Has Raph Koster given up on the MMORPG?

Is Metaplace an evolution of the MMORPG or is it an evolution of MySpace?

If Richard Garriot is geekdom's Messiah who delivered on to us, the MMORPG, then Raph Koster can be described as both a prophet and Saint of Nerdness. Richard Garriot is currently working on mediocre functional MMORPG titles for NCSoft such as the lukewarm Tabula Rasa and planning his 2008 space mission on the heels of a recent layoff which saw a reduction in force of approximately 20% over at NCSoft.

A few miles south, Raph Koster currently heads up a cutting edge technology company called Areae which had generated industry buzz in 2006 by announcing a vague and very generalized overview of their super secret project "a tech that will literally change how virtual worlds are made." MMORPG fans rejoiced when the prophet delivered his message. Unfortunately, the announcement eventually materialized into Metaplace, a web based social community experiment still in the alpha testing stage.

What? Why? What about the next MMORPG?!? Raph Koster served as the lead designer for Ultima Online before moving on to be the creative force behind Star Wars Galaxies, the MMORPG that thinks it can, but routinely falls short of expectations. Unlike recent "visions" we've been subjected to over the past year or so, Raph Koster's vision of Star Wars Galaxies and the sandbox MMORPG was truly a revolutionary idea that had widespread support, but unfortunately was sunk by corporate mismanagement and the Satan of geekdom, John Smedley.

Raph's portfolio as Chief Creative Officer of Sony Online Entertainment from 2003 to 2006 includes some of what I personally feel are the best role playing games and MMORPG's of late, including Everquest II, EQ2 Kingdom of the Sky expansion, Champions: Return to Arms for PS2 and Untold Legends.

Surely, another groundbreaking MMORPG must be in the works. Hanging on to every word like most desperate gamers so often do, at least one of Areae's "other virtual world projects on the backburner" (as stated on the Areae website) must be an MMORPG.

In my eyes, Raph Koster rightfully deserves his bust on a pedestal in the Halls of Geekdom. Fast Forward to Game Developer's Conference 2008 where he spoke at a private lunch and announced Flash gaming as the next gen console.

<insert record scratching noise here>

This was first reported in article on GamesIndustry.Biz by Matt Martin. In the article Matt provided us with several Koster quotes, but the most intriguing one for those of us who have high hopes for massively multiplayer projects beyond Metaplace was this one:

"I actually think Flash is the next-gen console in a lot of ways. It's pointing the way to the future more-so than the current generations of hardware, precisely because it is well on its way to becoming completely ubiquitous." he said, "That's an upheaval because right now retail PC [gaming] is in dire straits. There are some exceptions but overall you look at audience reach, quantity of games made and creativity of games, and the web is kicking the console industry's ass."

So here we are, wondering if a great MMORPG talent such as Raph Koster has given up on the MMORPG industry for greener pastures. Pastures cut and paste into a flash application in a web browser.

While a flash based social gaming project that encompasses the entire hardware spectrum is a truly revolutionary idea that will probably be extremely successful, it's definitely something Raph can and probably will pull off, it doesn't leave much hope for MMORPG players. While Metaplace sounds like a fun idea that can keep you busy creating web based virtual worlds, I just don't think it's what most MMORPG players are looking for. Is Metaplace really the nextgen MMORPG or is it the nextgen MySpace?