Glitch

[Laethaka]

pretty fun! but still very Beta-ish



www.glitch.com/

[Morreion]

Hah! They're doing a lot with Flash these days!

[Morreion]

Why I Play[ed]: Glitch (Massively)

I love it when a game makes me feel something other than the rush of combat. These are virtual worlds, not just virtual combat arenas. I see combat in MMOs as a job -- an unrealistic one. Death is a joke in most MMOs; it's not scary at all. If a game can freeze me for a moment and make me feel a bit sad or can make me think "Oh." then it's done a wonderful thing. So many MMOs feature lore that mentions sad events or catastrophes, but rarely does any of them allow a player to experience one.

The story of Glitch: Why this odd MMO is shutting down (Gamasutra)

Glitch, the experimental MMO from Flickr developer Stewart Butterfield and his team Tiny Speck, is closing. Butterfield had been able to attract Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi and Journey producer Robin Hunicke, but what he couldn’t attract was players -- at least, he couldn’t attract enough players to keep the game viable from a business perspective, he tells Gamasutra.

Just over two weeks ago, Tiny Speck revealed that the game will soon close. Gamasutra spoke to Butterfield to find out more about why his attempt to create, as he put it in 2010, "something that I feel like has been the right balance of social hang out, social experience, and enough of a game context" couldn't find the players it needed.

Glitch's creator on the game's failure: 'Too foreign of a concept' (Massively)

"Ultimately if I have to identify one thing as the problem -- I don't think there is just one -- but if I had to choose just one," Butterfield said, "I think the game was too foreign of a concept for most people."

He pointed out that while there was a devoted fan base who "got it," marketing the title presented severe problems throughout most of the game's lifespan: "There haven't ever been other non-combat MMOs that are based on absurdity, humor, and whimsy. I'm not sure anyone has the specific expertise in making this thing work."

Other failures that Butterfield identified was a lack of fun gameplay until recently, the decision to do the game in Flash instead of for mobile platforms, large expenditures of money, and Tiny Speck's big team drawing salaries.

MMObility: Why the closing of Glitch matters (Massively)

I hate to sound like an alarmist, but the MMO genre is slowing down and will eventually be replaced by casual, core, and single-player games that optionally host large numbers of players. I'm talking about FPS titles with multiplayer options and social games that provide enough of a social connection so that players do not need to seek out the real-time interactions that we MMO fans crave. Am I saying that MMOs will be destroyed completely? Not really. I am estimating that within a few years' time, pseudo-MMOs will take over the market. It could be argued that they already have, thanks to social games that allow players to occasionally interact with other players, those games pulling from Facebook's potential millions to play with.

What does this have to do with Glitch? Well, not only is Glitch a step forward in so many directions, but it successfully toes the lines between social, casual, core, sandbox, roleplay, and a dozen other genres, all within the confines of a browser.

Glitch preserves game memories via encyclopedia (Massively)

It's slightly unusual to get a "post-game update" from a closed MMO, but then again, Glitch always was unusual. Tiny Speck wrote a post to thank players for the support and encouragement received following last month's sunset and also to let everyone know that the team is preserving Glitch's art assets and memories through the website's encyclopedia under a Creative Commons license.

"When we shut off the servers on December 9th, players left thousands of notes scattered throughout the world. They were wonderful -- sometimes sad, sometimes funny, occasionally weird, and always heartfelt," the team wrote. To honor the players, the staff has included these notes in Glitch's encyclopedia on the location pages.

Takahashi shows off over 200 unused Glitch ideas (Massively)

It may be gone, but it's not forgotten. Tiny Speck's browser-based MMO Glitch closed late last year, but a recent addition to the game site's encyclopedia adds almost 200 internal design "Quick Ideas" from designer Keita Takahashi.