Raph Koster Talks Digital Ownership In Latest Riffs By Raph Blog | MMORPG.com

System · October 2021

Raph Koster Talks Digital Ownership In Latest Riffs By Raph Blog | MMORPG.com

Raph Koster's blogs on the Playable Worlds site keep coming, and this time the legendary MMO developer is tackling the concept of digital ownership.

Read the full story here

saker · October 2021

well here comes the demon zuckerberg-creature with his soon-to-be "rebranded" facebook abomination, talk about entitled ownership he want to OWN all our info and our very minds themselves enslaved and twisted in HIS "new" "metaverse" obscenity

OldKingLog · October 2021

Most of this is pretty basic common sense, sure as bacon follows eggs ... unless you happen to be vegan .. ok pipe down I still think its a good metaphor.

Anyway digital content cannot be owned by the end user, merely rented. Now that's not much different than in the real world. If I buy a print of the Mona Lisa, this does not mean I own the actual painting, nor the licensing rights to create and sell further prints of the Mona Lisa myself.

What belongs to whom in digital land is most figured out by a gentleman's agreement, oh, and giant firms of rapacious lawyers. I'm assuming the legal industry is looking at the rise of such enigmas as NFT's and all the legal red tape that will come with them and the legal beagles are putting on their lobster bibs, arming themselves with giant knives and forks and drooling like Niagara Falls in anticipation.

Its going to be a wild ride, and sadly for some digital content creators it could turn out like a farce where someone who donated their internal organs upon death, are suddenly demanded to hand them over whilst still alive.

Utinni · October 2021

Another "State the obvious with Raph Koster" with signature MMORPG.com typos and run-ons included.

laserit · October 2021

The problem imho is that people are arguing for virtual worlds with real money.

"The God I believe in isn't short of cash Mr."

[Deleted User] · October 2021

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Amaranthar · October 2021

I don't think Raph is done making his point yet.

Scot · October 2021

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

Amaranthar · October 2021

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

I've never seen any sign of him supporting P2W in all the years that I've followed him.
The "worst" I've seen in any form of related stuff is his recognition that there's nothing anyone can do about RMT.

But in this, Raph has talked about player rights of ownership for many years.
And I see a hint of a hope in that creating a greater need to support player's rights, and maybe, just maybe, it might usher in anti-P2W policies.

But it all gets complicated, what with looting codes, looting scripts, etc.
Add in legalities involving gambling, and it starts to melt my mind.
I'm very curious, have some hope, but also a lot of trepidation over all of this and where MMORPGs are headed.
I'll wait to see what Raph has to say, hopefully very soon.

Scorchien · October 2021

Raph trying to stay relevant , and boring us to tears for years now..

[Deleted User] · October 2021

The user and all related content has been deleted.

[Deleted User] · October 2021

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Kyleran · October 2021

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.

Scot · October 2021

Kyleran said:

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.

What Wargfoot describes is a methodology most game developers now factor in to their games, which I wish it was not here and we could play on a fair playing field. Ralph is part of the problem but name me the developer that is not? Also outside of indie, developers work in a company and it is company first mentality that fostered and nurtured the idea of P2W.

We are already at the stage where we look for the least P2W games, what defines a P2W game is soon going to be kicked out of the park by cryptogames. It may be sooner than we think that we look back nostalgically to cash shops and GaaS. Gaming has becoming shopping and is fast on its way to becoming a form of gambling.

bcbully · October 2021

Scot said:

Kyleran said:

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.
What Wargfoot describes is a methodology most game developers now factor in to their games, which I wish it was not here and we could play on a fair playing field. Ralph is part of the problem but name me the developer that is not? Also outside of indie, developers work in a company and it is company first mentality that fostered and nurtured the idea of P2W.

We are already at the stage where we look for the least P2W games, what defines a P2W game is soon going to be kicked out of the park by cryptogames. It may be sooner than we think that we look back nostalgically to cash shops and GaaS. Gaming has becoming shopping and is fast on its way to becoming a form of gambling.

Gamers are building games. Indy developers.

No one wants pay to win. No one whats high barriers to entry.

Kyleran · October 2021

bcbully said:

Scot said:

Kyleran said:

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.
What Wargfoot describes is a methodology most game developers now factor in to their games, which I wish it was not here and we could play on a fair playing field. Ralph is part of the problem but name me the developer that is not? Also outside of indie, developers work in a company and it is company first mentality that fostered and nurtured the idea of P2W.

We are already at the stage where we look for the least P2W games, what defines a P2W game is soon going to be kicked out of the park by cryptogames. It may be sooner than we think that we look back nostalgically to cash shops and GaaS. Gaming has becoming shopping and is fast on its way to becoming a form of gambling.

Gamers are building games. Indy developers.

No one wants pay to win. No one whats high barriers to entry.

I suspect there are millions of gamers who currently support P2W regardless whether the want it or not.

I'm one, I pay extra for advantages in ESO, not really what I call winning or losing, just a service I can take or leave.

Sovrath · October 2021

Kyleran said:

bcbully said:

Scot said:

Kyleran said:

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.
What Wargfoot describes is a methodology most game developers now factor in to their games, which I wish it was not here and we could play on a fair playing field. Ralph is part of the problem but name me the developer that is not? Also outside of indie, developers work in a company and it is company first mentality that fostered and nurtured the idea of P2W.

We are already at the stage where we look for the least P2W games, what defines a P2W game is soon going to be kicked out of the park by cryptogames. It may be sooner than we think that we look back nostalgically to cash shops and GaaS. Gaming has becoming shopping and is fast on its way to becoming a form of gambling.

Gamers are building games. Indy developers.

No one wants pay to win. No one whats high barriers to entry.

I suspect there are millions of gamers who currently support P2W regardless whether the want it or not.

I'm one, I pay extra for advantages in ESO, not really what I call winning or losing, just a service I can take or leave.

Proof starts with all the people who used to buy gold and items off of Ebay for online games.

bcbully · October 2021

Kyleran said:

bcbully said:

Scot said:

Kyleran said:

Wargfoot said:

Scot said:

Wargfoot said:

Raph endorses pay to win.
To me that pretty much ends his career as a game developer.

He's developing other things now.

Well as we see P2W in so many forms across gaming I am not sure it does, to me it means he can find a home just about anywhere. I have not seen his support of P2W but for me that does raise a big question mark about any future projects he might embark on.

He responded to me once on this forum that he supports P2W because the players support it.

IMHO, he's now a part of the problem.

The mindset is this:

The store is a feature of the game

OR

The game a feature of the store

Raph seems to have chosen the latter, which is a valid career choice - but puts himself outside of the gaming industry.

In one case the developer is interested in making something fun to earn your money.

In the other case the developer is balancing fun with intentionally engineered problems that are best solved via the store.

^--- If you find yourself using the store to fix a problem I'd suggest the better fix is to uninstall the crapware. Do not support developers who make decisions about how long it takes to harvest a node based upon creating a need for you to buy a 'boost'.

I work as a developer.

I cannot imagine writing a piece of accounting software for my clients where I intentionally make something difficult or boring so that they have to buy additional product.

"Would you like to have your spreadsheet save in 1 second instead of 10 minutes? Buy the daily saver boost for $5"

Except that..... H&R Block sells Tax Software for cheap or even free...if all one needs to do is file a simple 1040EZ form.

Did you want to file 1040A with all schedules, that costs extra. Did you want to save time with online filing for faster refunds, costs extra, resubmit your filing more than once, yep extra.

Oh, do you need to file state taxes, still more money. How about getting some support from a live person, oh definitely going to cost extra.

One might argue if you are selling accounting software for a fixed price and not finding ways to encourage your customer to keep on paying well, honestly you are doing it wrong so perhaps your employer should replace you with someone who can.

"P2W" is here to stay, no putting that djinn backing the bottle, if one wishes to keep on playing games as a service expect to keep paying, or find a new hobby, board games can be good fun, or so I'm told.

Besides, even with all of the new monetization models I still don't pay anything near what it would cost to play golf on a regular basis as a member of a country club or pay for season tickets to one of our three local sports teams, so all good as far as I'm concerned.
What Wargfoot describes is a methodology most game developers now factor in to their games, which I wish it was not here and we could play on a fair playing field. Ralph is part of the problem but name me the developer that is not? Also outside of indie, developers work in a company and it is company first mentality that fostered and nurtured the idea of P2W.

We are already at the stage where we look for the least P2W games, what defines a P2W game is soon going to be kicked out of the park by cryptogames. It may be sooner than we think that we look back nostalgically to cash shops and GaaS. Gaming has becoming shopping and is fast on its way to becoming a form of gambling.

Gamers are building games. Indy developers.

No one wants pay to win. No one whats high barriers to entry.

I suspect there are millions of gamers who currently support P2W regardless whether the want it or not.

I'm one, I pay extra for advantages in ESO, not really what I call winning or losing, just a service I can take or leave.

If we are talking XP pots then hell yeah. I know what you're saying.

No gamers want the great sword of pwn only in the cash shop tho, right?

doperthanthelastone · October 2021

YO

like who cares? this is one of the most over rated 'thinkers' in the HISTORY of this genre.

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Raph Koster Talks Digital Ownership In Latest Riffs By Raph Blog | MMORPG.com

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Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

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Raph Koster Talks Digital Ownership In Latest Riffs By Raph Blog | MMORPG.com

Comments

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV