Evidence-Based Design

CCP has brought on an economist to monitor Eve’s economy. “His research is designed to provide players with information necessary to make strategic decisions, but is also expected to have an impact on future development of the game.”

He’s maintaining a blog.

I just rerolled on a new server in WoW, and I planned to get rich with skinning and herbalism. It’s only sort of working — ye olde bank alt has about 25 stacks of thick leather that I think I’m going to have to vendor. I wonder if leatherworking would get fixed if a goddamn economist pointed out that there’s no market in this shit.

The Three Rings guys have an awesome office. It looks like a lot of work has been done since the GDC party, where I waited in line for a very long time for a very strong Red Bull and vodka, then got locked in the secret room with a bunch of scary Burning Man people. Congratulations to Daniel James on the new job as a male model, too!

In other office news, apparently Bioware Austin is a laboratory.

“… in the end, it is a shame that for games like World of Warcraft the reimagining of the human condition does not extend to areas such as sex and gender.”