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

[Crosbie Fitch]

From: Matt Mihaly

> No, but then, if you buy Everquest, SOE isn't responsible for your
> psychological well-being either. I'm not sure what your point is.

That if you have a complaint about the content, you don't complain
to the platform provider, but the content provider.

If you have a complaint about other players, you complain to the
moderation service provider.

If you have a complaint about the platform, ....

My point is, that if you provide everything you don't bother
figuring out which cost centre has which risks - you're liable for
everything (and it's obvious to everyone else).

On the other hand, if you separate things out, you can then figure
out that these things can also be separated temporally, e.g. game
design/creation/delivery, platform provision/maintenance +
moderation/CRM, bug-fix/enhancement. Frankly, the only creative bit
is that first phase, and in order to preserve art (as opposed to
twee banality) it must be isolated from litigation. This is why I
joined this thread in the first place. To try and point out how to
extricate the game/art/design from risk.

The game, the primary creative component, in the big schedule of an
MMOG's lifetime is a relative flash in the pan. It should not be
corrupted through considerations of player ownership, or other kinds
of risk (litigation or otherwise).

> I don't understand why you're focusing on this 'safety' aspect. We
> are talking about the risk that a company would incur if players
> were given some sort of legal ownership over the database entries
> we pretend are swords and shields.

And so, if you separate out the various services being provided,
it's probably clearer that virtual items belong to the avatars and
not the players. The player's complaint would be against the
platform provider or the moderator (if it's due to their
negligence). If the MMOG provider starts saying that they own the
virtual items, well that just adds credence to the idea that a
virtual item can be owned by someone in the real world.

I mentioned the safety aspect as just another potential cause for
complaint, i.e. if it's not the content at fault, it's the other
players.

Anyway, say someone is playing a console game, and it's one of those
interminable games that has no end (taut.). A player has developed a
character to a very high skill level (65,535), but a bug crashes the
game and corrupts the storage of the character - the player has just
lost something they believed they owned. Why should a single player
game be any different from a MMOG? Maybe they could have otherwise
sold that character to another player (via Flash card or something)?

Gotta move on. It's 1:05am and virtual item ownership is a whole
discussion I was only intending to touch on tangentially.

> So you mean that when that gold-duping bug happens the players can
> sue because their existing funds were devalued by the unwarranted
> increase in monetary supply?

Yep. If the game developer is still around...

> Further, how does this address removing the risk of player
> ownership from ongoing development, which is an absolutely
> necessary part of muds and has been for 2 decades. Someone has to
> make game design decisions and it is not going to be 100,000
> players.

No, I wasn't directly addressing player ownership, just player
litigation in general.

I am also not resttricting my arguments to 'MUDs', but to all
MMOGs. Maybe there's an intractable flaw with MUDs/MMORPGs with
respect to ownership? I dunno.

If you give players the idea they can own intangible commodities,
maybe you're facing a similar problem to copyright holders?

My quick solution is to completely abandon the idea of player
ownership of virtual items (or any digital content). Say the avatar
owns things, but not the player. The avatar should have no rights in
the real world. If bugs in the game cock things up for the avatar,
well shoddy game, but don't start claiming loss of virtual
items. They don't exist in this world. They're a fiction.

> So how do you expect to make money, exactly? Retail sales on
> large-scale MMORPGs don't even come close to justifying their
> risk. Without the ongoing revenue there's no business.

As I said, if you separate out the elements, the game is sold once,
based on its artistic content. The platform and service provision
are charged for elsewhere. It's then clearer to the player what
they're paying for.

> And as for this idea that 'anyone' can fix bugs, who, exactly, is
> paying them to do it? How are they paying them? Who decides what's
> a bug and what's a feature? Who decides how to fix a bug? Who
> decides which bugs get priority in being fixed?

The Open Source community may have some pointers to answers to these
questions.

> Have you ever run a game? Do you go on mud discussion boards? I'm
> not sure why you think you'd be able to "brainwash the users into
> thinking they're having fun" when no other game has managed to do
> that universally.

You mean, they really ARE having fun??? I mean, I know they're
spending colossal amounts of money on Evercrack et al, but I thought
it was like smoking your guts out, i.e. you don't understand why you
do it when the side effects are pretty lousy, but you still light up
another.

The players couldn't do anything except think they were having fun -
the alternative would be too terrible. Like a bunch of smokers in a
doorway, helping each other believe they're all doing it for the
pleasure it gives them.

>> Original and initial game design is done by the developer.
>> Subsequently, the moderators can tweak things (either on their
>> own whim or in response to player petition).  I'd also suggest
>> that it should be possible to create MMOGs that can function
>> without moderation.

> Ok, so the moderators can be sued for the tweaks then. All you've
> done is pass the risk from one company to another. That doesn't
> address the issue of risk at all.

Ah. But, it passes the risk away from the artist.

It's the artist you need to protect, because they're the ones that
enable true fun. You don't want to stifle their creativity and start
warping the game design to reflect commercial/risk considerations.

>> If an MMOG, to remain entertaining, needs constant additional
>> development, then I don't see why the players can't be involved
>> in the decision-making process. They're paying a hefty
>> subscription after all.

> Probably the same reason that Time magazine doesn't run polls
> every week on exactly which articles will be included in that
> month's subscription, or that Microsoft doesn't poll all of its
> users on every single feature to be included in Windows, or that
> Best Western doesn't poll all of its customers on the colour of
> the coffee mugs in their rooms. Or hell, probably the same reason
> even a company as small as mine doesn't run polls to determine the
> sometimes dozens of design decisions we make daily.

Yeah, those pesky customers! Always wanting to micro-manage
everything.

> I'm sorry Crosbie but you're sounding more than a little out of
> touch with reality here. Are you really serious about this or are
> you just sort of rambling?

I may be incoherent. I may drift from the key points. I may play
around a bit. But, yeah, somewhere around here, there's some
seriousness trying to get out.
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