[MUD-Dev] (no subject)

[Matthew Mihaly]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2000, Ian Hess wrote:

> The esteemed Matthew Mihaly wrote:
> >Alright, now here is an interesting question. Achaea
> > has a currency that is both in-game and out of game.
> > You can buy it from other players, in-game, with
> > gold, or with whatever currency the other player will
> > accept. You can buy it out-of-game with real money.
> > We pay our Guides in credits. Since paying the
> > Guides in credits doesn't cost us money (though it
> > does cost us potential money from those players),
> > it seems that we could pay the Guides minimum
> > wage in credits, (which is still 6x what they get now,
> > as what they get now is a token thank you) and not
> > run afoul of the law if these OSI and AOL wankers
> > win their suit. It's not actually an expense, as they
> > cost nothing to produce. Any comments on this?
> > Seems a potentially good strategy for other
> > companies. --matt 
> 
> I might agree, except that it didn't cost OSI any more
> man-hours or system cycles to create the 'ubersword of
> everything-slaying' than it takes you or your system to
> create credits.  Unless I misunderstand, the fact that the
> goods take very little to create is not important to the
> arguement.  The volunteers perceive that these goods
> have value that is derived from the demand for those
> goods, not the difficulty in creating them.  
> 
> In short, I think that if a 'credit' has value, and its value
> partially derives from its use in increasing the power (or 
> value) of a character, then Achaea's position might not
> be so different from the UO's.  

Well, the difference is that OSI wasn't paying minimum wage. I could pay
the equivalent of minimum wage in credits, but as someone pointed out,
people are legally entitled to cash, so paying in mind wouldn't work.
--matt




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