrong/inefficient with the current model, and what aspects Areae hopes to address? For example, you mentioned to Gamasutra that the traditional MMO client is "an accident of history." How will players experience your virtual world? Is this something we're going to be able to experience through our web browsers, and if so, aren't you worried that we'll all play it at work, be fired, and have to cancel our subscriptions?
Raph Koster: The current model has the following problems:
- it’s insanely expensive
- it takes forever
- therefore it breeds conservatism and lowest-common-denominator approaches
- it’s all “broadcast” based – the games work like Prodigy or AOL used to, before the Intarweb appeared with its miraculous tubes and saved us all.
Raph Koster: If you recall, AOL and Prodigy had custom proprietary clients too (AOL had to fill those CDs with something. Today though, we live in a very different world of digital delivery, user content, “small pieces loosely joined,” insert other gag-inducing Web cliché here. I think there’s a lot to learn from that model, because it’s in the midst of really ripping up other content industries and forcing them to top to bottom rethink how they do business.
Raph Koster: As your worries… play at work? Sounds good to us. Get fired… We care deeply about our hypothetical customers, and don’t want something bad to happen to them. Cancel subscriptions? There you go, jumping to conclusions on business model again. Next, you’ll accuse me of doing microtransactions.
Amber Night: I wouldn't dream of spreading such a nasty rumor.)
Amber Night: As a player in Tertio Life (which, my sources tell me, is your project's codename) can I expect a traditional experience in terms of class-based/skill-based characters, or something radically different? I.e., does a re-thinking of the traditional MMO also mean a re-thinking of our in-game personae? Also, will everyone still just roll a Shaman?
Raph Koster: I think people LIKE characters. They LIKE avatars. And like snowflakes, they all want theirs to be unique and different and completely indistinguishable from anyone else at a distance of five feet. I think you should expect a mix of traditional and non-traditional here. Shamans not included.
Amber Night: Obviously, at least until more details are revealed, people are going to be comparing Project Tertio Life to Second Life, because, you know, we're sheep. But I think the big question people are asking is: "will I be able to buy a pair of Air Jordon's in Tertio Life, or will I be relegated to buying Payless™, at least until the first expansion? (assuming of course that your new technology hasn't made expansions obsolete–or do I know too much now?)
Raph Koster: I already said that “we’re as different from Second Life as we are from EverQuest.” So the comparisons are all interesting to see.
Raph Koster: Currently, our sneaker support is fairly limited. But hey, we’re not even in alpha yet.
Amber Night: You wrote a Declaration of the Rights of Avatars a few years back. How well you think its ideals have held up over the last 6 years, and what impact, if any, does it have on your project?
Raph Koster: It has a lot of impact. I think you should expect that we’ll step up to the plate on something like this, and really take users seriously. It’d be hypocritical of me not to. I think the ideals have held up fairly well, though the precise wording probably needs to be updated a lot, given that many things have changed a bit here and there. Today, were I writing it again, there’d be more in there about user IP, there’s be more accommodation for alternate business models like mocrotransactions, and so on.
Raph Koster: Hey, this question wasn’t funny. What gives?
Amber Night: If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be? (Sorry, I'm kinda new at this interview thing…)
Raph Koster: Clearly, I’m not a linden tree. My actual tree nature is as yet unannounced, but I expect an article on TechCrunch about it any day now. Once I know, I’ll let you know.
Amber Night: Thank you Raph!
References:
