[MUD-Dev] Project Entropia

[the_logos at www.achaea.com]

On Mon, 22 Jan 2001, Frank Crowell wrote:

> the_logos at www.achaea.com wrote:
 
>> Yeah, I'd be quite interested to any defences from the Entropia
>> guys. They seem to be making a ridiculous number of blatantly
>> obvious, serious mistakes, but if they have backing, they can't be
>> as out of the loop as they appear to be. Their system pretty much
>> guarantees, at present, that they will get totally screwed when
>> people start defrauding them by fraudulently generating credits in
>> the game and having them turned into real money, or when people
>> start using stolen credit card information to wring money out of
>> them.
 
> Sure the Entropia model could have problems, but Entropia is
> essentially on the right track.  Certain business models have not
> worked.  Certain ones we don't want to work -- like the one where
> ads are embedded in game (see Macromedia game site for examples of
> this).

I would have to disagree with this. Entropia seems to think that
people want to meet in a virtual world to do business. They
don't. Remember attempts at virtual malls? The internet allows one to
overcome distance. Introducing it again when the object is something
other than the world itself erases much of the value of the internet.

> I am not wild about the fact that Entropia is trying to patent their
> economic model and I wish the company would give up that attempt.
> Or at least have an open license which prevents someone else from
> developing a closed patent.  The buying/selling/renting/owning
> virtual objects has a potential for big business.  The little bit of
> stuff that has gone on at Ebay would be nothing compared to what
> this market could do.

I, obviously, am all for selling virtual stuff. And actually, I think
that in a perfect world, their model would be really excellent. You
can't fault them for setting their sights too low. I just think that
they're a bit naive. Unless they're so far ahead of everyone else that
they've figured out solutions to problems we don't even fully
understand yet, I think they are in for a very very rough time, and
would bet a lot of money that they will fail unless they significantly
alter their business model. Considering the fact that the idea is not
anything that hasn't been theorized before, one seems forced to
conclude that they are either absolutely brilliant and have
revolutionized everything from credit card processing to airtight
coding, I just don't see how they can fail meeting with any number of
potentially devestating and predictable disasters.

--matt

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