Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: New World Gaming
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First Class Trouble is a new indie game in Early Access on Steam, and it's next on my list to play. (Soon as I master Fights in Tight Spaces, but that's another story.) To judge by early footage, First Class gameplay is a fairly clever combination of Among Us (but highly immersive) meets BioShock (bloody…
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Above: Image from ROBLOX's stock filing, data from the first 9 months of 2020 As expected, Roblox's IPO today was massive: What makes Roblox different from other online game platforms is that it lets users create their own games on the platform. Developers receive 30% of the proceeds generated from a game, such as the sale…
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Here's a new look at the latest gameplay test of Seed, the ambitious planet colonization MMO from Klang Games, featuring resource-gathering, world exploration, combat, and more. I'm somewhat biased but so far I'm admiring the streamlined elegance of the user interface and the art. Klang's Sabrina Seltenreich tells me the team is already seeing some…
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Speaking of creating virtual worlds with in-game modeling/scripting tools, behold: The Core Invitational Game Jam, awarding $120,000 in prizes to games created on the platform. (Think Unreal meets ROBLOX.) Details: Manticore Games, creators of the Core platform for making and playing games, is calling on all indie game devs, creators and modders to apply now…
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Dreams, the Playstation 4 exclusive from Media Molecule, is a virtual world creation platform with what look to be some of the most impressive and user-friendly creation tools on the market, incredible user-generated content like this, and has at least nearly 1.4 million user accounts. (According to this Media Molecule account, which new users auto-follow…
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IMVU just announced the availability of VCOIN, an Ethereum-based digital currency for use in its virtual world with 7 million active users — and, by design, for buying and selling goods and services in the real world, too. From the announcement: Available now for the IMVU desktop, mobile web, and web platforms, VCOIN is seamlessly…
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Quick: At a glance, which of the screenshots above was taken in Grand Theft Auto Online, the massively popular open world MMO launched in 2013, and which was shot in Second Life, the niche sandbox construction MMO launched in 2003? (Click to embiggen!) Not sure? OK, try this one: This should be easier because Grand…
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Based on Steam user stats, I've assumed Rec Room trailed far behind VRChat. but that's reportedly wrong. While Rec Room is currently peaking at 1,428 concurrent users on Steam, the world's design lead, Shawn Whiting, tells me via Twitter that Valve's platform is just a small piece of Rec Room's usage pie: "Steam is our…
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With visuals evoking a Miyazaki movie you forgot to watch and a story reminiscent of a Haruki Murakami story you forgot to read, the coming-soon indie game Season (for PS5 and PC on Steam) looks utterly gorgeous, an immersive journey that's both nostalgic and otherworldly: Close your eyes, take a deep breath and let yourself…
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"This month has been great… if you're a shady individual of questionable morality." So begins the latest report from Charlie Traveler, reporter for Dual Universe Stellar Transmissions from the Dark Star Imperium clans… which is also the latest sign that a rich user community and culture is emerging in Dual Universe, the highly-ambitious, single-shard metaverse…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 