[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant (very long quote)

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, rayzam wrote:

> I also do not claim that 70% retention rate is due to pass-on
> characters. But a portion of hte difference between that 70% and the
> other retention rates [which were intimated to be lower, but no
> figures were given], is due to this passing on. If game A has a way
> characters are recycled and game B doesn't, then a lower quit rate
> in game A is going to be partially accounted for by that
> recycling. That's why it's a 'skew' of the statistics. It's not
> 'creative logic', it's not an extrapolation to account for all 70%
> of the retention rate. How much is actually due to recycling is
> something only Verant/Sony could know [albeit that wouldn't be 100%
> accurate either, but the names paying the monthly fees, since
> inception of an account?].

But people sell accounts on every game. People even sell accounts on
Achaea (albeit not on Ebay, as that would be advertising that you're
selling your character, in which case we will find out and turn you
into a shrub.)

 
> It may be sad, but I feel that one sign of success is when a game
> can get its characters sold in real life... Hence, other games could
> have had their character accounts passed on to others, but they
> weren't successful enough for that to be the case. The game has to
> be good enough that you want to hand your character off to someone
> who can continue him/her, or for someone else's enjoyment, or the
> game has to be good enough that if you went through the effort to
> sell your character, you'd be remunerated enough for your
> effort. There are psychological/economical tenets that describe all
> this....

Sure, absolutely, but people sell accounts on UO and Asheron's Call too.

--matt

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