Bartle: More Interested In Creating Worlds

By Misty Matonis | July 18, 2007 | | Filed under: News

Richard Bartle, creator of MUDs and a well-respected and highly regarded game designer, recently sat down with the Guardian for an interview about everything virtual. What really stood out was his responses regarding some of the more popular massively multiplayers such as Second Life and others:

My interest is creating worlds, not living in worlds created by others. At one level, I envy those people who can play them for fun, because it must be amazing to have somewhere to go for three or four hours every night of every week of every month, where you KNOW you’re going to have fun. At another level, though, I’m content, because I do get pleasure from virtual worlds – only I get it from the beauty of the design, not from the experience of playing.

It doesn’t take a lot of playing to get a handle on the design, either, so when I do play I don’t generally do so for long. Indeed, most of my understanding of a design comes from watching other people play and from reading about it on the web.

As for the world’s most popular massively multiplayer on the market, World of Warcraft?

I’d take over World of Warcraft and I’d close it. I just want better virtual worlds. Sacrificing one of the best so its players have to seek out alternatives would be a sure-fire way to ensure that unknown gems got the chance they deserved, and that new games were developed to push back the boundaries.