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Will Harvey On There Not Being There Anymore?

Posted by simoniker on from the there's-a-there-there dept.

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Will Harvey, founder of There Inc., after the virtual world creator announced this week that it "is reevaluating its consumer-side game environment, giving itself 90 days to determine if a licensing-only model might offer a more secure upside to the company." Harvey explains that he has "left the company and I'm no longer on the board", and describes his original vision of There: "to support all the kinds of rich interactivity and human experience that top-tier video games are capable of, but in a single, unified world where everything works together." When asked to describe the problems with 'virtual world' products, he suggests: "If you look at the nongenre MMORPGS--There, Second Life, The Sims Online--they are all version 1 products that won't really be complete until version 37. The challenge is making version 1 commercially viable."

3 of 23 comments (clear)

  1. Who in the what where? by DeadboltX · · Score: 3, Funny

    Most - Confusing - Title - EVAR!

  2. Holy cats by Twirlip+of+the+Mists · · Score: 2, Funny

    If you'd tried, I mean really tried hard, it might have been possible to come up with a worse headline than this one.

    --

    I write in my journal
  3. The non-genre card by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Fact is, a game is a game no matter what tileset you're using. I think There's problem was more a lack of focus on game mechanic than any sort of marketing or technological failure. Looking at there's site their attraction is "play cards on an island and meet some new people" and "chat with people all over the world. I can register for a free Yahoo! games account and presumably get Yahoo Instant Messenger or AIM. There, I can play cards and chat with millions of people around the world for free already. That's just not a compelling experience and certainly not compelling enough to make me want to upgrade my computer, run a particular OS, pay for some subscription, or even have to install some client software when it can all be done from any computer on the road with a web browser.

    People are drawn to the typical mmorpg for many reasons, most of which I don't necessarily find healthy, but at least some of them are only possible outside reality. There and The Sims Online only manage to accomplish experiences that point out just how hollow a world without substance can be.