Web 2.0: boon or boondoggle?
"If you like Bejeweled, Pogo has Bejeweled. So does everyone else. Pogo also has Poppit, which is like Bejeweled, but with balloons. But again, everyone else has a Bejeweled clone, too. What everyone else doesn't have is a community."
Russ Pitts looks at the evolution of the casual space.
"'Players were happy to do stuff if our characters did it first. By the time we realized this simple truth, however, it was too late for some challenges. One of my characters was a 15-year-old girl, for example, so to show her with a WWO sign I needed to hire an actor, and I just couldn't arrange for an actor to play her in time.'"
Nova Barlow speaks to the creators of the ground-breaking Virtual reality Game, World Without Oil.
"It was an unmistakable feeling at the pit of my stomach that would be familiar to any gamer with even a hint of ego - a feeling that combines the shame of failure and the shame of caring so much about something so trivial.
"I felt like I was losing. At MySpace, of all things."
Kyle Orland exposes Web 2.0's elements of play.
"'Some people think negatively about the 'mass market,' like they are some kind of dumb audience that developers have to lower standards for. I look at it differently, I think these are simply people that our industry has not delivered a game for yet, that makes them want to dive into this very expensive hobby. When they see the game that fits with their life interests, they will dive in.'"
Stuart Young speaks to Acclaim's Dave Perry about Top Secret.
"The story is a call to action for the players. The sites and leaked tracks are material sent back in time by the resistance as a warning. The players found it inspirational. At concerts, fans wear homemade resistance-branded T-shirts, but that's just the tip of the iceberg."
Richard Perrin dissects the Nine Inch Nails Alternate Reality Game, Year Zero.
