Request Expert

Expert co-wrote the first virtual world, MUD; he has thus been at the forefront of the MMORPG industry from its very inception. He divides his time equally between being an industry consultant and an academic specialising in virtual worlds. His 2003 book on the design of virtual worlds is the standard text on the subject, and he is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design and development.In 2010, he was winner of the inaugural Game Developers Conference Online Legend award.

He spent a week on site advising the designers of a current major AAA MMORPG. It's the nature of such work that NDAs preclude discussion of which MMORPG this is, however it's one of the top five.He spent a week helping a start-up with the design of their proposed MMORPG. They had lots of excellent ideas, except for how they would raise the AU$30m they needed to develop it.He spent a day analysing the problems facing a company's failing attempts to break into the non-game virtual world market, on behalf of their investors. He recommended that further investment not be forthcoming...He spent two weeks going through the design document of an in-development MMORPG, checking for errors, omissions and acts of lunacy. This particular one was actually very, very good, but this is not usually the case...He looked over a patent application and advised that there was prior work which would make it easy (albeit costly) to break, should it be granted.