[MUD-Dev] Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server

[Dave Scheffer]

From: "Rayzam" <rayzam at travellingbard.com>

>   Actually, I disagree with the common assertion being made that SCS
>   ruins the casual player. I have seen the casual player leave
>   games because the average player requires muling or joining a
>   guild, to survive.  As you state, the casual player, the large
>   mythical golden market, won't want to handle mules. If that's
>   95% of the player base, then just make the place SCS.

I'm such a customer - I like social play but can't often justify the
time allocation from RL interests.  And by definition most quality
guilds understandably want if not require time, if only to make
enough contacts to get value out of being a guild member.  It's why
I left EQ & DAOC despite investing signficant time through beta and
well past release.  It's also why I refused to seriously consider
follow-on products like AC2 - I'd already seen how the product
formula shakes out.

I agree that casual players are a larger and golden market, and
disagree that there is anything mythical about them/us.  Current
Central MOGs (excepting UO) discourage casual players, who since
they tend to be more balanced people simply wander off to their
other interests.  Publishers have narrowed their own market using
repititive product formulas, while at the same time more of them
enter the market chasing the same demographic and again using the
same formulas.  Abandoning or disregarding a demographic doesn't
make it mythical.

Trend: gamers as a undifferentiated market now include people
approaching or at middle-age.  They tend to be more affluent, more
likely to maintain specific subscriptions over longer periods of
time, make fewer demands on the publisher's resources, stay less
abreast of newer products so show a stronger tendency to stick with
"what they know and who they know it with", and so they profile as a
golden market.

Obviously that trend is going to continue - we're all getting older.
Commercial history is replete with competitors who succeeded in
creating markets but fell by the wayside because they couldn't
transition to maturing trends.

Dave Scheffer
"Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself"
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