How do free-to-play games make money?
How do free-to-play games make money? By tricking players into buying just a little help: A coercive monetization model depends on the ability to “trick” a person into making a purchase with incomplete...
View ArticleD&D and UX
I don’t know if enjoying this video means you’ve made or failed your save against geek-hipsterism:
View ArticleKing’s Table
Hnefatafl, or King’s Table, was the chess, the checkers, the go, and the Nintendo of the Norse during the Viking Age: Today, only dedicated tabletop gamers have ever heard of it and many of them have...
View ArticleAssault on Equestria
Geeks do manage to procreate sometimes, which explains the Assault on Equestria game: To begin with, we assembled teams. She used eight of her ponies, including the core 6, Princess Celestia and Miss...
View ArticleFunny Little Wars
Noted science-fiction author — and pacifist — H.G. Wells created the modern hobby of miniature wargaming 100 years ago, with Little Wars — “a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and...
View ArticleThe Burdens of Shaohao
Although I enjoyed the early real-time strategy games, I haven’t had much interest in the massively multiplayer World of Warcraft roleplaying game. I must admit though that Blizzard has put together...
View ArticleAugmented-Reality Sandbox
This augmented-reality sandbox turns actual sand into a wonderful user interface for studying topography:
View ArticleNext War: Korea
Looking at the map that comes with the war game Next War: Korea tells you a number of things about a potential second Korean War: First, the mountain ranges in the middle of the peninsula split any...
View ArticleWhy Dungeons & Dragons Beats Videogames Like Grand Theft Auto V
David M. Ewalt explains — in the Wall Street Journal — why Dungeons & Dragons beats videogames like Grand Theft Auto V: After four decades of accelerating technological and artistic growth, even...
View ArticleRed Nails
Tim Callahan and Mordicai Knode look back at Appendix N of the original Dungeon Masters Guide — Gygax’s list of inspirational and educational reading — in their Advanced Readings in Dungeons &...
View ArticleTom Clancy, Gamemaster
When I learned that Tom Clancy passed away, I was surprised, because I didn’t think he was that old. He wasn’t. He was just 66. I’ve been meaning to read some Clancy since, well, forever. I didn’t...
View ArticleAndre Norton’s Forerunner
Just looking at the cover art to Andre Norton’s Forerunner will start you thinking about Dungeons and Dragons, Mordicai Knode says, as the pitch black skin and pale white hair match Gygax’s vision of...
View ArticleHow Larry Bond Met Tom Clancy
Larry Bond was a US Navy officer when he published his war game, Harpoon, in 1980 — which brought him to Tom Clancy’s attention: Foreign Policy: How did you and Tom Clancy meet? Larry Bond: Harpoon was...
View ArticleThe Golden Voyage of Sinbad
The Golden Voyage of Sinbad is the second of the three Sinbad films that Ray Harryhausen made for Columbia. It was released in 1973 — 15 years after The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. It struck me as very…...
View ArticleVideogames Become a Spectator Sport
Videogames are increasingly becoming spectator sports — which I find baffling: On any given day, Jayson Love fires up a personal computer from his Billings, Mont., home and starts his job — playing...
View ArticleKorean Gamer, Kim Dong-hwan Gets Special U.S. Visa
Professional StarCraft player Kim Dong-hwan couldn’t get a student visa to come to the US, but he could get an athletic visa: His manager, Andrew Tomlinson, put together a lengthy application of around...
View ArticleDwarf Fortress: A Marxist Analysis
I’ve never played Dwarf Fortress, the supremely complex simulation game, and I’m certainly not a Marxist, but I enjoyed this (somewhat) Marxist analysis of the game: What one does in Dwarf Fortress is...
View ArticleVolko Ruhnke
The Washington Post profiles War game designer Volko Ruhnke: In the ’90s, while at the CIA, Ruhnke designed a role-play session for his work friends. The Seven Years’ War role-play morphed into a board...
View ArticleThe Man Who Built The Settlers of Catan
Klaus Teuber was working, unhappily, as a dental technician when he created The Settlers of Catan: First published in Germany in 1995 as Die Siedler von Catan, the game has sold more than eighteen...
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