[MUD-Dev] Are eBay sales more than just a fad?

[Jon Lambert]

Madman Across the Water
> 
> [Apologies if this arrives twice- my first attempt at a send was
> responded to by a "mail undeliverable" message.]
> 
> Joe Andrieu wrote:
> > 
> > It all depends on how you define your fiction.
> > 
> > Does the importance of available leisure time over financial resources
> > "break" the fiction of being an interesting character in a virtual
> > world?  Why then would the reverse? Or perhaps more to the point,
> > *both* break the fiction in roughly the same way for different people.
> 
> > Food for thought: Does the size of my allowance/disposable income
> > break the fiction of Pokemon or Magic the Gathering?
> 
> Fiction? I'm not playing a character when I play Magic the Gathering.
> There's no fiction there for me to break.

What do you mean?  There's an entire fiction built around Pokemon
just as ...rich...as say Britainnia.  Now I have seen people playing 
MTG in role, usually young.  The fiction is they are the wizard and 
the deck they bring is their spellbook.  No, neither game is what I 
would personally call immersive...the connections between me and those 
worlds/games are just not strong enough to make any investments in 
disbelief or identity on my part worthy of the return.

IMO, immersion, suspending disbelief, and breaking the fiction have 
different rules depending on the AGE of your audience.  I think that 
is a very important thing to address when designing a game.  (i.e.
worlds of Barbie).  As a rule younger audiences are more ready, 
willing and able to accept fiction breakers, and have stronger 
identification with characters than are older audiences.  

--
--* Jon A. Lambert - TychoMUD        Email:jlsysinc at ix.netcom.com *--
--* Mud Server Developer's Page <http://tychomud.home.netcom.com> *--
--* If I had known it was harmless, I would have killed it myself.*--
 



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