[MUD-Dev] The Future of MMOGs... what's next? (fwd)

[Michael Tresca]

Brian Lindahl posted on Tuesday, June 18, 2002 5:39 AM

> One may argue that none exist because there isn't enough interest
> to make a MUD or GMUD quality as a MMOG, under my definition of
> 500+ users. My argument here would be that this is because
> advertisement money must be spent to get such crowds. The audience
> is certainly out there, I believe. Again, advertisement money is
> only available in corporate projects, in most cases, and because
> the audience for pure MMORPGS (as opposed to hack 'n slash
> centered MMORPGS) is significantly smaller, corporations won't
> invest in a project such as this, when they could simply invest
> money in a hack 'n slash centered MMORPG.

What you're talking about here is filters.  The current MMORPG
market's only filter is the ability to use a credit card.  This
maximizes the playerbase, but diminishes the gaming value across the
board.  It may be great for some, not so great for others.

Filtering the player base by ensuring that players play the game as
intended is an eventuality, once there's enough MMORPGs that simply
logging in and chopping things up is no longer the only appeal.  And
it will stop being appealing because it can be gotten elsewhere on
every other MMORPG.

Once we hit that plateau, the next step is to provide focused
content and screen that content.  No just logging in and talking
about the football game last night (unless, of course, it's a
football MMORPG).  Problem is this is a smaller niche market and
won't maximize revenue -- not until the MMORPGs stop making huge
gobs of money will anyone even go down this path.

Mike "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org/talien




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