PMOG: The Passively Multiplayer Online Game

So, over at Terra Nova, one of the virtual world/MMO blogs that I read regularly, I found reference to PMOG which is a MMO of sorts that rides atop your browser (if your browser happens to be Firefox) and has you interact with the web and other PMOG players.

I really can't describe how cool I think this is. It's like a whole new technology was just born and in retrospect it seems totally obvious. And actually, I know it's not new -- the first thing like this I used was a service that served adds in the page's margins while allowing you to browse in an iframe. That's from like '98 or so and is essentially a crude version of this used for revenue instead of entertainment. Also, I haven't gotten any response from them about my request to beta, so I haven't played -- who knows if it's actually fun, but what I'm seeing looks so interesting that I'm thinking it has to be fun for a while.

It looks like you start the game as a shoat (which I only know what is from reading Lonesome Dove -- a baby pig), which is your "class" and then you develop a real class as you surf or maybe as you level up.

The comments on that Terra Nova page seem to be primarily concerened with privacy issues. I guess that makes sense -- we oldsters haven't adopted the new-millenium paradigm of a world without privacy that I'm thinking is inevitable. I guess I'd like assurances of privacy too. I don't care about people knowing what porn I check out, but I certainly don't want them to have access to my login information. I guess I want my identity/authenticity protected more than my privacy.

But really, I'm more interested in the game itself. The fun. What's to learn from it? How will it inform the art and design of future games?

Anyway, sweet stuff. Go check it out.