Gabe Zichermann developed the concept for New York-based rmbr in early 2007 after realizing that he had stopped enjoying the process of dealing with his friends’ online photos, and that a Funware-based approach might fix the problem. Gabe is a ten-year veteran of the games industry, with roles at CMP Media, Trymedia and Boonty as
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author Status games are universal, powerful and profoundly engaging. From the shiny new car, to the right education, from your eBay rating to FB TopFriends position, people are preoccupied with status in a way that transcends all other forms of competition. By taking a step back from the traditional definition of
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author By now, many of you have undoubtedly heard of casual games as part of a revolutionary change in the way people play. Casual games have evolved from their humble origins as “interstitial entertainment” to take their place alongside the biggest segments of the industry as a $2Bn+ category in its
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author In 2006, nearly 16 million people subscribed to paid MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games), spending nearly $700 million to play in parallel universes ranging from the absurd to the quotidian. Tens of millions more are casual MMOG players in worlds that don’t require subscriptions, and still more play one of
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author Most of the innovation in today’s game industry can be traced directly to key advances brought first to the PC, not to mention the millions of players that got their (awkward) start with Leisure Suit Larry on the Apple II. As the most open and edge-technology driven sector of the
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author The first home game console was called the Magnavox Odyssey. Introduced in 1972, it had a number of design flaws that would eventually doom its future, including the need for plastic TV overlays, boring games, and some dubious marketing strategies. Ultimately however, it was the closed nature of the product
By Gabe Zichermann, Guest Author By now, I’m sure you’re familiar with the story of Pong, Atari and the founding of the modern videogame business. In the time before the Atari 2600’s ubiquitous brown box and its legions of cartridge-crazy followers, computer scientists and nerds had long toiled to bring games to the emerging technology