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Old 10-13-2005, 06:14 PM   #31
Anitra
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Join Date: Sep 2005
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Threshold:
That’s about the lamest and most illogical argument I ever saw. You blatantly overlook one crucial factor; the meaning of the word commercial. I run a small business myself, so I know what I am talking about. I think everyone who’s ever run a business knows what I am talking about. Threshold should know it too, so I can only assume that he chooses to disregard it, for reasons of his own, probably very sound commercial ones.
Because the meaning of the word commercial, folks, is just what it says. It means that you are running a business, and that this business has to make a profit, because it is what you and your family, and possibly a number of employees are living from. No business can survive for any length of time, unless it is making a profit (Unless of course you have some other and much larger source of income and run a loss business just to get some tax reduction. But somehow I don’t think that is the case here).

So let’s not kid ourselves; the commercial muds have to make a profit from what they are doing. They need a steady inflow of cash, to pay not only for little things like servers, computers and software, but also for the salaries of themselves and their employees, (if they have any). And the bigger the company is, in the context of paid staff, the more income it has to generate each month.
Consequently it is not enough for commercial muds to have a large playerbase, they also need their players to generate money for them continuously. And as far as I know there are only two main ways of doing this. Either you need to attract a sufficient number of _new_ players every month, or you need to squeeze as much money as possible out of the ones you already have.
Which in turn you can do in two main ways. Either by using a time based paying system (per month, or per hour logged on to the mud) or by persuading the players that they need to buy ever more gadgets in order to be successful in the game.

There is probably some formula for how many really _active_ players a mud needs to break even every month. It would be interesting to see those figures, but I doubt any of our commercial mud owners on this board would share them with us.
So again, let’s not kid ourselves that any commercial mud would stay open another day if they no longer make enough profit from the game.

And that day may come sooner than we think. Already the ever flashier graphic MMORPGs are taking their toll. The day they figure out a way to establish the RP atmosphere and sense of community, which so far has been some of the few advantages left to text muds, we’ll all be in big trouble. I have heard several muds complain about an unusually low activity this fall, has anyone else on this list noticed the same?
My own guess is that the big commercial text muds would be the first to fold, if this scenario becomes reality. The free hobbyist muds would last a bit longer for three reasons.
1. They don’t really need a lot of players, most of them operate with a very small but also very loyal playerbase, and have done so for many years.
2. The have very low costs, they often operate from free servers and are run by enthusiastic hobbyists who love what they are doing. And
3. They have one main competitive advantage against the rather costly Graphic muds, they are actually FREE.

That’s why I’d actually feel a lot more insecure if I ran or played a commercial mud than a free one.
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