Bruce Sterling Woodcock (born 1970) is an American computer and video games industry analyst, best known for his work on subscription tracking of massively multiplayer online games via his website MMOGCHART.COM.
Bruce Sterling Woodcock (born 1970) is an American computer and video games industry analyst, best known for his work on subscription tracking of massively multiplayer online games via his website MMOGCHART.COM.
Woodcock was born in the small farming community of Sullivan, Missouri, on June 20, 1970, the youngest of three children to Myron and Mary Woodcock. He graduated from Sullivan Senior High School in 1988, and then went on to Purdue University, studying physics, philosophy, and computer science. In 1989, he became involved in internet gaming on early MUDs, and in 1990, was briefly running two of the largest TinyMUDs of the time, TinyMUD Classic and Islandia. His original online handle was Sir Bruce Sterling, which was later shortened to Sir Bruce when he began posting on message boards.
Leaving college early, he moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1991, where he began a career in information technology. In 1993, he moved to San Jose, California, where he subsequently worked as a system administrator at early internet service provider Netcom (USA), and then Network Appliance, eventually leaving in 1997 with $250,000 in stock options. He started to maintain a presence on the Yahoo! financial message boards as he closely tracked the performance of Network Appliance, helped the company's fortunes, and built his own portfolio to $3 million.
With the advent of the MMOGs, Chron X and Ultima Online in 1997, Woodcock became a player and beta-tester for this genre of game. He invested in and joined the board of directors for Playnet and their game World War II Online , and in August 2002, began his research, reporting, and tracking of MMOG subscription numbers, which has become a standard of reference both inside and outside the MMOG industry. In November 2004 his work was moved to its own dedicated website, MMOGCHART.COM. The site has not been updated since May 2008.
Woodcock currently lives in San Jose, working as an independent game consultant and analyst for the MMOG industry. He is a member of the International Game Developers Association, and has spoken on game industry topics at trade shows such as the Austin Game Conference.
A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making regarding character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.
Simutronics is an American online games company whose products include GemStone IV and DragonRealms. It was founded in 1987 by David Whatley, with husband and wife Tom & Susan Zelinski. The company is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It became part of the Stillfront Group in 2016.
A multiplayer video game is a video game in which more than one person can play in the same game environment at the same time, either locally on the same computing system, on different computing systems via a local area network, or via a wide area network, most commonly the Internet. Multiplayer games usually require players to share a single game system or use networking technology to play together over a greater distance; players may compete against one or more human contestants, work cooperatively with a human partner to achieve a common goal, or supervise other players' activity. Due to multiplayer games allowing players to interact with other individuals, they provide an element of social communication absent from single-player games.
Destination Games was an American computer game development company created in April 2000 by Richard Garriott, Robert Garriott and Starr Long, following their departure from Origin Systems.
A massively multiplayer online game is an online video game with a large number of players on the same server. MMOs usually feature a huge, persistent open world, although there are games that differ. These games can be found for most network-capable platforms, including the personal computer, video game console, or smartphones and other mobile devices.
Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in February 2015 and renamed Daybreak Game Company. On December 1, 2020, Daybreak Game Company entered into an agreement to be acquired by Enad Global 7.
Scott Jennings, also known as Lum the Mad, is an American commentator on MMORPG games. He is best known for creating a website, The Rantings of Lum The Mad, a pioneer blog, which existed from 1998 to 2001, when Jennings was hired by MMO developer Mythic Entertainment, where he remained until 2006.
Mythic Entertainment was an American video game developer based in Fairfax, Virginia that was most widely recognized for developing the 2001 massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot. Mythic was a prolific creator of multiplayer online games following its establishment in the mid-1990s.
Raphael "Raph" Koster is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies. From 2006 until 2013 he worked as the founder and president of Metaplace producing a Facebook game platform.
Richard Allan Bartle FBCS FRSA is a British writer, professor and game researcher in the massively multiplayer online game industry. He co-created MUD1 in 1978, and is the author of the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds.
(Conrad) Gordon Walton, Jr. is an American video game developer and executive producer who has worked with many North American online game companies, from Maxis to Electronic Arts to Sony Online to BioWare. Since 1977 he has personally developed over thirty games, and overseen development of hundreds more, working as a producer, vice-president or executive producer. He is currently Executive Producer of the Kickstarter-backed MMORPG Crowfall.
The Multiverse Network, Inc. was an American startup company creating a network and platform for massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and 3D virtual worlds. Multiverse's stated aim was to lower the barrier of entry for development teams by providing a low-cost software platform for online game and virtual world development.
WarCry Network was a web portal centered on the MMO genre of video games. It boasted a large community of professional web sites and databases for these games. One of the regular features at WarCry.com were exclusive interviews with game developers and game company executives.
The history of massively multiplayer online games spans over thirty years and hundreds of massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) titles. The origin and influence on MMO games stems from MUDs, Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and earlier social games.
John De Margheriti is an Italian-born Australian electrical engineer, software developer and entrepreneur. De Margheriti is widely seen as a founding 'father' of Australia's video games industry and Australia's most experienced interactive entertainment business executive.
Micro Forté Pty Ltd is an Australian electronic entertainment company with development studios in Canberra and Sydney. Founded in 1985 by John De Margheriti at a time when there was little game development presence in Australia, Micro Forté has been closely linked to the growth of the Australian game development industry, with CEO De Margheriti initiating events such as the Australian Game Developers Conference (AGDC) and founding the Academy of Interactive Entertainment (AIE).
Jeffrey Todd Coleman is an American computer game designer and businessman. He is known for Shadowbane, released in 2003, and Wizard101, released in 2008. He was a founder at Wolfpack Studios, which was purchased by Ubisoft. He also worked at the KingsIsle Entertainment in Austin, Texas. On February 1, 2013, Coleman resigned from KingsIsle Entertainment to pursue other interests. He was most recently lead charlatan of the Kickstarter-backed MMORPG Crowfall.
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