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Raphael "Raph" Koster (born 7 September 1971) is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and...

Raphael "Raph" Koster (born 7 September 1971) is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies. Since July 2006, he has been working as the founder and president of Metaplace (previously operating as Areae) producing an upcoming platform for online games also called Metaplace. Koster attended Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, receiving a Bachelor's degree in English (Creative Writing) and Spanish in 1992. The same year he became involved with MUDs as an implementor in LegendMUD, where he was known as Ptah. He also played MUME for a time. On 10 May 1992, he married Kristen Koster who would later work alongside him at Origin Systems as a game designer. In 1995, he received a Master of Fine Arts in Poetry from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and joined Origin Systems as the lead designer of Ultima Online. Koster was also the lead designer of Ultima Online: The Second Age, Ultima Online Live, and an unannounced and cancelled title until 2000, when he joined Verant Interactive in Austin