[the_logos]

EDIT BY XERIHAE: In the thread "What is free?" KaVir wrote the following in response to a post by Threshold:

If they don't support the professional vs. hobbyist information, then clearly their motivation is NOT to give players valuable information, but is instead something far more insidious. I don't support your "professional" categorisation because: 1. It's even more ambigious than "free", 2. The real definition of "professional" doesn't match that which you've given. 3. It serves no actual value within the listings, and: 4. It's nothing more than an attempt to distract people from the constructive debate. To give an idea of just how worthless such a categorisation would be, let's take a look at what different sort of muds would be classified as under such a definition: (a) An unemployed college drop-out who sits on his stock DikuMUD all day, selling levels and magic items as his only form of income? "Professional Mud. Admins are paid and full time." (b) A professional games developer who's also working part-time on a cutting-edge commercial mud? "Hobbyist Mud. Admins are unpaid or not full time." (c) A bored housewife/househusband who spends all day sitting on his/her stock mud, offering mudsex for $5 a pop? "Professional Mud. Admins are paid and full time." (d) A former head designer for a successful MMORPG, now retired and working full time on creating a next-generation mud (perhaps with the intention of eventually making it pay-to-play)? "Hobbyist Mud. Admins are unpaid or not full time."

Xerihae - Seemed like the easiest place to start off this debate (and give me somewhere to move posts too!) so I hope you will all continue here.

THE LOGOS POST BEGINS HERE:

Originally Posted by KaVir I don't support your "professional" categorisation because: 1. It's even more ambigious than "free",

The Olympics seem to manage pretty well with clearly distinguishing between the two in most sports. It's not that complicated.

--matt

[Valg]

Originally Posted by KaVir If for some reason you really are serious about this proposal, then start a new thread for it, because it is off-topic here. The only possible value it can serve in this thread is as an attempt to try and distract and disrupt the constructive debate that (most of) the rest of us are trying to have.

I tend to agree, especially regarding the point that customer service, technical prowess, speed of response, hardware resources, and professionalism are what players ask about, not compensation. I'd have trouble classifying our game as either-- our staff derive zero income from the MUD, but they're nearly all full-time computer programmers, network administrators, etc., and the collective average workload of just our Implementors is equivalent to a few full-time employees.

Possibly worth discussing in another thread, though at this point it seems to be merely theatrics and distraction. At least in our own experience, we're very frequently asked by players whether they'll have to spend money to compete (and other things included in the current questions, such as codebase, PK, RP, etc.), but I'm not sure I've been asked about my personal compensation even once.

[Threshold]

Valg, you are grossly underestimating the value players put on knowing the admins have a vested, financial stake in making sure the game they play is stable and continues to operate into the distant future.

I imagine the reason you are not asked about it is because you run a hobby mud, your players already know it is a hobby, and thus there is no point in asking you about it.

But the extreme majority of gamers have voted with their feet and their wallets, and they prefer playing games where the operators' jobs depend on that game continuing to exist. It is simply safer to put one's faith in another person's self interest than their good intentions.

[Valg]

Originally Posted by Threshold Valg, you are grossly underestimating the value players put on knowing the admins have a vested, financial stake in making sure the game they play is stable and continues to operate into the distant future.

Players care that the game is stable and will continue to operate. I don't think the players particularly care about whether or not any money becomes salary.

KaVir's examples above (e.g., one untrained guy operating out of his house for a middling income, vs. a team of people who run a game in their spare time) are illustrative of why. Games run for profit fold their tent all the time when profits aren't meeting expectations-- your argument is a double-edged sword. You might not toss away Threshold when it's your sole income, but then again you might axe it in a heartbeat if things go south and you can't afford to do it the way you're set up to do it.

The best evidence of stability is stability. Providing dates of operation and related information covers that well enough in my opinion. A '100% free' game which has been running for over a decade is very likely to continue running. A commercial game founded this month may or may not last through December.

[Zhiroc]

Originally Posted by the_logos The Olympics seem to manage pretty well with clearly distinguishing between the two in most sports. It's not that complicated.

Actually, it's no longer cut-and-dry. To quote from Wikipedia:

Originally Posted by Wikipedia It gradually became clear to many that the amateurism rules had become outdated, not least because the self-financed amateurs of Western countries often were no match for the state-sponsored "full-time amateurs" of Eastern bloc countries. Nevertheless, the IOC held to the traditional rules regarding amateurism. In the 1970s, amateurism requirements were dropped from the Olympic Charter, leaving decisions on professional participation to the international federation for each sport. This switch was perhaps best exemplified by the American Dream Team, composed of well-paid NBA stars, which won the Olympic gold medal in basketball in 1992. As of 2004, the only sport in which no professionals compete is boxing (though even this requires a loose definition of amateurism, as some boxers receive cash prizes from their NOCs); in men's football (soccer), the number of players over 23 years of age is limited to three per team.

And particularly these days, especially in software where we have companies (and most MUDs) running on an operating system where the developers are not directly paid for their contributions (though granted, they are mostly software professionals), I think the term is getting very blurred.

[the_logos]

Originally Posted by Zhiroc Actually, it's no longer cut-and-dry. To quote from Wikipedia:

Huh, guess I am not up to date on the Olympics. Thanks for the correction.

--matt

[Threshold]

Originally Posted by Valg Players care that the game is stable and will continue to operate. I don't think the players particularly care about whether or not any money becomes salary.

Of course they do. That is precisely what gives them some actual faith and confidence that the game will be around. Relying on someone's self interest (if the game dies, they are unemployed) is a lot safer than just hoping some random guy will choose to keep paying for hosting, hardware, and devoting his free time to the game.

Originally Posted by Valg KaVir's examples above (e.g., one untrained guy operating out of his house for a middling income, vs. a team of people who run a game in their spare time) are illustrative of why.

Well, I don't know about those examples, but they sound pretty ridiculous and absurd. I'm talking about the real world, and real examples of real games, not some absurdly hypothetical situations that aren't relevant to the discussion.

[Xerihae]

My own personal opinion on this is that, though I doubt it's intentional, this is another issue that could be used to "ghetto-ize" a section of MUDs. By describing all games in these terms I think it's possible a lot of players would be turned off MUDs without paid staff because of the often-negative connotations of the words "amatuer/hobbyist" when used to compare to "professional".

To be honest I fail to see why this is an issue. Surely it can be simply covered with the commercial/non-commercial distinction? If there are non-commercial games out there with paid staff then by all means put me right here!

Also, having a paid staff is still not an indicator of quality as far as I'm concerned. I know some damn good MUD admins who do it as a "hobby", and I've met one or two who are paid who I wouldn't even give the time of day to because their skills are questionable and their conduct more so. I'll concede that someone with a vested financial interest in the game has a greater motivation to do well, but best intentions etc!

[chaosprime]

Originally Posted by Xerihae My own personal opinion on this is that, though I doubt it's intentional, this is another issue that could be used to "ghetto-ize" a section of MUDs.

That's possible. I think it's a useful and meaningful distinction, though, and it allows someone performing a search to say "if I'm going to play a MUD with money involved, I want to at least get full-time admins out of the deal", which seems to me just as valid as other important search options.

I don't think it's entirely fair to require detailed disclosure of revenue structure from commercial MUDs without giving them a chance here and there to tout what you get for your money.

[Xerihae]

Originally Posted by chaosprime I don't think it's entirely fair to require detailed disclosure of revenue structure from commercial MUDs without giving them a chance here and there to tout what you get for your money.

In that case, why not "Paid/Volunteer Staff" rather than the "Professional/Hobbyist" distinction?

[Milawe]

Originally Posted by Xerihae In that case, why not "Paid/Volunteer Staff" rather than the "Professional/Hobbyist" distinction?

*sigh* Because like every other check box we could ever attempt on here, people will just check what they've justified themselves into being.

For example, if you have players who are "Paid" by working for credits in the game, are they paid or volunteer? It could go either way depending on what the admins feel would be "best" for their mud in the listing.

We already see that people have issues with the money-changing hands vs. no-money changing hands distinction. I can't see how everyone wouldn't play around with this, too.

There's obviously perceived benefits in just about every check list there is. I, for one, do not believe that "Hobbyist" is a negative term at all, yet a lot of people on this site obviously feel that it ranks them beneath professional. I'm a hobbyist coder, but I'm a professional writer. I happen to do both on a mud. What does that make it?

Am I the only one confused?

[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 here.) 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.

[Milawe]

Originally Posted by Sanvean 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.

I think that's why it's so very hard to categorize anything here. When we say Professional vs. Hobbyist, are we talking about how the game is run? Are we talking about attitudes? Are we talking about systems? Are we talking about commercial vs. free? Are we talking about staff being paid/volunteer? Are we talking about running a mud being a full-time job, part-time job, or flat out hobby?

Honestly, I'm not sure I agree that the Hobbyist mud has the "social outcast basement-living dude", and honestly, isn't there an appeal to some dude living in his basement being a creative genius and us getting play in his head? Seriously, a lot of the hobbyist muds are huge, have been running for years, and have a large player-base. I'd play them before some of the professional muds simply because I like their style better, or I like their gameplay better.

Still, I was really sad when my hobbyist mud shut down and had a pwipe only to open up 6 months later with my favorite guild closed. I guess that could have happened on a professional mud as well, though I haven't encountered it yet. It all depends on who's in charge and on how they operate their business, doesn't it? Unfortunately, unlike the money vs. no-money issue, this one is really, really, really hard to gauge or determine.

[P.S. San, your link seems to be broken. I'd really like to read more on that topic, so could you check it? Thanks!]

[Detah]

There are two sets of 'http://' in that link. Delete one set and it works fine.

PS. good article.

[Milawe]

I got a wiki link to HTTP. Is that the right article?

[Valg]

Originally Posted by Mina I got a wiki link to HTTP. Is that the right article?

Fixed link: The Escapist : Sponsored by Microsoft and Apple