[MUD-Dev] LEDO revisited (part 4)

[Damion Schubert]

>From Frank Crowell

>     "If harnessing the insatiable lust of gamers for collectible
>     goodies worked to build a kind of mini-economy within the
>     world of collectible fantasy card games, then it might just
>     work for Internet gaming. At least, that's the reasoning
>     behind SegaSoft's plans to create a series of online strategy
>     games that will allow players to buy, sell, and trade virtual
>     objects over the Internet. "

3DO had a very similar idea for digital 'booster' packs.  When that
project failed, LEDOs popped up shortly afterwards, and everyone who
knew anything about 3DO fully expected SegaSoft to find their pants
sued off by 3DO, who is very aggressive about suing people (I'd be
surprised if they didn't sue Magic the Gathering Online for also
'stealing' the idea).

> This whole thing was suppose to happen on Segasoft, but as we know
> Segasoft went down the tubes even before the whole dot com crash.
> PostLinear was suppose to be the one making the transaction
> system, but I don't seem to be able to find them on the net.

PostLinear, and their sister company Transactor, have both gone out
of business, according to the former Server Programmer of 10Six, who
is now my server programmer.

> Although there are a lot of obstacles to virtual object
> marketplace, the biggest obstacle still goes back to the concept
> of LEDO.  This means the notion of limited numbers and a method
> for controlling transactions and detecting forgeries.

> Honestly, isn't this a candidate for killer app, or am I just
> plain nuts?

Well a lot of people have thought so, but so far that hasn't
developed.  A lot of attention will be paid to MtG Online, because
if that game can't do it...

Digital Booster packs have a lot of problems, one of the more
striking ones was security of trading.  Until recently, people
providing online gaming services were having a real hard time
handling the simple problem of billing their customers once (and
only once =) a month.  LEDOs is a more complicated problem requiring
hundreds of microtransactions per month.

One game did ship with the LEDOs system working.  It was 10Six, and
while it did not do very well (it was off from its moniker by 2 or 3
orders of magnitude), my talk with one of their producers revealed
that the small population that they did have were in fact buying the
booster packs pretty steadily.  This was apparently enough to
support the game for some time.

Unfortunately, it couldn't sustain itself forever.  10Six recently
announced that it was closing its
doors. http://www.10sixhomebase.com/

--d



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