SnakeoilIgnore Button. The coward's feature. Premium Member join:2000-08-05 united state |
Snakeoil
Premium Member
2013-Jan-3 1:59 pm
Correct. But it seems the first question about these types of games is :Is it free to play/how much to play. Which are fair questions. I think it would be "kool" if games were able to do what second life does. SL can stream video feeds from the internet, into the game. Of course the majority of those feeds are of "mature" or adult type [porn ads], but SL tried to clean up it's image a few years ago [been awhile since I logged into it]. But still, take a game where you are driving around a city with billboards. Instead of "static"/fake ads, they could pipe in ads from google adsense, or a business. Use product placement and such, to help reduce the games over heard.
Or like what World of Warcraft and Halo 4 did. Pay/work with a company to have game codes. The codes help power up a player or give in game item.
But yes I agree. Running a game takes money. From paying the power bill to run the servers, to paying the ISP so players have a connection. To paying the employees to take care of the game.
I still haven't tried it, but I'm getting more curious about Earth and Beyond. It's an abandonware game that fans of the game rebuilt the server software, and give out the client for free. They don't change anything, but accept donations. One stat I saw for the game claimed 40k regular players on a weekly bases. Doesn't seem like much, but considering the lack of advertisement, and being all player supported, that doesn't sound bad.
Back when I played Ultima Online, there were several player run servers. again, I have no idea why EA didn't go after them to shut them down, but they didn't. Players recreated the server software, then provided a connection. So you could play for free. I never risked it, because I didn't want my UO account banned by EA, if I goofed it up somehow.
Sorry about going OT... |