[the_logos]

A commercial MUD is far more than just the development effort. There are all sorts of things to deal with that you simply do not have to deal with as a hobbyist. Security certifications around storing credit card information, actual responsive customer service, the marketing and advertising chain (tracking conversions from ads and whatnot is trickier than it sounds), human resources (hiring processes), schedules (although Iron Realms is quite relaxed about scheduling due to the highly iterative nature of its process), etc. It's fundamentally not different but the devil's in the details.

Not at all. For instance, Mythic ran their text MUDs past the point where they were profitable. Further, I'm unsure where your data points are coming from on every commercial MUD ceasing to be profitable. The oldest operating text MUD (Gemstone I believe) is a commercial MUD, for instance. I could as easily claim that every hobbyist MUD will be shut down to due lack of interest eventually, but that's not really accurate.

Really? I suspect you're mainly thinking here about hobbyist MUDs that have gotten to a certain point in their life cycle. I'm including all hobbyist MUDs, which includes the kid who sets up a MUD and shuts it down a week later. The churn of hobbyist MUDs at the very low end is pretty high if you watch Mudconnector's listings.

Saying that the only objective of a commercial MUD is to turn a profit is as misleading as saying that the only objective of a hobbyist is to entertain himself. If profit was the only thing I was concerned with, for instance, I wouldn't have gotten into text MUDs. They're hardly a massive market, and never were. One gets into a niche market on the commercial end (in my experience) because of an all-consuming passion for it and the desire to focus on that passion rather than having to hold down a day job doing something less entertaining.

In the case of our MUDs for instance, it wouldn't matter if they weren't profitable. I'd just fund them out of my own pocket.

--matt