Video of Raph pitching Metaplace:

(via Kim Pallister)

It's interesting, though I'm mildly disappointed; I wanted the investor pitch, instead of Raph describing the technology. But gives a better sense of what MetaPlace is than the press release. One thing that isn't at all clear is "how do we make money?" Of course the answer may be "Revenues are distraction," in the words of Yossi Vardi, founder of ICQ. In other words, the end-game is attracting a huge number of users and selling out to a big web firm (as Vardi did--to AOL for $400m, and as YouTube did, for $1.6b to Google).

Also, Damion Schubert has a smart post on why MetaPlace might work (which also has some nice bits on MUD history).
posted by Greg at 1:21 PM

A three year-old asks you to sing a song, and this is what you dredge up:

This machine, it played one
It pushed start and program run
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played two,
Overloaded voltage to the CPU,
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played three
Designed its memory to one IC
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played four
Changed its logic from And to Or
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played five
Dumped its memory to tape drive
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played six
Told the CE what to fix
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played seven
Printed out the road to heaven
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played eight
Shipped itself to Rome air freight
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played nine
Told the Pope it was divine
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

This machine, it played ten
To sing once more press Start again
It's an IBM 360/85
This computer came alive.

posted by Greg at 9:02 PM

Well, two things.

Barry Diller buys majority stake in Garage Games. Apparently to launch a new site called InstantAction where you'll be able to play "rich" 3D games in the browser. Hard to know exactly what this means, but reading between the lines, my assumption is that the Torque engine becomes a browser plug-in, and the games delivered there can be smaller because the engine doesn't have to be packaged with the executable--so they become downloadable and playable in the browser in a reasonable amount of time (at least over broadband).

If that's what it is, it's cute technology. On the other hand, isn't that what Wild Tangent was supposed to do originally?

And Raph announces Metaplace. Some interesting claims, and again hard to know what this really is, but it sort of looks like "virtual world mark-up language." Could be quite cool if half the claims are true.
posted by Greg at 5:54 AM

We just launched a new site, called Play This Thing. It'll feature a game a day--free games, interactive fiction, mods, and weird stuff like alternative reality and "big urban" games, as well, of course, as independent games.

When we launched the Manifesto site, we expected it to be a content-and-community site as well as an online retailer. That hasn't turned out as well as we had hoped; "The Word," our pages with reviews and articles about games, never got a lot of traffic--and in any event, reviews there sat a little uneasily on a site that was trying to sell you stuff. It was also not updated frequently enough to draw much repeat traffic--and perhaps was too much inspired by print magazine reviews. Online, where a demo download is a click away, short squibs are perhaps more useful than lengthy reviews--quick reading, and enough to give you a sense of whether it's worth your time to check the game out.

Also, I wanted to celebrate the full range of creativity in games outside the mainstream, including games that we ourselves don't necessarily sell--free games, games from people who haven't signed up to sell here, and so on. Play This Thing lets us do that, without confusing the Manifesto Games mission unduly. Of the five games on the front page at launch, for instance, only two are ones we sell.

When Play This Thing features a game that Manifesto sells, we'll link back to the Manifesto site for purchase, of course--but we'll be covering a lot of games we don't sell, too. In essence, we're divvying up responsibilities: Manifesto Games becomes an ecommerce site, while Play This Thing takes care of content and community.

Give it a look...
posted by Greg at 10:43 AM