so what is ohai anyways? (besides an MMO maker for everyone)?
Meet Jack Batty, above, mascot for our little company. We dubbed ourselves ohai because we love that whimsical greeting among Internet folks. When you play our MMOs, chances are Mr. Batty is the first character to send you an “ohai” hello, and we hope he says it to gamers, LOLcat fans, and everyone in between. After all, we plan to make MMOs for everyone: Hardcore WoW fans looking for lighter fare, and also your aunt who just became a Mafia enforcer on Facebook.
Jack’s a scruffy sort, which is fine with us, because that fits into our design philosophy of game development, and software development in general: Earnest and hopeful, yet somehow disheveled in the way that real life is. Think of Batty flying around a junkyard full of odds and ends, stuff that’s been discarded, and what’s sprouted up out of nowhere — things you could turn into treasures, with enough ingenuity. What is beautiful about life is that it’s often imperfect, but the messy can be perfect all on its own.
You’ll see that thinking in our website design, too, following the Japanese concept of Wabi-sabi. As our graphic designer Randy puts it, wabi-sabi “emphasizes the deeper, found beauty of imperfection caused by the action of time and use on an object.” Same goes for the ohai logo. “[I]t’s actually a block print I did to wabi-sabi-fy a hand-drawn version of Futura typeface.”
As it happens, we want the wabi-sabi approach in our actual massively multiplayer online games, too. Take this photo from a Napa Valley junkyard, shot by Susan, our chief ohai, on a recent trip to wine country. “I was really struck by the beauty of how in the midst of the discarded junk, in the cracks between rigid structure, organic life flourished, ” she told the team. “It made me think of what we do as social software developers — we build mechanistic, programmatic structures, that we hope allows organic life to thrive — relationships, human connections, insights. As game developers, we are trying to build worlds and environments that evoke emotions and facilitate connections.”
So now you have the basic idea on the very broadest level — the bat’s eye view, so to speak. What’s that mean for specific MMOs we’re working on now? Stay tuned on this space, and be sure to look around. (Especially if you think you’d like to work with us.) Until then, say it with us: ohai!
