Shakespeare MMO creator shares lessons learned

Dealing with failure of any kind doesn’t have to mean that you’re going to come out of the experience empty-handed. That’s what the experience of Edward Castronova, the man who attempted to bring us a Shakespearean MMO, teaches all of us. If you’re an aspiring MMO developer, better read the full article to check out what lessons he would like to share with us.

If any of you dear readers happen to be aspiring MMO makers, then you’d better stay put for a while and read this short article, so you may learn a few things based on another MMO developer hopeful. Edward Castronova, a professor at Indiana University, researcher of virtual economics and Shakespearean buff, decided to share the lessons he learned after attempting to create Arden, an MMO based on Shakespeare’s Richard III. The project was sadly dropped.

So why did he abandon the Shakespeare MMO project? While Castronova didn’t provide any specific details, he did admit that “It’s no fun. We failed to design a gripping experience.” But he did learn a thing or two from the experience which he shared with Wired magazine. Check them out:

• Don’t assume it’s easy, even if you have a great idea
• Start small — you don’t need a huge development studio to flesh out your basic gameplay concepts
• Know your audience — apparently the game-playing world isn’t ready for an MMO where the strongest attack is a triple-level pun
• Hire developers who can focus on the job, not students who had educational deadlines to pursue
• Admit when it’s going south

However, this doesn’t mean that Castronova has entirely abandoned the idea of creating an MMO, and said he will create a hack n’ slash version Dungeons and Dragons type of MMO. But will it still feature Shakespearean verses?