[MUD-Dev] RE: BlackSnow sues Mythic for online property rights

[Dr. Cat]

From: "Sellers, Mike" <msellers at origin.ea.com>
 
> So beyond the possibility of future virtual property rights, what
> BSI is *really* showing us is a market opportunity (for an MMP
> game that can be played to satisfaction without having to devote
> your life to it) that no developer or publisher has yet addressed.

That's similar to thoughts I had when Ultima Online houses and
castles (and characters) started going for auction on Ebay for
hundreds or thousands of dollars.  While they were thinking (and
rightly so), "Hey, this proves that we've created something that has
real value and desirability to our players", I looked at it an
thought "This shows that the game isn't providing the players with
what they want adequately enough that they can get it".  Whether
through inadequate supply (houses and castles), or too much time
and/or difficulty (high level characters), the supply was
artificially constricted to the point of causing hugely inflated
prices.  My assumption would be that for every guy that spends $1500
on Ebay to get a castle, there's a dozen or a hundred or more people
who want a castle but can't or won't spend that kind of money, and
just go without one.  Those satisfied big spenders are the tip of
the iceberg of dissatisfied regular folks, an iceberg full of people
who want something the game doesn't provide well enough to let most
people have it.

Being "higher level than most people" is by definition something
that only a minority could have, but perhaps just being "high level"
would be enough for many people.  Current games, of course, are too
focused on the old "levelling ladder" we saw from D&D that made it's
way into the early Plato games, Ultima, Wizardry, Bard's Tale, MUD
1, etc. etc.  Since people may have a tendency to quit paying
monthly subscription fees after they've done all the climbing of
that ladder that matters, with a few different character classes.
So it's in the game company's best interests to make it take as long
as possible to climb that ladder so that people will pay them more
before they leave.  Until the big games get better at providing
other satisfactory goals/activities for people to choose as their
primary focus, it's problematic to solve this particular unfulfilled
desire of the players.

Virtual real estate is another matter.  In an ideal case, it could
cost little more than a trivial amount of hard disk space.  Limiting
it as severely as most online games do is, in my view, a classical
example of the type of mistake that comes from the "more realistic
is always good" mentality.  To me, "the way reality happens to work"
is just one more source of possible ideas.  Same as "sci-fi movies"
or "old detective novels" or anything else - some of them will be
good for a game, some bad.  Games as far back as grand-daddy Habitat
have said "There shalt be enough room in our virtual world for EVERY
player to build a home, easily and inexpensively".  So do most of
the social/RP text muds.  Furcadia's made on this same model.  Space
ought to expand to meet player demand for space, rather than being
fixed.  If there were a game primarily about real estate, settling
the wilderness, etc. and competition to outdo other players was a
factor, then *some* limits or constraints on availability can add to
the interest.  But I still think most or all of the major games now
are far too restricted, leaving the majority of people to wander as
the "virtual homeless".  Here's a tip - giving most or all of your
players a home they can customize can be a powerful tool to make
them feel more emotionally attached to your game, and therefore
increase player retention rates.

I don't know if it's totally true that no developer or publisher has
addressed the market opportunity for an MMP game that lets people
play satisfactorily without a large investment of time.  I'd say
Habitat and Furcadia make some decent attempt at addressing it,
Habbo Hotel, and that new Disney Toontown.  Certainly no game has
addressed it well enough to actually capture a large share of that
potential market.  Furcadia just collected our hundred thousandth
email address a few months ago, but of course active subscribers are
just in the tens of thousands.  Somebody ought to be able to cross
that million active user mark besides Lineage.  I think actually The
Sims Online might possibly end up reaching that audience in a big
way before anyone else...  And much as I hate to see someone else do
a major game with attention currency and a focus on user-created
content before I get mine out of alpha, I do hope it'll grow the
market for all the rest of us.

Being self-funded does suck sometimes.  I'm kinda expecting a lot of
people will assume that Sims Online came up with the idea of an
attention-based economy first, and I copied it, even though I've
been meaning to do it for years now.  I'm stil tempted to whip out
some quick cheesy version of one right now, just so people might
notice we had it first - though without more players or a big
expensive marketing campaign, the world still won't notice.  Bah
humbug.

...by the way, I found out what a "humbug" is at a convention I was
at two weeks ago.  An old friend handed me one and said "this is
what a humbug is" - it's a spun-sugar striped minty candy.  Mmmm.
:X)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.  Oh, on
the whole lawsuit thing - my initial reaction is regardless of whose
side the law is on here, or whose side the law should be on...  If
you end up in the position of having to try to legally restrict
players from doing certain types of things in your game - or in the
position of players being so unable to do what they want that they
sue you...  Then somewhere you're not doing the job you should be,
which is at its most fundamental level "providing customers with a
service that allows them to do some stuff they want to do".  If some
particular "stuff they want to do" is problematic, either design and
engineer a game such that they can do that sort of thing without
causing problems, or design one such that people wouldn't want to do
that sort of thing so very much.  Ending up in a courtroom is
evidence of a flaw in your game design, to some extent.  (Or in how
you manage your service, your staff, and your volunteers, in other
cases.)

*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------* 
   Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions       ||       Free download!
*-------------------------------------------**   http://www.furcadia.com
  Supporting user-created graphical worlds. ||  Let your imagination soar!
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