[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #165 - 14 msgs

[Greg Miller]

  DrCat wrote:

> I think that games that have the forms of conflict so popular in soap
> operas and romance novels may turn out to be quite popular, even if
> they have little or no killing.  Already seen some of that kind of
> interaction on some MUSHes, only it's all vampires and werewolves ending
> up in soap-opera type situations rather than regular folks.

Then again, soap operas are in serious trouble because not that many 
people watch, and the numbers keep getting worse. Meanwhile, X-Men 
pulled in over $57 million in one weekend.

> You don't need to have people killing each other to have conflict.

No, definately not. It's certainly appealing to a large chunk of the 
mainstream entertainment audience, though.

> bogus.  But if the ratio of casual to hardcore isn't actually 30 to 1, but
> more like 20 to 1 or 10 to 1, the point that they're the vast majority
> still holds.

Indeed, but it's not the size of the audience that pays the bills, but 
the size of the payouts. If casual gamers outnumber hardcore players 10- 
to-1 and hardcore players spend 10x as much money, it's a wash.

> I think you can abandon killers without abandoning achievers.  And I
> think there's other ways to satisfy an achiever than "pumping up
> some things called 'levels', 'gold' and 'experience points'".
> But maybe that's just me.  :X)

Absolutely. Been saying this for a while :)

> Even in computer and videogames, where many of the games are about combat,
> if you look at the all-time mega-mega-hits, there's a number that aren't.
> Tetris, possibly the top selling game ever, is not.  Neither is Myst, nor
> Windows Solitaire (probably the most-played PC game ever).  And I believe
> there have been times in the last year or two when 4 of the top 10 games
> on the PC best-seller charts were Barbie titles.

Of course, some of that is due to lack of competition. Remember the 
early sales numbers of the iMac? Superficial examinations of the numbers 
in many media outlets made it look like the Mac was crushing the PC 
because the iMac was outselling nearly all PC models. This, of course, 
was an illusion caused by the fact that there was only one iMac model in 
existence.
--
http://www.classic-games.com/              http://www.indie-games.com/
Smarter than God? No, but I'm smarter than he was when he was my age.
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