Worlds are everywhere, we need new skills to run them.
World building, virtual worlds, entertainment worlds, media franchises, corporate worlds, theme park design, XR/VR, volumes, escape rooms, tabletop games, undirected play, hybrid/mixed reality storytelling, and much much more.
From over the horizon a new discipline is emerging:
World Running
‘World Runner’ was first coined in 2020 as portmanteau of worldbuilder + showrunner. In time I belive the term will come to encompass so much more.
Cohesive worlds are hybrid environments made up of the people, places, and technologies that create them. Running worlds, is now what I’d like to do professionally, full time.
Hearing the term World running for the first time was like being struck by lightning. Wording worlds, and figuring out how to run them is literally what I’ve been doing doing with my life.
Read the essay collection @ worldrunning.guide
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World Running 🌐
Autonomous Worlds: Misusing The Money Machine | 2339
Exploring blockchain’s shift from finance to creating games in digital universes. A look at this tech’s new role in gaming and virtual…
Why Don Quixote is So Great | 2336
Unpacking ‘Don Quixote’s timeless narrative, linking its chivalric setting to modern fan fiction and intellectual property debates.
Worlds Resemble Other Worlds | 2334
Worlds resemble other worlds and we adopt world(view)s when we recognise them. Some worlds we have agency in, others we don’t.
Presence in Worlds | 2333
What’s the difference between experiencing Presence and Immersion in a world? Or in techno-social systems of any kind?
World(view) | 2327
Written down this way, world(view) suggests that the world is outside of – and much bigger – than any single perspective of…
The Rise of Co-Play: The Future of Multiplayer Software | 2325
I regret to inform you, for better or worse, the future of societal coordination and maybe even politics will emerge from gamer…
Worlds A Walk Though
In May I went to Lisbon to give the opening talk at the Autonomous Worlds Summit. The first outing for some of…
Autonomous Worlds Summit – Lisbon
I attended the Autonomous Worlds Summit last week. In the last year; unstoppable, infinitely moddable worlds built on the blockchain have become…
Dial M for Metaverse | 2317
Both Choose Your Own Adventure gamebooks & phone tree menu systems are progeny of the explosion of creativity that happened after D&D…
Hiring Soon: World Runner | Design Fiction
I recently travelled to the near future. Unfortunately all I could bring back was this PDF of the job description for a…
Lore as Lens | 2313
The growing importance of lore reflects the rise of a new kind cultural sense-making and social technology.
MUDs to Metaverse: The Unreal Estate Deal | 2308
Costly virtual land in the metaverse today is a result of memory constraints on mainframes. A solution to a problem that no…
What a Difference A(I) Week Makes | 2307
In less than 6 weeks we’ve gone from ‘OpenAI’s chatbot is weird but interesting’ to ‘Google is doomed because they’re not shipping…
Cultural Fracking | CMF 2023 Annual Trends Report
I was interviewed by the Canada Media Fund, as they have included a *whole chapter* on Cultural Fracking in their 2023 Annual…
Good Taste Online | 2303
Given the affordances of different social media platforms. How does one demonstrate taste in the digital realm?
Geocity and the City | 2302
This episode is about what happens when the metaphors we use change. But mostly it’s about Geocities.
Unstoppable, Infinitely Moddable, Autonomous Worlds
Unstoppable, Infinitely Moddable, Autonomous Worlds are coming.
Goncharov’s New Dabloons | 2242
It’s not the truth of a cultural object that matters. But the collective truth that arises from consensus of interpretation.
Metaverse: As Good a Word as Any | 2239
In the twilight age of Web 2, Metaverse is as good a word as any for people who wish to re-imagine the…
Mickey in the Metaverse | 2235
As a symbol of the copyright regime of the 20thC. A permissive Mickey in the metaverse seems like an interesting experiment to…
In the Other Room
After a few minutes of careful listening I said ‘It sounds like a man peeing into a bucket standing up next to…
Metaverse & Monsters | Thoughts on One D&D
For nearly 50 years D&D has been container for managing how people should interact and behave with one another, together, In a…
How The World Alive, Swings
How Swing, Jazz, Ritual, Folktales, Pop Songs, DAOs and Virtual Worlds, Weed and the Metaverse are all connected.
Pinball Wizard | 2228
Pinball Wizard is the name for a 1970’s cyborg. People who first entered a world inside a machine and ‘touched’ the metaverse.
Evenly Distributed | 2226
In 1974 on the PLATO mainframe system there was a 32-player 3D networked first person space flight simulation game.
Navigation Styles | 2225
A world has to allow players to change their play style as they learn more about themselves in the context of the…
Win Condition | 2224
The ultimate victory condition in the most popular online worlds right now is to be left alone.
Lost Zone. Hiking the Dawn of Metaverse
I just received my contributors copy of Lost Zone. Hiking the Dawn of Metaverse. A book about Active Worlds – the 90’s…
Brainworms | 2222
‘Someone has brainworms’, is a recognition that an individual is behaving in a way not congruent with dominant cultural logics.
Metaverse as Medium | 2220
Why I think the metaverse is important, MUDs, the web as 30 year long distraction, and why worlding worlds means shaping reality.
Marriage in the Metaverse | 2218
8th May 1996, 26 years ago tomorrow. Tomas Landhaus and Janka Stanhope were married in the metaverse. Plus my chapter in the…
Wind-up Worlds
Wind-up Worlds, Web3, World Running and the urgent collective pivot we need to make towards Slow Social experiences.
Web Surfin’ UXA | 2216
After you reduce your social media intake. You need to re-learn how to use the Internet.
Nomic Kennings
I’ve thinking about ‘Nomic’ this week. A game system created in 1982 by philosopher Peter Suber
Talking Mechanics and Worlding With Paul Czege | World Running
I spoke with Games Designer Paul Czege abut the emerging concept of World Running. We discuss the end of play as narrative…
Power Fandoms | 2134
With Web3 enabled Permissive IP frameworks, Power Fandoms will own, produce and share the value created by their worlds. They are coming…
A Napster Moment For Collective Storytelling | 2133
Experienced Future shock this week with the launch of three NFT projects: LOOT, The Logged Universe, and Lifeforms. Permissive IPs are coming.…
Talking Improv and Trust With Dr Alex Fradera | World Running
I spoke to Alex Fradera about World Running. We talk: Improv Theatre, Clowning, Rule Breaking, RPGs, Drama, ‘Unfolding’ vs ‘Change’ and more.
The Hybrid / Hyper Reality of Worlds | 2126
A conversation with Paul Czege, RPGs, Worlding worlds, and the experiences and memories that we acquire in them.
Techno-Pastoral Frontier
I’ve spent most of my week either; inside, thinking about or writing about the 1990’s era MMO/ metaverse game Active Worlds.
Abstract Objects | 2040
Coding python, pythagorean cult visualisation exercises, code loops, empirically felt variations in experience, and psychedelic technology criticism.
Animal Crossing Is The Place For Taste | 2019
Grammars of Virtual Worlds and the demonstration of taste within the constraints of the toy box that is Animal Crossing
Craving Canon
Canon, fandom, solarpunk, narrative, cultural fracking and other problems with story worlds in 2020
Role For A Thought Leadership Check | 2008
How DnD, Stats and Simulation may have fucked up modernity.
Landscapes Like Mixtapes | 2003
I want to say to a friend halfway around the world who’s with me in a simulation: Come with me, I made…
