Magic from before the dawn of time

Dr Roberts and Prof Bartle have been involved in Internet and computer games since the late 1970s. Along with its creator, Roy Trubshaw, they were instrumental in the development of the world’s first Multi-User computer game at the University of Essex, known as MUD, which later became a generic term for multiplayer virtual worlds.

Richard, who went on to gain a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and followed an academic career at the same University, now widely known for the Bartle Types classification of game player taxonomy, based on his work. He is the author of several books including Designing Virtual Worlds (2003). was downloaded 100,000 times within the first two weeks of becoming freely available on the Internet. His latest book is How to be a God (2023). He lives in the village of West Bergholt, near Colchester.

Nigel created Internet addresses for Guernsey and Jersey (.GG and .JE) in the mid-1990s and since 1997 has been closely involved in the development of the multistakeholder model of Internet governance. He served a three-year term on the board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers the Los Angeles based non-profit that is responsible for co-ordinating all internet domains. Since the pandemic, .GG has become adopted by game developers and the e-sports community as the global brand for gamers. He now lives in Alderney.

Richard and Nigel will talk about the early days of mainframe and PC game development in the era just before personal computers were becoming mainstream, and other matters of interest to today’s game developers.

“… though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.” (CS Lewis: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe).