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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Core, the Unreal-based, user-generated game development platform from startup Manticore (think Fortnite meets ROBLOX) just announced a pretty uniquely generous reward program for select user creators — build a game that a lot of other Core users play, and get a lot of direct cash payments: We designed the Creator Payouts Pilot Program around one…
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Launched as a Kickstarter project four years ago as a single-shard MMO with voxel-based user-generated content, Dual Universe is finally just about here: Starting at a monthly subscription of $6.99, the beta will have a range of different pricing models. The three month subscription is set at $20.97, six months will be $36.44, and 12…
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Control Zee is a game startup which just raised $3 million to develop and launch a platform that deploys "massively interactive swarm games" that 1000s of people can play at the same time: Creators or livestreamers can use Dot Big Bang to build their own games and play them with their communities during a stream,…
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Photos aren't the only thing you can explore in Viewfinder #madewithunity #gamedev #edwardhopper pic.twitter.com/iLKS8eMWmb — Matt Stark (@mattstark256) June 21, 2020 https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Remember Viewfinder, that cerebellum-straining indie game in development by Matt Stark featuring some insanely cool recursion effects? After some delay , Matt is still tinkering away it and adding new mechanics — including…
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When game developer Robin Hunicke told me about Journey, the acclaimed 2012 game she produced that's finally available to play on the PC via Steam, she mentioned an interesting origin story: It was conceived at first as a kind of MMO/virtual world experience. I just heard from Journey director Jenova Chen, who shared these amazing…
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Journey, the acclaimed game that began its life as a Playstation title in 2012, is now (finally!) available to play on the PC via Steam. An enthralling, emotionally poignant trek toward a high mountain, the player must guide a robed figure across wastelands and civilization's remains, sometimes assisted by another robed figure who may be…
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Pictured: Animal Crossing character currently being sold on eBay Anyone who's played and followed virtual worlds for any moderate length of time could have predicted this would happen after Nintendo's Animal Crossing became a massive phenomenon — but apparently, Nintendo itself didn't see it coming: [I]f people want a certain villager, sellers offer the ability…
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Last February I told you about Core, the Unreal-based project from Manticore Games, when it was taking signs-ups for closed Alpha testers under NDA. David Chiu, the company's Senior Creator Relations Lead, just let me know the NDA has been lifted, and Core is now officially in open Alpha — and sent me this video above,…
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Well, maybe next door to Linden Lab on 940 Battery Street in SF, for the low low price of 31,500 UPX. This is Upland, a new virtual real estate acquisition game — sorta Monopoly meets the real world, where virtual land is registered on the EOS blockchain — and as it happens, is the first…
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The comment thread to last week's "Why Do So Many Gamers Passionately Want Star Citizen To Fail?" was definitely more civil and thoughtful than the brigade of Star Citizen hate that my first post on Chris Robert's crowdfunded MMO attracted. While the level of rage remains a mystery to me, I do have some more…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 