Here is the TED talk. Although her research is primarily with WoW and MMORPGs, applicability is general to all games. Epic win.

Jane. World Without Oil. Evoke.

Bonus: A TED video on the importance of play from 2008/9, in case you missed it:

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There’s a lot of rumor and speculation floating on the interwebs tonight that Catalyst Game Labs, makers of the Shadowrun, Battletech and Cthulhutech game lines, is in quite a bit of trouble. We’re not going to speculate on what is actually going on, but here’s what we’ve been able to put together from various freelancers and others associated with Catalyst:

• Adam Jury (confirmed on his blog and Twitter) and Jennifer Harding (confirmed on Dumpshock) have left Catalyst
• Jennifer has stated publicly: “However, I will state that on Monday, March 15th, I resigned from working as CGL’s bookkeeper and office manager, due to a conflict involving my personal ethics. The Operations Manager resigned the week before that, for similar personal reasons.” (we assume that the operations manager referenced is David Stansel-Garner, though this is unconfirmed)
• Some freelancers have indicated that payments are running behind, though others have current accounts (this could be nothing – inconsistency in the timeliness of payments is not uncommon for small businesses that rely on freelancers)
• Conversation on the ClassicBattletech forum seems to be non-existent (some threads on the topic have been removed), but a few of the Catalyst folks are talking on the Dumpshock forums
• As a reminder, ShadowRun and Battletech are both actually owned by Topps, Cthulhutech is owned by Wildfire and Eclipse Phase is owned by Posthuman Studios
• Jason Hardy (line developer for Shadowrun) has indicated that a release from management should be forthcoming shortly and has asked people to avoid speculation

To be clear, there was a fair bit of debate on our internal discussion list as to whether we should even post this item. That said, there’s so much speculation going on and we’re such big fans of the work the company has done (I mean, seriously, have you seen the Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition? It’s gorgeous!) that we wanted to be up front and only print what we’ve got from first hand, reliable sources and hopefully bring a bit of calm to the situation (we have also sent a request for comment directly to Catalyst). I for one am hopeful that things are being blown out of proportion and that Catalyst will continue putting out more of the high quality products we’ve seen over the last few years.

Update: Franklin in the comments was the first to post a link to the official CLG response.

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Skirmisher Publishing has thrown its hat in to the ring with Adventures in Wonderland: A Sourcebook for OGL Roleplaying Games. This e-book of monsters, skills, magic items, etc., joins a long history of Wonderland-based RPG products, some of which we listed here.

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The team at Green Ronin was super-busy this weekend! Rather than break out all of their news into individual items, we’ll go ahead and list ‘em here:

• Family Games: The 100 Best is available for pre-order and even includes a free copy of Walk the Plank; this sequel to the very cool Hobby Games: The 100 Best covers all sorts of games for families to enjoy together, from RPGs to card games
• The Dragon Age: Game Master’s Kit is also available for pre-order, allowing you to pick up the physical book and the PDF for the same price; we covered Dragon Age a while back and don’t mind recommending it to fans of old-school roleplaying
• Speaking of Dragon Age…it’s sold out. They’re working on a second printing, but there’s no estimated time for it to be ready, so if you want a copy, you might want to act quickly…
• Chris Pramas (and one of my favorite RPG authors) and Nicole Lindroos of Green Ronin are on the most recent episode of 2d6 Feet in a Random Direction (the not-so-regular podcast from Chris Hanrahan of Endgame fame and Brian Isikoff)

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The South by Southwest festival of music, film, and interactive technology starts this Friday in Austin, Texas. Also in Austin, Steve Jackson Games will welcome SXSW participants in an open house Saturday from 4-9 PM to talk about games, play games, or generally shoot-the-breeze. RSVPs are not required but would be appreciated.

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The folks over at the Obsidian Portal (makers of campaign management software – to which you could win an Ascendent membership to in our “Read a RPG in Public” context </end shameless plug>) just posted the first of a two-part interview with Matt Wilson, head honcho over at Privateer Press where he started by dropping a bombshell – Privateer Press will be releasing a new, updated version of the Iron Kingdoms RPG. Iron Kingdoms is the in-house setting for Privateer Press’ properties set in a world of steampunk mechs powered by powerful mages inhabiting a highly political and violent world of dragon gods, religious zealots and other fantasy goodness and has always been one of my personal favorite settings. The old game was based on the D20 system (party of the explosion of D20 licensed materials), but the new version will be based on a proprietary system. No word on a firm release date, but Matt seemed to indicate that we shouldn’t expect it until 2011.  

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Hot news of game sales.

Barnes & Noble brick-and-mortar stores are running significant sales on some of their remaining holiday stock of board games. Note that not all games are on sale, but if you look around you should find a table or two of games with red stickers. Last night, I purchased Masters of Venice, Travel Blokus, and Time After Time for 75 percent off! I understand that tomorrow prices might be lowered to $2 per game. Of course, stock will vary by store and is very limited. But if you hurry up, I left you several copies of Wits & Wagers, Red November, and a variety of Goliath Games in the Rockville, Maryland shop.

Besting even the Barnes & Noble discount, White Wolf is celebrating Read an E-Book Week (did you know that was this week?) by offering a PDF copy of the World of Darkness Rulebook (normally $25) for FREE!

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Marcelo Figueroa discusses his ideas on how to start a game company.

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A great forum post over at The Arcaeum chronicles a 2 year project to create the ultimate D&D room.

Other than the insane amount of work that went into the look of the room, the DM has control over everything including the lights, a fog machine, strobe light, and stereo system.

The room isn’t the only thing that’s impressive. Checkout the collection!  The weapons! There’s even a few board games in there.

Truly the work of a dedicated fan.

(found via Boing Boing)

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Today I wanted to alert you to a cool new web project of illustrator and concept artist, Nicholas Cloister. RPG Creatures is his attempt to introduce a compendium of fantasy monsters that promotes discussion and participation. To that end, he’s posting his bestiary blog-style and would really love your comments. I’d say it’s definitely worth a visit, as he has some amazing illustrations, plus some pretty descriptive background information.

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