[MUD-Dev] Re: MUD-Dev digest, Vol 1 #289 - 8 msgs

[Dr. Cat]

> From: Jeff Freeman <skeptack at antisocial.com>
 
> Well, I'm happy to drop that aspect of the conversation, of course.
> No point both guessing what life is like in Korea.  But I'm still
> interested in hearing opinions re: multiplayer games designed to be
> played in cybercafe's and the like, versus multiplayer games
> designed to be played by folks sitting home alone.

Well, cybercafes in particular are of little interest to me, unless I
get a contract to do work for a market like Korea where they're
thriving.  I view such markets as perhaps being a fluke, a temporarily
viable business model in places that are just partway down the road
towards being information-age economies.  Certainly in the US, where
we're further along than most countries, the attempts at cybercafes
I've seen have fallen flat on their faces.  Many seem to have had a
"dot com attitude" about their business model, even a couple years
before the dot com boom showed up.  Spend a lot of money on all these
computers and a high speed Internet connection, above and beyond all
the normal costs of starting up a coffeehouse, but without having a
clear idea how you'll make that much more in revenues than a typical
coffehouse so you can cover all those costs and make a profit.  All
you need know is it's obviously the next big trendy cool thing, so
it'll be massively popular and you'll find a way to make a profit out
of it somehow.  Anyway I think the "people who have net access but
want to get on for a little while at the cafe for convenience" isn't
as big a market for a cybercafe as the people with NO net access.  In
the USA over 50% of homes have a computer now, and a very high
percentage of those are connected to the net.  So I think this is a
phenomenon more for the developing countries.  It might be that in the
far, science-fictiony future convenient internet connections in public
are as ubiquitous as ATMs or even more so, but that's too far off to
start developing products for in my opinion.  Better to write the
works of visionary science fiction about it and make a little money
that way.  :X)

The next hot technology for more social interaction through the net
that's going to be (again in my opinion) wireless stuff.  It seems to
be one of the current things Venture Capitalists are currently into,
and I think they've chosen correctly to bet on it.  There's a lot of
problems - tiny displays, poor input, high expense to end users,
rapidly changing platforms and standards, and it's not clear what user
interfaces, role of voice vs. text, and the most desirable features
are.  But the right time for VCs to get in is when all that stuff is
being hashed out and the big huge successes are a few years in the
future.

I remember one company in France was looking for people, I forget
whether it was posted to this list or to the "Virtual Worlds as a
Business" list, so apologies if I'm repeating old news.  They were
developing a mud type game that would involve people meeting and doing
things in Paris, using the MUD through the text displays on their cell
phones to keep up on what was going on, perhaps using the GPS info
also, acting as spotters for each other, etc.  The Cybiko, which I
received one of for Christmas, has a lot of interesting social
potential.  It has a short range (50 to 100 yards) wireless data link,
and the OS turns all the machines that are in range of each other into
a wireless LAN for the multiplayer games, chat, and matchmaker
software.  It links up to a PC through a serial cable to synch data
and to upload and download email to the Internet, so they put out a
free app that lets you hook an extra Cybiko to your PC and leave it
there, and it will relay Internet traffic (just email, currently) to
and from any Cybikos in range of it that have anything pending.  A
company that does Internet kiosks is running a trial in 7 or 8 malls
where they leave a Cybiko set up as a relay station, for any Cybiko
owner that might be shopping in there to benefit from.  They hope to
expand to a bunch more malls if it goes well.

This is an interesting socially-focused device.  And while I don't
know if this specific one will catch on, some other one surely will if
it doesn't.  It can be set to beep, vibrate, or both when you get an
incoming message.  Kids can pass notes silently during classes at
school - something apparently a LOT of Japanese kids do with their
advanced cell phones.  I think there are tons of applications for
these kinds of gadgets that nobody's even thought of, and they could
transform the way people meet new friends and socialize in our
society.  Intriguing stuff.

> Your conclusion that the game should be more social-oriented rather
> than less is exact opposite what I would have guessed.  Now this has
> nothing to do with Korea any more, but I would like to hear if
> anyone else has any experience - maybe someone on the list from some
> part of the world where cybercafe's are popular.  They certainly
> aren't here, so I just don't know.

I think that from a broader perspective, most types of games for most
types of markets should be primarily social.  Most gaming throughout
history, except for perhaps the occasional solitaire game with cards
or Mahjongg tiles (the game "Shanghai" is an old solitaire game, it
was sometimes played on ships by bored chinese sailors many centuries
ago), has been multiplayer.  It's only in the 20th century, when we
invented machines that were good for playing a game by yourself (or
against a "simulated opponent") that we had such a large percentage of
the population holing themselves up to engage in a gaming activity all
alone, often for hours on end.  Even so, the millions of people doing
so constituted a tiny minority of the human race.  And even as far
back as the late 70s and early 80s, the videogame console business was
an order of magnitude or more larger than the home computer game
business, and those systems tended to be used much more often for two
player gaming in front of the tv, appealing more to the segment of the
market that wasn't interested in a solitary gaming experience.

Of course when you conclude that multiplayer gaming is more mainstream
than various forms of solitaires, there's still the question of how
much of it will be focused on competitive/aggressive types of gaming,
and how much on social.  Even a Quake deathmatch is, in some sense,
more social than playing Windows Solitaire or Minesweeper, because
you're interacting with other humans in some way, and might even speak
to them a little.  But some of the interaction on there would
definitely be what people would be labelled "anti-social" as well.
Some of the earliest well known female players in the Quake community
were subjected to a lot of crude come-ons and sexual harrassment, it
wouldn't surprise me if that sort of behavior is still common on
public Quake servers.

