I've played Simutronics games off and on since the late 1980s; Orb Wars is still one of my favorite multiplayer games of all time. Actually, within the last week or two, I started playing DragonRealms... And I just want to state for the record that I Could Quit At Any Time, If I Thought I Needed To. Really.

More seriously, a number of the Simutronics staff are also longtime friends, and I've asked them if they could address some of the issues raised in the article on the front page.

Regards,
--Dave

Ah, you're the culprit! I've created a couple of accounts for Simutronics folks at their request.

Today, Simutronics� products provide a wide variety of entertainment options. Any customer will find a large variety of free events and services that far outweigh the number of �ticketed� events and subscriptions.

Your news item made reference to Simutronics as one of the pioneers of MMOGs. This is true. Next year, GemStone III, Simutronics� flagship product, will be twelve years old. In that time GemStone III has experienced many changes in online culture, the most prominent of which is a vast change in pricing.

During the early days of Simutronics, a customer was expected to pay upwards of $12/hour (and sometimes as much as $35/hour) for the privilege of using online services such as GEnie, Prodigy and CompuServe. As you may imagine, most people considered this a little pricey, so the number of users was relatively small. As a result, we developed games intended for small close-knit communities, where every customer was given a large amount of individual attention.

As online services became more popular, hourly prices slowly dropped and more people found online gaming within their budget. Still, we managed to maintain products where the community was priority, and each customer was given a unique and special experience. However in 1997, with the advent of flat rate fees, our products found themselves inundated with more customers than we could have imagined. In the subsequent years, we struggled to create systems to continue to uphold our dedication to a strong community.

Few would disagree that we succeeded on this front. Simutronics� games still provide one of the strongest and most tightly-knit communities available in the online gaming world. We did our best to provide a wide variety of activities to suit many tastes. However, when the dust settled, we looked around and realized that there were still a large number of our customers who were interested in a truly unique and personalized experience. Personalized experiences are time-consuming and expensive to create. It became clear that the only way to provide these experiences for our customers was to charge additional fees. Examples of some of these personalized experiences are individualized �GM Supported� weddings, professional artwork portraits, and multi-hour, high production value, small group quests.

However, the existence of personalized �ticketed� events does not detract from our products� offerings. A standard player who is not interested in purchasing additional options still has a wide variety of entertainment opportunities to choose from. In GemStone III alone, we provide over 100 free events every month. These events may include games, contests, raffles, the opportunity to personalize one�s items via a live merchant, and roleplaying events. For those who are not interested in paying for a personalized wedding, we provide the tools and ability to experience a wedding event without the additional cost, where they arrange their own in-game festivities, reception, services, etc.

The various subscription levels and ticket options provided by Simutronics allow each and every customer the ability to choose their own level of service. Those who are uninterested in the frills will find that Simutronics games provide a strong community, with lots of entertainment options. Those who wish for a little more personalization will find many opportunities to do so, whether they purchase event tickets, character portraits, or access to a smaller community via Platinum services.

For those interested, a standard account costs $9.95 and comes complete with anything you need to have an enjoyable roleplaying experience, including plenty of GM interaction and a large number of events. Premium services are actually priced at $20 and include special benefits such as private socializing areas. Platinum services cost an addition $50 and grant a customer access to a lower population-density version of the game where the customer base is kept intentionally small. In addition, we offer ticketed events at a wide variety of prices.

Please feel free to visit our site at www.play.net to learn more.

Respectfully,

Melissa Callaway, Producer
Eric Latham, Producer
Elonka Dunin, General Manager of Online Community
Simutronics Corp.

Well, I can certainly see how some folks would gladly spend extra money to play multiplayer games free from idiots and griefers. It's sad that the only way to create a good community seems to be to put monetary gates on it, but so be it I guess.

Perhaps I should show respect for Simutronics and not do a comparison of how they've reacted defensively to the way a somethingawful link of the day recipient reacts defensively, mainly because they're unwilling and unable to take a joke.

Perhaps.

The original article raised a fair question about pricing. And certainly Qt3 has had a number of discussions about the economics of the game industry.

If we set the wayback machine to the 1980s, online multiplayer games were on services which charged by the hour. The game developers got a royalty based on usage, and if (as was the case at the end of the 1980s) a graphical front end was needed or desireable, the time spent downloading the front end was usually free. The games were successful based on a small number of enthusiastic players, who would run up three, four, or even five figure monthly bills. Communities were obviously much smaller, and there was much less of an issue with "problem children". Few enough people were willing to pay by the hour for a game, even fewer were willing to rack up large bills to be an ass. And for those few who were, well, most of the online games, then as now, required assistance from other players, at least occasionally. And because of the small communities, the jackasses had trouble getting that aid. Furthermore, the games were small enough that human intervention by the developers to track down and deal with troublemakers was financially viable.

By the end of the 1990s, the situation had changed drastically. The product costs of most online games were skyrocketing, because the marketplace wanted games which rivalled the stand-alone production values; something online games had traditionally not done. Moreover, the business model had moved from "software free, time costs" to "software sold in stores, flat rate prices". Additionally, starting at the end of the 1980s, the hobbiest Mud community had come into existence, which posed direct competition to the purely text based online games. The change in business models changed a great many design points; art is shipped on CD rather than down a narrow pipe, the up front costs of game development (the "nut", as it were) can be recouped quickly on a successful game, and the monthly revenue is the same regardless of hours played.

I think if you look at Simutronics (and I'd recommend taking a look, there is no software to buy, and the first month is free), what you will see are decisions and a business model which make a 1980s and early 1990s community viable in the modern game marketplace.

And, to swing back all the way to the original point, the discussion of business models in the game industry and how that affects game design is certainly a reasonable discussion at Qt3.

Regards,
--Dave

There are quality text-based MUSHes and MUDs that are absolutely free. The 'gatekeeper' isn't money with them, however, it's being able to roleplay and work with others in a setting/storytelling environment.

Some MUSHes require detailed applications before a character is granted while others take a more open-ended approach which adopt the concepts of 'consent' and 'prop control' of stories and locales which serve as buffers before a new player can impact another player's, or group's, subjective reality. This can be thought of as a 'PK' toggle in the most basic sense but in a broader way it's a way of setting informal OOC standards within a mutually agreed upon community. Ostracism works well to reform behavior within the context of an online society if that society is genuinely focused on in-character interactions and suspension of disbelief.

This isn't a system without problems but it can work well in allowing a world to exist that can support in depth roleplaying while providing membranes of sensibility for various subgroups mingling throughout the larger MUSH.

And because free MUSHes/MUDs aren't dependant on cash they can afford to kick bad players off. Lots.

Hey, where's Chet? Shouldn't he be in here giving Melissa trouble over something or other?

Submitted for comment:

http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/cuyahoga/1002792612219532.xml

Regards,
--Dave

A friend of mine has been running a MUD for years, and it seems very popular. He was actually looking at making it into a graphical pay-to-play, and had investors lined up, but it all fell apart during the dot bomb explosion.

The MUD is still there, anyway.

It seems to me that I used to know Elonka, back in 1994-1995. If she's who I think, she's been with Simutronics for a long time now. I wonder how she's doing.

Well, to my knowledge I'm the only "Elonka" in the online gaming industry, and definitely the only one at Simutronics since 1989! So it's probably me. ;)

I'm doing fine, thanks for asking. Or at least, I'm doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances. A very dear cousin of mine had an extremely close call at the Pentagon on Sept 11, and many of his associates were killed. Everyone else in my immediate family is fine, though I've been grieving quite a bit for many of our players. I know many many people who lost friends, family, and coworkers from the attacks, so it's been pretty rough.

In non-terrorist news though, I've been doing okay, including trips all over the world in recent years, such as to Antarctica in 1999, and I actually just got back from Vietnam & Cambodia a couple months ago. If you're interested in vacation pics (grin), you can check out my new personal URL, at http://elonka.com. You can also follow links from there to other bio info.

And of course, please feel free to drop me a line in email directly: [email protected]


Elonka :)