[MUD-Dev] Learning from the Sims

[Eric Rhea]

http://www.thestandard.com/article/article_print/0,1153,22848,00.html

Hertz gives us some not so new, but noteworthy reminders:

  "The first is that interaction design trumps graphics."

  "The second lesson is that online businesses don't just exist, like
  buildings, in space. They exist, like cities, in human context over
  time."

I think that the psychology of their economic model is intriguing:

  "More subtly, the Sims Online will allow players to bookmark retail
  objects. For instance, if you see a cool chair at someone's house,
  you bookmark it. If you buy the chair, a commission flows back to
  the person from whom you bookmarked it, and the person from whom
  they bookmarked it, as well as the creator of that object. This
  motivates people to buy expensive stuff and throw parties. It also
  makes it economically attractive to buy one of every chair in the
  Sim universe and open a Chairs "R" Us showroom. Imagine a world
  where you could earn an Amazon-style affiliate commission for every
  product on your homepage it makes retail into a massively
  multiplayer game."


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