[MUD-Dev] Re: MMO Communities

[Matt Mihaly]

J C Lawrence wrote:
> On Sat, 7 Aug 2004 10:56:59 -0700
> Matt Mihaly <matt at ironrealms.com> wrote:

>> But the -entire- purpose of the design of EQ is to make money. I
>> don't see how it can be a business success and not a design
>> success.

> Please show me a group of two or more people who not only have
> exactly the same purpose for something, but they also have
> precisely and only one purpose for it.  I doubt that any such
> group exists or could exist.

> How many people were on the EQ team?

The design team is usually not the ones setting the goals for an MMO
design. They're usually hired guns, though I'll grant that I'm not
intimately familiar with how EQ got started. I seriously doubt SOE's
corporate parents sit down and ask for a game with artistic quality,
with profit coming second (and yes, I know SOE grew out of
Verant). I'd even go so far as to say that when it comes to a public
company, it's downright unethical to EVER have any goal but
increased profit for your shareholders. Indulging personal desires
is very poor form when you're spending other people's money.

I'll back off this and say that the entire purpose of an MMO being
published/produced by a public company should be to make money. I'll
grant that this may mean that the MMO itself loses money while
acting as a loss leader or fueling research for future money-making
enterprises though, so I shouldn't have been so hasty or
overly-broad in my declaration.

--matt
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