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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After much anticipation (at least by me), the developers at Build a Rocket* have just unveiled on Twitch an extensive teaser of their new metaverse platform, Everywhere. The studio was founded by Leslie Benzies, formerly president of Rockstar North, lead developer of the Grand Theft Auto franchise, so I’ve been wondering how a team with…
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As we wind down for the weekend, watch this super soothing Let's Play of Life by You, the reality simulation game from lead developer (and ex-Linden Lab CEO!) Rod Humble. The graphics still seem pretty rough, but the NPC interactions and breadth of gameplay options are coming along nicely. As a possible sign of incredible…
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Above: Adam Frisby in the Unity-based Breakroom (with Philip Rosedale) In case you missed it, after a couple weeks of volcanic pushback against a price increase announcement, Unity on Friday published details amending that quite a bit: Now, users on the Unity Personal subscription plan will not be charged the new fee, and Unity will…
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Second Life players party in Palia (pic via Gogo) Palia, a recently-launched, free-to-play MMO described by developers as a cozy community simulation game (read my 2021 post on it here) has seen a notable growth of one sub-community of players in particular: Second Life users. "All of my SL friends who joined, we're addicted," as…
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cyubeVR is easily among the most impressive-looking VR games I’ve come across, and while it launched in 2018, it just had a huge graphics optimization update. It’s now on sale on Steam until September 20. A voxel-based sandbox world, cyubVR (pronounced “cube VR”, of course) is credited as coming from Stonebrick Studios, but it’s really…
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Rooms.xyz is a new virtual world platform to play with; still in Beta, it's a deceptively simple (that is, actually powerful) interactive room creator/explorer on the web and iOS: Try on the web here For iOS, download the Alpha release on TestFlight here. Watch the intro demo above. I only started noodling with it myself,…
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Fun for the long Labor Day weekend — Viewfinder is 20% off on Steam until September 8: Challenge perception, redefine reality, and reshape the world around you with an instant camera. Viewfinder is a new single player game offering gamers hours of interesting and fun experiences while uncovering the mysteries left behind. Viewfinder is a…
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Early is later, sad to say: Life by You’s Early Access date has moved to March 5, 2024. We’re excited to take this time to continue improving Life by You, and can’t wait to continue to update you on our development! We appreciate everyone who has taken the time to Pre-Order, Wishlist, and leave us…
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It's been over 3 years since Viewfinder started out as a viral, brain-melting Unity demo, and now it's finally and fully playable on Steam and Playstation 5: Viewfinder is a mind-bending first person adventure game in which you can bring pictures to life by placing them into the world. It tells the story of the…
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Back in March we had our first in-depth preview of Life by You, the new life simulation game by ex-Linden Lab CEO / former EA/Sims lead Rod Humble, now here's a granular look at its avatar customization features — bodies and clothing above, more below (with an emphasis on facial characterization). It's a great look…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 