RE: commercial muds and cable TV (was RE: [MUD-Dev] code base inq uiry )

["Koster, Raph" <rkoster#origin,ea.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Matthew Mihaly [mailto:diablo#best,com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2000 4:08 AM
> To: 'mud-dev#kanga,nu'
> Subject: RE: commercial muds and cable TV (was RE: [MUD-Dev] code base
> inq uiry )
> 
> Again, the key really is that you must (in my opinion) cater 
> to a niche
> audience that is willing to pay for the privilege of playing 
> your game. I
> realize this sort of thinking is anathema to some of you big 
> commercial
> players
[snip]
> I know this sort of model is absolutely not scalable to the 
> size of large
> commercial graphical muds, but it _is_ viable for small niche 
> text muds at
> least.

Doesn't sound anathema to me... Actually, it sounds to me very like the
model that Simutronics has used for many years, and they had a pretty good
sized playerbase. Of course, Simutronics had the advantage of the AOL cash
cow for a very long time. What didn't succeed was applying that business
model to larger audiences, which is all that the traditional large game
companies cared about.

I think the model that the big guys are using now is really aimed at
capturing such ridiculously huge segments of the market that ancillary
revenue and stuff becomes possible also--in other words, it's trying to move
in the direction of multiple media. Witness EQ's recent announcement of
action figures.

-Raph



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