[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who holds your cahonas in their hand? (runs your infrastructure...; )

[ceo]

Crosbie Fitch wrote:

> Why do MMOG providers feel they have to (a priori) own the
> servers?  What you own you are responsible for. The more
> flexibility you provide, the more risks you become liable
> for. Running an online creche come adult den of iniquity sounds
> like a hiding to nothing.

Ah, that's easy to answer: otherwise they are in great danger of
losing all the money. It's not an immediate cause-and-effect, but a
long-term thing; there are many people trying a land-grab on the
server-hosting, either because it's the major point of control - and
gives you tons of leverage over the money (that comes from the MMOG)
- or because it's so easy to do, and high-margin. Look at other
industries, and classic evolution of industries, and look at where
the money is, and look at who controls the brands. It's not easy to
control a brand when someone else has all your customer records, and
has you over a barrel - refusing to provide new features, for
instance. IIRC Richard Bartle had some (superficially?) similar
problems with BT many years ago - they just had too much control of
the operational side of the produce, and easily killed off RB's
product (...care to confirm/deny/disagree completely? :)).

In general, a commercial MMOG that lets someone else run the servers
is either truly desperate or just naive. Obviously, there are bound
to be good exceptions in a market as complex as this <ducks and runs
for cover :)...sorry, I'm having a truly painful day, w.r.t. a
so-far untraceable bug in a login system :(>

> Maybe, IBM's Butterfly grid thingy might be a step along the right
> direction. If you could find a third party to provide a relatively
> reliable MMOG platform and get them to charge the player directly
> for the platform running costs (like an ISP), it could then act as
> 'common carrier' and be immune from player litigation. The MMOG
> provider can then sell 'content only' to this player base, on a
> 'fun until you abuse it' basis. Like selling buckets and spades to
> kids on a beach. You can tell them how to have safe fun with them,
> but if they decide to hit each other over the head with the
> spades, and use the buckets to throw sand at each other, well
> that's up to them.

> Making a fun MMOG should surely not be about providing massive
> infrastructure and 24/7 moderation services for an online theme
> park? That's 5% game and 95% service. Bleagh...

Fine. But if you do that, you won't make much money. Long-term, you
won't survive in the market. In the past, senior execs at some big
corporates involved tangentially in this market have told me
privately that, based on their combined experience of many other IT
markets, it's only the infrastructure that's worth controlling. All
the rest is too hard, too risky, too low margin. I happen to agree
with them, although for slightly different reasons...

Many games developers would like to be a little more independent of
the whims of their publishers; the situation you describe only makes
you even more beholden to someone else.

Adam M
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