31 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 1st comment:
Votes: 0
I've been seeing a lot of "this mud is the best" posts again lately (not on MudBytes but elsewhere), and a recent discussion reminded me of an article I'd once read, so I googled and re-read it, this time in the context of muds.

Here's the article: Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty

Quote
In experiments at Baylor University where people were given Coke and Pepsi in unmarked cups and then hooked up to a brain scanner, the device clearly showed a certain number of them preferred Pepsi while tasting it.

When those people were told they were drinking Pepsi, a fraction of them, the ones who had enjoyed Coke all their lives, did something unexpected. The scanner showed their brains scrambling the pleasure signals, dampening them. They then told the experimenter afterward they had preferred Coke in the taste tests.

They lied, but in their subjective experiences of the situation, they didnt. They really did feel like they preferred Coke after it was all over, and they altered their memories to match their emotions.

They had been branded somewhere in the past and were loyal to Coke. Even if they actually enjoyed Pepsi more, huge mental constructs prevented them from admitting it, even to themselves.

Add this sort of loyalty to something expensive, or a hobby which demands a large investment of time and money, and you get a fanboy. They defend their favorite stuff and ridicule the competition, ignoring facts if they contradict their emotional connection.


Some other points raised by the article:

Endowment effect: People will typically pay more to retain something they feel they already own than they would to buy something new. Examples in a mud context might be pay-to-play (keep paying to avoid losing your character, even if there are cheaper muds available) or traditional rent systems (people play more hours than they would normally just to avoid losing their equipment).

Sunk costs: People will often do something they don't enjoy, because they feel they've already invested in it (e.g., sitting through a movie that sucks because you've already driven to the cinema and bought the ticket). An example in a mud context would be continuing to play a mud after it ceases to be fun, because you've already invested so much in your character that you don't want to feel your time/money was wasted.

Choice-supportive bias: People tend to remember the good things about choices they make, and the bad things about choices they reject. You can see plenty of examples in a mud context by reading reviews - they usually focus on either the good or the bad, it's rare to see a truly balanced mud review.

I think it raises some interesting questions about player retention, and it's particularly interesting in the context of commercial muds. Could commercialisation actually improve player retention? Could it make your players more loyal, more likely to defend your product, and more likely to stick around? Is it just my imagination, or do the players of commercial muds typically seem to be much stauncher supporters of their favourite games?
31 Jan, 2013, arendjr wrote in the 2nd comment:
Votes: 0
I think the last point you raise is an interesting one, and my gutfeeling says indeed, you're right. Getting a commercial MUD started may be tougher, because the cost provides a barrier to entry, but if you can pull it off your players are indeed likely to be more loyal.
31 Jan, 2013, Runter wrote in the 3rd comment:
Votes: 0
I think it's too simplistic to say that if you turned your game into a pay to play game that you'd have more player loyalty. It's also possible, and likely, that games successfully charging money would indeed be better games. More polished, etc. So you're neglecting the possibility that they're loyal because the game is actually really good. Not all pay to play games are successful. Good ones are. Is this free to play developers having sour grapes because they think their products are just as good? Probably.
31 Jan, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 4th comment:
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Well, you have to compare apples to apples. It would be simplistic to compare a bad free mud to a good commercial mud and then say the commercial mud's players were more loyal because they were paying. But it would be fine to take two muds of equal caliber and then examine the commercial affect on loyalty.
31 Jan, 2013, Rarva.Riendf wrote in the 5th comment:
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Free or paying you invest what you have that is most valuable:time. Loyalty come after enough time invested. Of course more money invested is also correlated to time, as time is money.
31 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 6th comment:
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Runter said:
Not all pay to play games are successful.

I'm not talking about success, or popularity. I'm talking about brand loyalty among the players.

Take a look at the recent reddit posts from DragonRealms players. DragonRealms used to be one of the biggest muds online, yet according to one of the players, "I feel like I'll be shot for spreading the truth about it, but even during peak hours the maximum number of players I've ever seen online is 8, and I've yet to come across anyone in the game in either riverhaven or crossing. Most times when I log in now there's the same two other players, out there somewhere, doing whatever it is that they do."

On the other hand, Aardwolf is free, and according to MudStats it's more popular than any of the commercial muds. Perhaps I've just not been looking in the right place, but I don't recall seeing any Aardwolf players ridiculing other muds, or claiming that theirs is the best.
31 Jan, 2013, Idealiad wrote in the 7th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Take a look at the recent reddit posts from DragonRealms players. DragonRealms used to be one of the biggest muds online, yet according to one of the players, "I feel like I'll be shot for spreading the truth about it, but even during peak hours the maximum number of players I've ever seen online is 8, and I've yet to come across anyone in the game in either riverhaven or crossing. Most times when I log in now there's the same two other players, out there somewhere, doing whatever it is that they do."


Wow, that's very interesting, and given their subscription model, makes sense. I bet many DR players treat their subscription like people do their gym membership – they always keep it but hardly use it – and combine this with the time + money investment, even if they don't play, they don't want to get rid of it.
31 Jan, 2013, lurker_veteran wrote in the 8th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Take a look at the recent reddit posts from DragonRealms players. DragonRealms used to be one of the biggest muds online, yet according to one of the players, "I feel like I'll be shot for spreading the truth about it, but even during peak hours the maximum number of players I've ever seen online is 8, and I've yet to come across anyone in the game in either riverhaven or crossing. Most times when I log in now there's the same two other players, out there somewhere, doing whatever it is that they do."

I think he meant DragonRealms Platinum - a separate server for those who pays ~50$/month subscription.
31 Jan, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 9th comment:
Votes: 0
lurker_veteran said:
I think he meant DragonRealms Platinum - a separate server for those who pays ~50$/month subscription.

Ah, interesting, I didn't realise it was a separate server. But still, the general point remains.
31 Jan, 2013, Runter wrote in the 10th comment:
Votes: 0
Idealiad said:
Well, you have to compare apples to apples. It would be simplistic to compare a bad free mud to a good commercial mud and then say the commercial mud's players were more loyal because they were paying. But it would be fine to take two muds of equal caliber and then examine the commercial affect on loyalty.


Which is normally impossible to do, and it's the free mud owners that are claiming theirs are as good as the pay ones. It's hard for a free mud owner to have the motivation to cater to the wants of others when they're not getting paid. It's also hard for them to spend the same amount of time on it as a full team when there's money to be had.
31 Jan, 2013, Runter wrote in the 11th comment:
Votes: 0
KaVir said:
Runter said:
Not all pay to play games are successful.

On the other hand, Aardwolf is free, and according to MudStats it's more popular than any of the commercial muds. Perhaps I've just not been looking in the right place, but I don't recall seeing any Aardwolf players ridiculing other muds, or claiming that theirs is the best.



Well, it's probably true that if someone pays money for something they feel the need to justify it. I haven't specifically seen Aardwolf players shilling, but I see free to play muds with small groups of very tightly held cliques that post on forums saying similar things from time to time. It seems proportionate to the size of their playerbase.

I also think it could be the culture within the game.
31 Jan, 2013, Jhypsy Shah wrote in the 12th comment:
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Could commercialisation actually improve player retention?

I could see where a clear plan and budget could improve staff retention, which in turn would improv player retention..maybe with a little anal retention, if needed. XD

Seriously though, I can only wonder why I don't see more MUDs tinkering with the ad rev' channels out there. I tend to check 'em out, when I see them.
01 Feb, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 13th comment:
Votes: 0
Jhypsy Shah said:
Could commercialisation actually improve player retention?

I could see where a clear plan and budget could improve staff retention, which in turn would improv player retention..

I don't mean in terms of what the cash can be spent on, I mean through the emotional connection to a brand in which you've invested.

Scenario 1: You watch the first 15 minutes of a movie on TV and it utterly sucks. Would you keep watching, or change the channel?

Scenario 2: The same as scenario 1, except the movie is on DVD and you paid $20 for it. Would you keep watching, or switch it off?

Scenario 3: You enjoyed the first 7 seasons of a show on TV, but the 8th and final season really sucks. Will you watch the last dozen episodes, or give up on it?

