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

[Matt Mihaly]

On Mon, 15 Sep 2003, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> From: Matt Mihaly

>> 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.

> Ah. I'm talking two universes, two jurisdictions, here.
> E.g. MiddleEarthOnline: Bilbo owns his hobbit-hole (until someone
> else, say Frodo, inherits it). If the player John Doe is
> controlling the avatar Bilbo, then the player doesn't own the
> hobbit-hole, the avatar does. Real-world law should apply to the
> player, not the player's avatar. Hobbiton's jurisdiction caters
> for that quite nicely.

Well, what happens in the fictional universe is largely
irrelevant. It's the real-world implications we're discussing and in
the real world, avatars don't own things as they are not persons
under the law.

> Maybe their argument would be that if a player is even tacitly
> understood to be exclusively in control of something (whether
> virtual or not) that by law, they can begin to demonstrate
> ownership.

I can't see this having much legal weight. I'm in control of a
rented car while I've rented it but I certainly don't have ownership
over it. I'm not a lawyer though.

> Maybe even control can be made ephemeral, e.g. just like dogs will
> desert a particularly obnoxious master, perhaps avatars can say
> "Sorry John, but you're just too much of a dork for me, and Jane
> has been in the queue for me for ages, I'm going to give her a
> turn.".

Heh heh. I tell you, we'd pay you six figures for a system that
auto-detects personalities like that. If you can give me a system
for auto-detecting "jerk" I will smooch you and write you a big fat
check.

>> 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.

> Ah, I see, so you've realised you can't say anything about a
> hypothetical game, and figure you can deflect that failure back to
> me, i.e. for me to prove that you can make money out of a
> hypothetical game.

> I don't want to be too absolutist here, but it seems to me there's
> very little you can prove or disprove about a hypothetical game.

But I don't have to. I'm not trying to win a court case on here.
I'm trying to share my experience and learn from other people's
experience. I've modeled and looked at multiple complete financial
models for MMOGs (both text and fully competitive 3d), have three
profitable text MMOGs, am actively attempting a much larger project,
and I'm just telling you that based on my experience your idea is
incredibly unworkable.  No one is going to fund it and MMOGs of any
sort do not sell enough up-front copies to justify the risk involved
in making one.

You're free to ignore me, but I'm willing to bet just about
everybody else on this list with significant commercial MMOG
experience on the business side is going to tell you the same thing.

Don't mistake a reluctance to take the time to explain it in detail
for an inability to do so. I honestly don't mean this to be
insulting but I feel like this list should be advanced enough that I
feel nobody should have to explain why recurring revenue is
essential for a fully commercial MMOG project anymore than I should
have to explain why there will always be grief players.

>> 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.

> There is nothing intrinsically bad (that I'm aware of) about not
> being able to profit from ongoing revenue, whether in the case of
> games or anything else. Obviously, the decision you make when
> attempting to profit from your house say, will be "Do I rent or do
> I sell?". If you're telling me that there is no possibility of
> making a profit from a hypothetical game if you sell it in one
> shot as opposed to renting it for ongoing revenue, well, that's a
> cool crystal ball. My one tells me that "Hey bud. Possibilities
> are a much safer bet than impossibilities. You stick with me.".

Well, there's really no point in me saying anything else, so good
luck with your ventures.

--matt
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