[MUD-Dev] BIZ: Who owns my sword?

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> From: Matt Mihaly

> Just as with software, perhaps players don't get to own anything,
> they are simply given a lease/privilege to play the game (which
> includes exclusive operation of an avatar).

> Exchange of virtual items (arranged via eBay) by players should be
> ignored.  That co-incidentally, money changes hands in the real
> world contingent on exchanges happening in the virtual, should
> remain co-incidental and unrelated. If the law decides to treat
> virtual items as real property, well, it's bonkers.

My god, you've said something I agree with. ;)

> As a corollary (on my p2p mission), who do you sue if an mp3 you
> shared into a p2p file sharing system (and subsequently removed
> from your own) one day becomes unavailable?

Mp3s are a product, not a service. Muds are services and products
both.

>> Yes, they are a fiction, which is why an avatar doesn't own
>> anything.  Legal entities own things, not fictional
>> ones. Fictional ones only own things in a fictional world.

> Hmmmn. I thought an avatar did own things? An avatar is the
> fictional character that the player controls, yes?

Avatars own nothing under any country's legal code that I'm aware
of. Only legal entities may own things, and a collection of database
entries is most definitely not a legal entity.

>> And once again, how is the developer going to make money? Selling
>> the game will not make enough to justify the investment.

> Huh?  How do you know this?

> We're talking about a hypothetical game. How do you know how much
> it'll sell for compared to the investment it took to produce?

Because I do this for a living. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to
prove me so. If you can make a mud that can just "take the money and
run" and turn a profit (say, 1000%) large enough to justify the risk
involved with what you're talking about, I might start to think I'm
the crazy one here.

Even worse than the fact that your model doesn't provide a way to
make a profit from ongoing revenue (which is where the money in muds
is), your model specifically invalidates the possibility of an exit
strategy (ie being bought out, going public, etc). Good luck getting
anyone to give you money on those grounds in the games business.

>> Oh yeah, that's just where I'd turn for successful games. There's
>> SUCH a track record of it after all.

> I didn't say they had a track record for producing games, or even
> that they'd ever produced successful games, just that they're used
> to managing the process of producing and maintaining software with
> a diverse pool of developers. And they demonstrate that it's
> possible to get paid to maintain software that's effectively
> public domain.

They demonstrate that it's possible in an exceedingly narrow range
of applications. I'm not going to get into an open source debate
though. The market speaks for itself there.

--matt
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