Raph Koster originally intended to become a writer, but was seduced by the allure of videogames while at university. After he co-created the online RPG LegendMUD, he was snapped up by Origin Systems and became lead designer on the groundbreaking MMORPG Ultima Online. He later worked on an online version of Wing Commander: Privateer, but the project was cancelled, and he moved to Sony Online to become creative director on Star Wars Galaxies. After leaving Sony, Raph established Metaplace, an early attempt at creating the metaverse, then spent several years as a consultant before founding Playable Worlds in 2018, which is currently working on an as-yet-unnamed MMO.
How did you get into games?
My mom brought home a Sears Pong console, from when Pong was first available in stores. We got an Atari not too long after that. I remember my dad was pretty good at Space Invaders in the arcade, and I got a home computer given to me by my great uncle in maybe 82, 83.
My mother worked for UNICEF, so I was actually living overseas – I was down in Peru at that point. My parents were divorced: I’d spend summers with my dad in the States, and that meant I was learning to program and playing D&D and all of that kind of thing down in Peru, and then coming back to the States where I would be seeing the latest arcade games.
Before I knew how to program, I started making board game versions of the videogames that I would see in the States. And so I ported Q*bert and Pengo and lots of others to tabletop, and actually made them out of paper and cardboard. That started around fourth or fifth grade.
So you started game design really early
