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But from the volunteer builders point of view, there is no difference. A builder does the same amount of work, assuming the expectations are the same, whether someone else is making money off the game or not. If fun is a sufficient motive for a builder to build for free in a non-commercial game then fun + $20 is even better motivation to build.
Well, in a commercial mud the owner HOPES to make a profit. Most commercial muds both text and graphical never turn a profit.
Still better than no cents per hour though! All other things equal, $20 is better than $0. (I'm not saying all other things are equal in this case.)
Understandable from the builders' perspective but no well-run operation is going to let people just take areas away. That kind of dispute may not be uncommon but it sure as heck is exceedingly rare on professionally (not just in the commercial sense) run muds. Everytime I see one of those "My coder stole my code" posts on TMC I just roll my eyes.
Disgruntled staff members are inevitable in any operation and regardless of whether they are employees or volunteers. When they become a problem you kick their asses out the door, ban their ips, and that's the end of it.
This is the part I honestly don't understand. What does the builder need protecting from exactly? It's not like his area is a saleable asset. What does the builder stand to lose that has value, precisely?
Why, exactly? Our non-employee builders are happy to work for free, for instance, because they enjoy it. Exactly the same as in a non-commercial mud I'd imagine. Everybody wins as far as I can see, and the builder is getting exactly the same thing in both cases.
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The_Logos: Well, we don't have any dedicated builders on staff. We're not a big enough company for it to really be worthwhile particularly considering our games are not focused on PvE gameplay. Plus, there are a lot of quality builders willing to work for free because they enjoy it. There are a lot less quality coders willing to work for free. And as an aside, there are even fewer quality graphical artists or UI experts willing to work for free which is, in my opinion, why the open source movement so consistently fails to produce visually-pleasing software useable by the average person.
On Lusternia, one of the guys is purely a scripter (technically it's scripting since it's using our interpreted Rapture language. It's a powerful enough language that we've written other scripting languages in it though.) and the other does all the design, building, and some scripting (obviously. Designers who can't script are called unemployed.)
However, if we had two positions open: full-time coder and full-time builder, there is no way the builder would be offered close to what the coder makes. How much they work isn't really the issue. How much their work is worth is the issue, and the coder's is worth more. Just the way it is. Similarly, level designers make far less than coders on a graphical mud. Coding takes much more skill, experience, and education to do at a professional level than building on a text mud does.
I'll give you a real-world example. I'm negotiating some positions right now for a graphical project. The lead client programmer will make between 130k and 150k/year plus benefits and royalties. Lead level designer, on the other hand, is probably looking at the 70-80k range with benefits.
And frankly, there are more specialized skills involved with graphical level design than with text mud area building. Lots of people with absolutely no experience or formal training can be quite good builders as soon as they learn to use the building tools. Heck, there ISN'T any such thing as formal training for mud building. Hand a non-coder a compiler and text editor though and he's just going to sit there looking at it blankly.
--matt
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