[MUD-Dev] Middleware (was re: Sun's Sim Server and Gordon's 10 Reasons (thefirstone :))

[Tess Snider]

On Mon, 5 Apr 2004, Michael Sellers wrote:

> This is the chicken-and-egg problem for middleware providers: once
> you can show your product adding significant and obvious value to
> a game, selling it becomes much easier -- but no one wants to be
> the one to take that first bite and risk their project on your
> middleware.

I have joked with friends before that there are currently more MMOG
server middleware providers out there than there are companies that
could realistically benefit from them.  You either have enough money
and know-how to roll your own, or you're lean and hungry and have no
choice.  I see middleware as a solution to problems where a large
number of companies need to do the same exact thing in a very
similar way -- not to problems where a small number of companies
need to do divergent things to distinguish themselves.  Besides,
anyone who claims that networking, distributed processing, server
architecture, security, and data storage are solved problems is
going to cause a lot of folks on this list to snicker into their
beers.

The middleware folks have their heart in the right places.  Let's
get all this technical nonsense out of the way so that people can do
content generation!  The universal problem with all middleware,
however, is the flexibility/work tradeoff.  That is, the more
flexible the middleware is, the more work the buyer has to do.  If
they come after you with an "It slices!  It dices!  It even does
RTSes!" routine, you're going to have to do a lot more than content
generation to make a game out of it.  Alternatively, you end up with
a constrained system, as Raph was explaining, and you may not be
able to use it to make the game you want.

In the end, when all is said and done, what are you REALLY buying?
A networking layer with a database attached?  How much would it cost
you in programmer salaries to build and support the same thing?
That's where your bottom line is going to be.  For off-the-shelf
software to be economical, the cost of development of the software
has to be spread out across multiple buyers.  If your middleware
provider only has two or three clients, their software isn't going
to be very economical.  (Either that, or they're going to go out of
business, and you'll be stuck with no support.)

I think that where I see MMOG server middleware coming into play is
if, for example, you just landed a really hot license, and needed to
get something to market really fast.  (Boy does that sound like an
ill-fated venture.)  It serves a purpose in a case where you don't
have enough time, developers, or whatever, and you have lots of
money to throw at the problem.  There are probably a lot of people
who would agree that this is something that just shouldn't be done,
though.  MMOGs aren't just something you can throw in a box, and
hope it sells well before the word of mouth kills it.  It's not a
one night stand -- it's a marriage.

Tess
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