Anyway again I think the "early adopter" and "hard core gamer" types
tend to skew towards the opposite of the preferences of the general
public.  They're much more eager to embrace solitaire gaming, and they
often prefer very challenging strategy and/or action games over
something primarily social.  I remember the contrast in tastes being
brought dramatically into focus when I had lunch with Danielle Berry
in 1987, the first time we met, at the 25th Anniversary of Space Wars
celebration at the Boston Computer Museum.  (She was actually still
Dan Bunten back then, but I know that as Danielle is how she would
prefer to be remembered).  Through chatting a bit, we both discovered
that there was a different type of gamer out there than we and our
friends were.  She seemed surprised that I played games primarily for
the intellectual challenge of figuring out the best moves based on the
rules and the current situation, and working out how to have the best
chance to win or to get the best score.  I was surprised to find out
that there were people like Danielle and her children, siblings,
parents, aunts, uncles, friends, grandparents, etc. who used gaming
primarily as something to do while getting together at the holidays or
any other social occasion, while chatting and enjoying each other's
company.  The socializing was the main point and it didn't matter too
much who won!  The game provided a reason to sit around a table
together, something to talk about, fill the gaps in the conversation,
etc.  It was a social lubricant.

I felt like this was a new discovery to me also, and I felt like I'd
learned the more important of the two lessons.  I'd shown Dan
something of the hardcore gaming minority, but I'd learned about the
casual gaming majority of the human population, presumably the bigger
market.  A hit boardgame like Trivial Pursuit is a classic example.
While ostensibly competitive, I think a big reason for its huge
success is that every little factoid is a potential conversation
starter.  I also can't help but be reminded of a lady I met on a local
chat BBS in the pre-Internet days, who would often play card and board
games with her husband and another couple they shared a house with.  I
went over there for dinner and gaming a few times, and I realized that
she deliberately made bad moves every time she played anything, so
that she wouldn't win and she could make sure someone else would have
that pleasure!

When it comes to something like MUDs (finally), I think the "rewards"
of a social game are more appealing than a "high score", "winning", or
a "high level character" and a big pile of "gold".  Interactions in a
social environment can lead to real life sex, marriage, or sometimes
even both.  It's hard to compete with that with any in-game "virtual
reward".  Though I suppose a person could acquire a sufficient amount
of gold, magic weapons, or a castle in UO or Everquest, sell it on
Ebay, and use the money to hire a prostitute in a locale where
prostitution is legal (or even one where it isn't, just as the sale of
the Everquest items may have been illegal as well).  Which would
represent one of the strangest and most convoluted chains of actions
and events aimed at satisfying the human biological urge to reproduce,
especially if you throw in all the history of the invention of
computers, software and networks that led up to it.

I think most people are still finding their partners in the
old-fashioned offline manner, involving looking at each other and
talking, just like the cavemen probably did (only with *slightly* less
grunting these days).  But we'll corrupt them all eventually.  First
we have to get those five dollar computers invented, and bring enough
prosperity to the third world that they could all AFFORD a five dollar
item even though it isn't really essential to assuring them food or
shelter.

Anyway Danielle always encouraged her fellow game designers and
developers to try and make some friends outside the industry, outside
the core of fellow hard-core gamers they might have as friends from
college or gaming groups or wherever...  To go out and socialize with
some typical normal average real people.  Get an idea what THEY like.
Of course nobody much listened to her, which is why people reacted
with not only mild outrage but also with great surprise when the
best-seller lists were taken over by Myst, Deer Hunter, and half a
doze Barbie CD-ROM games.  Me, I just smiled about that advice,
because I've always kept some social contact with a great variety of
types of people, many of whom are not hardcore gamers.  These days
it's especially easy, because Furcadia is full of them.  All I had to
do was not put in the stuff hardcore gamers like most (a swarm of them
will keep away the casual gamers in droves, one sniff making them
instantly think "not for me"), and make it look pretty, colorful,
inviting, easy, and non-threatening.  The place is swarming with
normal people that don't play computer games much, and I'm delighted
because I know that's the biggest potential audience.  :X)

> Also, I really like the idea of a game *designed* to bring people
> together in offline get-togethers.  I know UO players had an awful
> lot of "player luncheons" all over the place, but UO wasn't designed
> with that in mind and it didn't do anything to encourage it.  Which
> brings up the question, What can you do to encourage it?

My first thought on this is to have regionalized areas/content/guilds
for the biggest cities (or the ones that have the largest number of
players on your MUD - if 20% of your players are from the smallest
city in Iowa, they might be more important to cater to than New York
and LA, right?)  If people can know that part of socializing in that
virtual tavern is the knowledge that many of the people there are
people you could invite out for a burger or a beer, that'll become
part of the experience they just expect, especially when they hear
other people in there talking about their past and future
get-togethers.  A message board in there is a big help, in-game email,
and a local events calendar if you have enough critical mass to make
one thrive.

We haven't gotten to actually pursuing these ideas yet, so I can only
comment based on what I've seen elsewhere in the past.  I think this
kind of thing is going to get a lot bigger in the future.

*-------------------------------------------**-----------------------------* 
   Dr. Cat / Dragon's Eye Productions       ||       Free alpha test:
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    Furcadia - a graphic mud for PCs!       ||  Let your imagination soar!
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