Scenario 4: The same as scenario 3, except it's on DVD and you paid $50 for it. Will you watch the last dozen episodes, or give up on it?
01 Feb, 2013, Jhypsy Shah wrote in the 14th comment:
Votes: 0
It's really hard to say, normally yes, it would be off that channel after 15 minutes of suck. I've been through scenario 1 and acted in different ways depending if I was watching it with someone, I may watch it with the sound off because I like the style of animation or some element in it. I've gone through hours of video just to pull some frames out that I liked. It may sound strange but I would just as soon make my own 15 minutes of suck, than keep watching someone else's, sometimes..might depend on my mood.

I don't watch alot TV and movies in the traditional sense. I think alot of it is very repetive, formulaic, the investors knew it would be a safe investment, no deviations from it. By the time I watch one, I'm usually aware of the plot and synopses, among other things, I might have wiki'd it or something.

I like seeing no/low budget stuff that's out there. New stuff, fresh stuff or even a new twist on old stuff.

I do pay DDO for the long term, not monthly. More than likely, if I'm on then it's because my guildies convinced me (in RL) to play for a while, not so much that I was consumed with a desire to play, with the exception of their in game auction house and crafting hall. I like tinkering with that kind of stuff.

I have a different definition of wife aggro, she runs the guild. XD

..but as far as loyalty, I tend to have more for the smaller studios. I'll defect from a larger MMO and might even try to take people with me, if I find something worth checking out, that I like.

When think of fanboy types, I think of the larger MMO's. Im no mud-marketing genius but I'm not sure that I can believe that all of the the successful formulas being practiced, that would work for something that scale, would be right for a MUD.

I could easily wake up tommorow and realize everything I knew the day before was wrong, it happens. Never know. XD

Just curious. Did you read the wall of text I put in this post?
01 Feb, 2013, plamzi wrote in the 15th comment:
Votes: 0
This is an interesting discussion. The only elephant in the room is that we're talking about MUDs in 2013. The odds of creating a successful commercial MUD at this point in history are about the same as winning the state lottery. I take that back. Much smaller than winning the state lottery, even if by successful you mean making minimum wage for 1 person. With that in mind…

From what I have observed, people who have paid for something always *want to* justify the cost (see "choice-supportive bias" above). Whether they'll be able to do that, however, depends on a great many factors that no amount of game theory can decipher for you.

If the product is actually very good but maybe not intuitive (think any MUD you've ever played), I think charging for it is going to make anyone who has purchased it more likely to invest time in order to get their money's worth. In that sense, in most cases a commercial MUD has every advantage over a free one. But every advantage can be squandered, even if people are getting paid.

I firmly believe that if there had been more commercial MUDs in the early to mid 90's, we would all now be a lot better off. MUDs would have reached more people than they did, and commercial codebases of high quality would by now have become open-source. This did not happen for MUDs, not in the way it happened for early MMORPG's.

Also, I think that if there had been more and more successful commercial MUDs, people would even now be in a better position to start a commercial MUD. That's because there would have been a strong paying culture among vets rather than what we have now–the exact opposite–a feeling of complete entitlement in all but a scattered few mudders.

Back to the elephant in the room. If we're discussing commercialization, I feel that we should be talking about how to reinvent MUDs in order to even make sense to attempt a commercial project.

I mean "reinvent" in the most radical sense. Every now and again, someone posts about how, now that phones and tablets can get us online anytime anywhere, we have an opportunity for a revival. Not really. If you sit around and wait for the crowds to return just because Android and iOS have free MUD clients, or because you've put together a basic web GUI, you have a long wait ahead of you. A revival may come to some, but it will be in the wake of a total reinvention.

MUDs have fundamental characteristics that make them almost impossible to monetize. We all know what those are, but having invested enormous amounts of hours ("sunk costs"), we tend to try and forget. The biggest ones:

* They require a lot of reading, which few enjoy, demanding that you use your imagination, which even fewer enjoy.

* They require the player to read at a high level of comprehension, in one language, which makes them difficult to market worldwide.

* The majority of them require focus, disallow "pausing", and penalize players who may "zone out" at any moment.

* They provide very little visual and audio stimulation, which are things most people enjoy.

Any one of these characteristics is enough to sink the whole genre for 99.9% of mobile players. And maybe 99.3% of social players on browsers. That's the problem staring us in the face, not whether to go commercial or not.
01 Feb, 2013, KaVir wrote in the 16th comment:
Votes: 0
Jhypsy said:
It's really hard to say, normally yes, it would be off that channel after 15 minutes of suck.

