[the_logos]

For every Asheron's Call 2 there are dozens, possibly hundreds, of hobbyist MUDs that launched and then shut down quickly afterwards. It's so trivial to start a hobbyist MUD that that fact alone ensures the rate of failure of hobbyist MUDs will always dwarf commercial projects. We'll just never hear about most of them because they'll never attract more than a handful of players.

All it takes for a hobbyist to decide to shut down the world is that he's bored of it. That's not to say the good hobbyists act that way but it's pretty obvious when you look at the full list of MUDs on Mudconnector, for instance, that most of the devs operating most of the MUDs there are far from serious about creating and sustaining value for players. And why should they be? It doesn't take much of an investment in terms of time/money/will to download yet another DIKU copy, slap a name on it, and "launch it".

Again, that's not to imply that commercial = will always be around (obviously not) nor is it mean to imply that hobbyist = flakey. It is, however meant to imply that reality dictates that the average hobbyist project that is launched has a far, far higher chance of shutting down in the near future than does the average commercial project (though I'd argue that even in the commercial case, the likelihood is greater than 50%).

--matt