[MUD-Dev] Harry Potter

[John Bertoglio]

> J C Lawrence> Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2000 11:16 PM
> 
> Given the enthusiasm for the Harry Potter books (and their inventive
> and not necessarily linear world) is there a well publicized and
> educated (in the game world) market for a MUD sitting there for us,
> much ala all the WoD based games all copyright and trademark issues
> aside?  

A standard MUD with all the venues in the Potter books, The School 
and its surrounding sites, Harry's house, the hidden part of London
and the rest would be a huge hit. With a good building tool and 
a helpful 11 year old, it could be done quite quickly. Using 
aliases (as in "Bored of the Rings" by Harvard Lampoon), you could
build a very recognizable world without stepping on legal toes.
 
The real problem would be the nature of the game world. A stock
mud could model some of the behavior of Potter's world but 
user expectations would probably cause some frustration.

> Further, is this possibly an entrance point, if not a lever,
> to access otherwise largely untapped sections of the market
> (sub-teens, women, etc)?

As Johnny Carson's announcer used to say, "You are correct, sir!"
It is, after all, a text world loved by people who read. 

> 
>   BTW, are there any demographics available on Harry Potter sales?

I am sure Amazon knows, but I doubt they would tell us. Scholastic Press
is very big in the elementary and middle school markets.

In my world, all preteen boys and most girls. Many teenage boys and girls.
All of their parents. I bought a copy for my 11 year old nephew who 
could not sleep on the Friday night, knowing it was coming on Saturday
(with free Sat FedEx, no less, from Amazon). He finished all 700 pages
by Sunday.

John A. Bertoglio 
  _____  

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


> 
> Aside: I'm curious how many of us have read the Harry Potter books,
> so there's a poll up at:
> 
>   http://www.kanga.nu/poll/poll.php3?pollID=24

> 
> Note: The polls hit the SQL problem Kanga.Nu is currently suffering
> (the PHP4-MySQL module has problems), but you can usually bypass
> that by hitting reload or shift-reload on the page once or twice.
> 
> -- 
> J C Lawrence                                 Home: claw at kanga.nu
> ---------(*)                               Other: coder at kanga.nu
> http://www.kanga/nu/~claw/        Keys etc: finger claw at kanga.nu
> --=| A man is as sane as he is dangerous to his environment |=--




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