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

[Matt Mihaly]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2003, Crosbie Fitch wrote:
> From: Matt Mihaly

> 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).

And my point is that the risk WILL lie somewhere and without that
link, there's no game.

> 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).

"Should not". Well, I don't know about you, but I run my business on
"is" not "should", when the "should" is out of my control.

> 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)?

Characters in single player games have minimal value to other
players.  That's reality. Why should they be different? I don't
really care. They ARE different, as evidenced by the fact that you
cannot go on Ebay and buy my Knights of the Old Republic character
(who, by the way, can kick your dad's ass) or, in fact, any Knights
of the Old Republic character. In fact, if you can find a -single-
character being sold from a single player game on Ebay, I'll be
impressed. When you find me 10x as many as there are characters from
MMOGs (since there are, after all, many more single player game
players out there) I'll be convinced.

>> 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...

Right, so in other words, you propose that game development
companies will magically spring into existence with the purpose of
developing a MMOG that will never make them money. That's a great
plan.

>> 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.

MMOG = mud = MMORPG =
whatever-other-dumb-acronym-people-come-up-with to me. I just prefer
mud since it's the simplest.

> 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.

Yes, they are a fiction, which is why an avatar doesn't own
anything.  Legal entities own things, not fictional ones. Fictional
ones only own things in a fictional world.

> 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 once again, how is the developer going to make money? Selling
the game will not make enough to justify the investment.

>> 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.

Oh yeah, that's just where I'd turn for successful games. There's
SUCH a track record of it after all.

>> 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.

Don't even compare chemical addiction to Everquest. It's stupid and
it's offensive.

And many people are having fun in Everquest et al. I know I have a
huge number of very very fond memories of playing muds of all sorts.

> 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.

Right. All mud players are weak-willed addicts with no social lives
and no social outlet aside from playing muds. Your attitudes are
unbelievably disconnected from reality.

> 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.

Oh come on now. This doesn't even deserve a reply.

>> 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.

Well, I don't know what to tell you except that I think you should
try to do a project using your 'model'. I think you'd find it to be
an education, though your chances of getting anyone to fund your
short-lived game development is approximately 0.

--matt
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