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

[Michael Tresca]

Vincent Archer posted on Thursday, January 16, 2003 8:12 PM

> There's a large difference between having a game that happens to
> be attractive to some and unattractive to others, and making a
> game that is specifically not attractive to a certain category of
> people.

> When you add a feature, you add it for the specific purpose of
> getting people. Most features will attract and repel people to
> various degrees, and you don't pick a feature because it
> discourages people. You choose it because you think it will please
> more people than it displeases.

> You never make a game expecting that people won't play it. Well, I
> hope for you :)

Quite the opposite: you make choices and in the best case scenario,
know precisely who will and won't be interested in your product.
You make conscious decisions to target specific audiences.  You live
with those consequences and at best, you hope you hit 100%
penetration in that market.  But first you have to identify the
market.

Knowing your niche is Business 101.  But it's always a shock to the
customer who isn't in the target market.  This is why a lot of
advertising that was funny aimed at elementary school kids now seems
trite as an adult.  You're a different target market.  Advertisers
aren't sitting around fretting, "will the adults like this new green
ketchup?"  They care that the KIDS like it and may even go so far as
to show adults HATING the ketchup because kids will like it even
more for that reason.

"I want a lot of money" is not a valid (read: sustainable) business
model.  Neither is wanting every single human being to play the
game.

Yes, you should be making games expecting some people won't play it.
That will happen anyway. The question becomes, are you attracting
and repelling the target audience you wanted?

Michael "Talien" Tresca
RetroMUD Administrator
http://www.retromud.org
telnet://retromud.org 3000


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