FW: [MUD-Dev] selling Godhoods

[John Bertoglio]

> Matthew Mihaly
> On Tue, 25 Apr 2000, Par Winzell wrote:
>
<<some cut>>
> Mud players  with disposeable income are, on average,
> far far more capable and mature than poor players. (expects lots of flames
> for that, but doesn't care, as it's true. 99% of teenagers have no
> disposeable income. 'Nuff said.)

Point one, total agreement. A more general statement might be : "People
with a larger, personal investment in something tend to take care of it."

Point two, it totally incorrect. Our family income is quite high. But I
would suspect my 14 year old son spends more per month on "stuff" than I
do. (He does not, of course, come anywhere near his mother.) Certainly, he
is the one we go to when we need cash to pay the pizza guy. While the
user agreements for the online RPG's like UO require you to be 18, it
was his money which paid for it. And it was his money to spend when he
stopped playing UO and AC.

Entire segments of industry: music, soft drinks, snack foods, etc. are
dependent on teenage spending and have been since Elvis went into the
US Army. An online world which manages to tap the wealth of teenagers
while still being attractive to older, more affluent players would be
quite successful.

However, point two does not have to be correct for point one to
be right on the mark. I salute Mr. Mihaly for creating the kind of
world where the elements can have such a high real world value.
It is a significant achievement. I would think that free muds would
be wise to study his model to emulate a world where the casual player
can enjoy play for free while the serious player adds revenue. This
is a much more reasonable model than asking for donations and allows
the world to keep hardware and connections up to date. A few paid
staffers would enhance virtually any MUD world.

John A. Bertoglio
  _____

PulsePoll.com <http://www.pulsepoll.com/>
| 503.781.3563
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