An article today in Technology Review offers a cautionary tale about designing multiplayer online games. Edward Castronova, an associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University at Bloomington, has been using a $250,000 MacArthur grant to test economic theories by manipulating rules in a game called Arden: the World of William Shakespeare. The only problem with the game, Castronova is quoted as saying: “It’s no fun.”
“You need puzzles and monsters,” he says, “or people won’t want to play. … Since what I really need is a world with lots of players in it for me to run experiments on, I decided I needed a completely different approach.”
The article says that a game on the scale of World of Warcraft costs about $75-million to develop, so as generous as the MacArthur folks might be, Arden may seem a little lean.
Mr. Castronova is giving the public Arden as is, says the article, along with this guidance for other academics who think their research might translate into virtual fun: “What we’ve really learned is, you’ve got to start with a game first.” — Alex Kafka
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