[MUD-Dev] Future of MMOGs

[Jeremy Noetzelman]

On Mon, 7 Oct 2002, Crosbie Fitch wrote:

> You can't put file sharing back in Pandora's box.

Actually, it's quite trivial to make P2P file sharing applications
useless.  We do it at my employer, because it was costing us in
excess of $1.5M annually in bandwidth charges.  And we're not the
only ones.  Most people are not willing to pay the real costs
involved with massive P2P file sharing.

While these applications are here to stay, and certainly have
interesting uses, I don't think they'll remain a viable and active
means for the distribution of copyrighted material for the masses
... it will certainly always be around for smaller groups of
technical people, but pure financial considerations by those who pay
the bandwidth bills will prevent the masses from having the classic
Napster experience.

> It's also a great tragedy if a whole class of computing
> (distributed systems) is banned because it erodes the viability of
> copyright based revenue models.

Without getting into a religious war about copyright and it's
morality, we must realize that it's the law of the land (and
throughout most of the world) and thus, the real tragedy is that
said innovative class of computing has been coopted for illegal
uses.

>> Making a powerful distributed system whereby people can
>> contribute their own content, maybe even make money off of it,
>> link together, and form a big ol' Sprawl or Matrix or Park or Net
>> or whatever is going to have to be commercially attractive or it
>> won't happen. And once it's commercially attractive, it will also
>> have to be IP-friendly, at least relatively so.

> Do people participate in file sharing networks because they get
> money out of it, or because they get entertainment out of it? I
> think it's the latter.

Most people participate in file sharing networks because they get
something they would otherwise have to pay for at no charge to them.
Most of them don't even know that they're participating in sharing
files, and just assume they're limiting themselves to downloading
files shared by others.  It's not about entertainment, it's about
self interest in the form of getting something for nothing.

> IP is irrelevant to users. IP owners will just have to deal with
> the fact that IP is an oxymoron. Or on the other hand it's quite
> accurate, i.e. once intellectual property leaves the intellect and
> is transcribed into digital form, it is no longer intellectual
> property, but public property.

Without IP, there is no revenue.  Without revenue, there are no
corporations.  Without corporations, there is no Internet.  There,
I've said it, and many would consider it blasphemy.  I too look back
fondly on the days before the web existed, and before the net was
commercialized.  But I'm not naive enough to think that we'd have
anything like what we have today without said commercialization.
Like it or not, corporations made the internet what it is today.
Hell, even Abilene is funded by corporate donations to a large
extent.

IP may be irrelevant to users, but it's not to the people who own
IP, and it's certainly reasonable for them to expect compensation in
exchange for letting people enjoy their content.  I don't begrudge
hollywood for taking my $8.50 for a movie, nor do I begrudge Sony
their $15/month for MMOG X.  They spent money to make that content,
that IP, and it's theirs to do what they want with.  The thought
that a movie, once aired, becomes public domain, is ludicrous.

> invention. We NEED a public 3D cyberspace system. The wishful
> accounting and dot-com type land-grab can happen afterwards.

Perhaps you can explain why we NEED a public 3d cyberspace system.
Personally, I think 95% of the free content online sucks.  Most
MUDs, game mods, etc, all suck.  There's always a few good and
innovative games, but by and large, the content that's good is
commercial.  There's good reason for that ... providing content
people are willing to pay for is how companies make money.

> But it's a chicken and egg. Does the first version happen first,
> and then a community of Open Source coders join in, or do you
> gather the coders first, and the first version happens later? The
> pump needs priming, and so we need a CERN equivalent....

If you want an open source framework, you'll have to do it, or join
in with one of the several groups working on one already ... I know
they exist, and there's members of them on this list.

That said, I think commercial efforts will always be at the top of
the heap, primarily for financial reasons.  Bandwidth alone is a
staggering cost for 3d environments, and you'd be amazed at the
costs generated by FPS games, let alone the costs associated with a
fully p2p mmog system.  Peer to Peer mmogs are definitely a viable
model.  However, I think the best place for them to be adopted is in
a loose network of commercial nodes.  Expecting there to be a
Napster-like MMOG is just foolish.

J

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