[MUD-Dev] Bay Area Press re: UO, the good the bad and the Ugly.

[Dave Rickey]

-----Original Message-----
From: Raph Koster <rkoster at austin.rr.com>
To: mud-dev at kanga.nu <mud-dev at kanga.nu>
Date: Sunday, June 04, 2000 12:13 AM
Subject: RE: [MUD-Dev] Bay Area Press re: UO, the good the bad and the Ugly.
>>
>> You know, Raph and the rest of you, this guy is an aberration.
>> He's not the normal MUD or MMOG player.
>
>The normal MMORPG player is online 20 hours a week. What else do you do for
>20 hours a week? I bet there aren't very many single activities. And this
is
>the average. Being crude with the stats here, that means half of MMORPG
>players are playing MORE than that.

    Work, sleep, and television is pretty much the list.  I'm *still* of the
opinion that gaming time only cuts into the third for most players.  And
it's being extremely crude, most of them are playing slightly less, if you
discarded all of those that play more than 40 hours a week, the average is
more like 16.

    What of it?  Why am I responsible?  These aren't infants, for the most
part they're adults.
>
>Now, if the game DOESN'T do any of these things, then it's not particularly
>socially redeeming. Personally, I like to think that the games I make are
>not trapping people but helping them, somehow. At the least, I'd like to
>think their effect is neutral. Less guilt in the middle of the night. No
>matter how small the percentage of addicts is.
>
    "Socially redeeming"?  Sorry, maybe I checked my conscience at the door,
but I thought my responsibility was to entertain them, give them good value
for their money, not work for World Peace and a higher global consciousness.

    To quote Charles Barkley; "I am not a role model."  I've got too much on
my plate trying to make the games *better*, rather than just ring the
pavlovian bell, I'm not going to take responsibility for the actions of
people who, in the opinion of someone who walked away from Web Server
development to work at 1/4-1/3 the money making games, need to get a
freaking life.

--Dave Rickey




_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
http://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev