[Sanvean]

I think there's a great deal of value in professionalism -- I don't know that I feel the same about professional. I've seen pay to play games that I've considered very badly run and/or which were short-lived. I do agree that a mud that is pay to play may be more accountable to the players. The players have consumer power and can leave, but so do people playing free muds - they can move elsewhere, and I don't think any game admin is happy to see that sort of migration.

I do, though, have a bias. Our game would be considered hobbyist, but the staff that have or are working on it over the past decade and a half include people with credentials from Microsoft, Apple, Sony, and more, as well as professional writers, editors, and game designers. We have formalized processes for creating new game content, incorporating player feedback, making code changes, etc. We track turnaround time for answering player requests, and work to be professional in our replies to player queries. (I've talked more about this in detail .) We're considerably more professional than some of the pay-to-plays I've seen come and go.

I do think that very few people want to play a mud run as a hobby by some goofy social outcast in their basement, rife with favoritism, which seems to be the image of the non-pay-to-play mud that gets waved around some. But I also think it's possible to have a mud that is run in a professional manner without money changing hands.