[MUD-Dev] Star Wars Galaxies: 1 character per server

[Amanda Walker]

On 12/23/02 3:35 PM, Marc Fielding <fielding at computer.org> wrote:

> With budgets for commercial MMORPGs climbing into the tens of
> millions, developers don't have the luxury of limiting their
> target market.

Every product has a limited target market.  SWG, for example, has as
a target market "people who enjoy (or at the very least aren't
actively annoyed by) Star Wars".  This may be large, but it's still
limited.

> If your response is "Good riddance!", that's fine. Just be
> prepared for your game to be relegated to "niche market" status.

Wonderful!  Niche markets are great.  Niche markets paid for my
house, my car, my pile of computer toys, my Renaissance costuming
habit...  Serving a niche market well is much, much more rewarding
than trying to hawk products to consumers at large, for several very
simple but important reasons:

  - Niche markets are less price sensitive and more
  quality-sensitive.

  - Niche markets consist of people who actively want products in
  the niche.

  - Niche markets tend to contain people who give more useful
  feedback.

  - Niche markets have higher degrees of customer loyalty and repeat
  business.

Of curse, there are a few downsides.  If you make a reputation in a
niche of producing a crappy product, you might as well give up at
that point, because the same brand loyalty works in reverse.  Ask
any early Internet operations engineer about Wellfleet routers, for
example.  Never heard of Wellfleet?  QED.

Amanda Walker


_______________________________________________
MUD-Dev mailing list
MUD-Dev at kanga.nu
https://www.kanga.nu/lists/listinfo/mud-dev