Same here, but that's just scenario 1, where you've no real investment. It gets more interesting when you compare it with scenario 2 (financial investment), scenario 3 (time investment) and scenario 4 (both time and financial investment). Would you switch off that movie just as quickly if you'd spent $20 on it? What if it was the final episode in a series you'd previously enjoyed?

And yes, I read your full post.

plamzi said:
This is an interesting discussion. The only elephant in the room is that we're talking about MUDs in 2013. The odds of creating a successful commercial MUD at this point in history are about the same as winning the state lottery.

As I said earlier, I'm not talking about success, I'm simply talking about brand loyalty. The same arguments could be made for pretty much anything - food, clothing, movies, books, apple products, etc. But as this is a mud forum, and I've been observing several instances of "best mud"ism lately, I thought it might be interesting to consider the causes behind it, and discuss the possible impact of commercialisation on player retention.

plamzi said:
If we're discussing commercialization, I feel that we should be talking about how to reinvent MUDs in order to even make sense to attempt a commercial project.

That could also be another interesting subject for discussion, but it's a completely separate topic, so I'd suggest splitting it off into another thread - perhaps in the design forum.
01 Feb, 2013, Jhypsy Shah wrote in the 17th comment:
Votes: 0
If I pay 50$ for a DVD, I might be upset if there's just a season of sitcoms in that case. XD

I once got chewed out for watching a pirated version of vampire hunter D (the newer one) because I was too lazy to walk 5 foot away from the computer and get it out of the case.

For a few years, when I was younger, I had some art and antique booths on the side. Sometimes it was as easy as picking something up in one end of town for 2$ and selling it across town for at least 20$. I liked to mark everything up at least 10 times and sometimes I still didn't feel like it was worth my time. I was one of those people who can walk into a room full of property and have it roughly appraised, in my mind, in moments but then I got married and everything suddenly became sentimental. :/

I used to take books from the thrift store and sell them to collectors, if I thought they were the right edition. Newer textbooks back to college bookstores, if the time was right. I might call someone, right before I bought something, to see if they had a buyer. Found nice software stuffed in an 80's hairband CD and got it for a dollar once. A spotted an old spiderman on a vcr tape, had it sold to comic nerd quick.

I made some cash and got burned occasionally but I really just enjoyed the hunt. I tried to learn from the burns, especially if I felt it was a dealer thinking I was getting to big..like I said I'm probrably kinda strange tho'.

Once the hype wears off, the price goes down.

Sometimes I see an old computer and wonder how thick the gold plate is inside.

Sometimes I see a junk car and wonder how much plat' is in the cat'.

I actually had a fondness for traditional things, hand made items, museum quality pieces but they were rare, few and far between.

This may sound long winded (it is) but let me just say, running into just one item I would call masterpiece, that may well have been someone's one and only true masterwork of art that they ever accomplish in their life, makes the whole journey worth while and just seeing something like that, makes the rest of it seem insignificant. Ya can't put a price on something like that.

What I'm saying may not translate well from property to MUDs and other digital things but I thought I'd throw that out there. A masterpiece will always have a loyal loving following and will never be easily appraised because it surpasses every feature when compared to others of simular origin and make. Such things are kinda.. priceless.

maybe that's what I'm hunting for here, something one of a kind, a masterpiece of a game that's unlike anything else. Something that could only be created from a labor of love..I'd like to think so.

So when are we gonna get around to these radical reinvention ideas? Sounds like fun. XD

-Jhypsy Shah
01 Feb, 2013, Orrin wrote in the 18th comment:
Votes: 0
As well as comparing commercial vs completely free muds it might be more useful to look at any differences between paying and non paying players on the same commercial mud. According to the op you might expect players who have paid a lot to be the biggest fanboys. In my experience of running a commercial game this isn't the case but that's just my anecdotal impression. It would be interesting to do some research among players of commercial and free games to see what effects monetization has on loyalty.

I suspect that the culture and style of game is a more important factor in how loyal the fans are rather than if they've spent money. In fact on Maiden Desmodus I remember we had a few people who made single big purchases almost as soon as they started playing and then barely played again.
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