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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Stars Reach, Raph Koster's highly ambitious upcoming galaxy sandbox MMORPG, had its successful Kickstarter a few months ago, but longtime virtual world developer Matt Daly writes that a thriving player community has emerged — even before the crowdfunder. Groups are already evolving and building in fascinating ways: Stars Reach keeps subverting my preconceived notions of…
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Here's some new Roblox stats which caught my eye: Roblox reached 82.9 million daily active users in 2024 with 80% of those playing the popular game on mobile devices, according to Roblox's annual report. PC was the second most popular platform at just 17%, followed by consoles at 3%. Emphasis mine! Lately the company has been…
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After blogging about Palia's design mechanics for growing community earlier this month, and Dr. Ruth Diaz's thoughts on them, I got a chance to join Dr. Diaz on an embedded journey into Palia. Watch our tour above! Though you won't hear me speaking due to a technical glitch, I'm interviewing Dr. Diaz as she explores…
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Update, 10:35pm: To add some more background to this, IP brand lawyers have historically gone after users who've uploaded virtual world UGC recreations of their brand/copyrighted material as here and also here. Since its March 27th Early Access launch on Steam, life simulator/UGC platform inZOI from KRAFTON is already a solid hit, selling an estimated…
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April 4 Update: Everwinter is officially opening tomorrow (April 5) at Noon SLT — details here, click here to directly teleport. Read my Everwinter preview, originally posted on my Patreon, below: Click here to teleport to start adventuring in Everwinter, an ambitious new Second Life-based cyberpunk MMO from Nadir Taov, lead creator of the long-running…
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Set for early access next May, BitCraft from ClockWork Laboratories is worth wishlisting on Steam for including several features we want to see work: It's a rare single shard MMO, for one thing; for another, it's voxel-based, allowing players to edit/modify/build on the world with a high degree of freedom. Watch the Early Access trailer…
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I'm still downloading inZOI myself (Steam doesn't multi-task well with my super awesome AT&T broadband), so here's some gameplay videos to get some first impressions in. First up of course is longtime SL fashionista / blogger Gogo of Juicy Bomb, who blogs her inZOI gameplay here. "I'm not a gamer, but it's the easiest game…
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I’ve blogged a fair amount about Palia, the cozy social MMO, but Dr. Ruth Diaz has been diving deeply into it, and has an in-depth write up from her unique POV: With over 100 hours in, I can say: this isn’t just a game—it feels like a gentle experiment in what it means to listen…
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Unlike the Convai-powered human NPCs we were recently discussing, AI-powered animals are far more interesting, believable, and frankly, appealingly un-creepy. So if you're interested in the best and latest in AI-driven virtual creatures, here's a chance to get a free Alpha preview of Stay: Forever Home, an upcoming mixed reality game for Quest headsets where you…
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With the wildly ambitious life sim inZOI coming out later this week, here's a look at the game's Creative Studio, now available as a demo here — specifically the Build Studio, for customizing and creating buildings and living spaces. That's as opposed to the Character Studio, the demo of which went viral last year. How…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 