Richard Bartle - Part 2 - Designing Virtual Worlds

From Video Game Newsroom Time Machine by Karl Kuras

August 17, 2025 · 1h 31m

About this episode

The episode features Richard Bartle discussing his transition from commercial game development to academia and his insights on game design and virtual worlds.

After spending almost 2 decades trying to make MUD a viable commercial project, Richard returns to academia after publishing his seminal book, Designing Virtual Worlds, and begins teaching and researching game worlds and player behavior. We delve deep into the study of games, talk about why it's important and the future of virtual worlds, the morality of being a god, both as a designer and a gamer, and where the industry can go from here. Recorded: February 2025 Get us on your mobile device: Android: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly92aWRlb2dhbWVuZXdzcm9vbXRpbWVtYWNoaW5lLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz iOS: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/video-game-newsroom-time-machine And if you like what we are doing here at the podcast, don't forget to like us on your podcasting app of choice, YouTube, and/or support us on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/VGNRTM Send comments on Mastodon @videogamenewsroomtimemachine@oldbytes.space Or twitter @videogamenewsr2 Or Instagram https://www.instagram.com/vgnrtm Or https://bsky.app/profile/vgnrtm.bsky.social Or videogamenewsroomtimemachine@gmail.com Links: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Bartle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1…

People in this episode

Host: Karl Kuras

Guest: Richard Bartle

Topics covered

game design
virtual worlds
player behavior
ethics in gaming
future of gaming

Keywords

MUD
game worlds
player behavior
ethics
virtual reality

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Designing Virtual Worlds