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CopyBot Redux, over on VentureBeat

November 23rd, 2006 (Visited 3201 times) Tags:

Matt Marshall of VentureBeat asked me to write a brief article on the CopyBot thing, and here it is: Investing time and money in virtual worlds: Caveat Emptor.

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4 Responses to “CopyBot Redux, over on VentureBeat”

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Raph’s Website » Are microtransactions actually the future? wrote on November 24th, 2006 at 11:18 pm:

[...] In a comment here on the VentureBeat article I wrote, Steven Davis stated, I was with you until your final comments. Outside the US, MMOs/online games are moving to a Virtual Asset Purchase model. They are selling you the songs while sitting by the campfire is free (though you don’t get many songs until you pay, to strain your metaphor). Second Life should be the same. Where they have run into trouble is that they do not manage “song creation” / virtual asset creation by their players well so their DRM system is not effective - and has begun to undermine the player-driven economy. Whether it is possible to do so in a system like Second Life is a subject of a different discussion, but “song sales” seem to be growing rapidly as the business model (according to Gamasutra, microtransactions now drive about 50% of the Korean online game industry). [...]

VentureBeat » Investing time and money in virtual worlds: Caveat Emptor wrote on August 15th, 2007 at 7:42 am:

[...] comment_author_email:”",sz_score:”0″,comment_score:”0″}; Raph’s Website » CopyBot Redux, over on VentureBeat 11.23.06 | 10:47 [...]

Reader Comments

Steven "PlayNoEvil" Davis said on November 24th, 2006 at 12:49 pm:
Raph -

I was with you until your final comments. Outside the US, MMOs/online games are moving to a Virtual Asset Purchase model. They are selling you the songs while sitting by the campfire is free (though you don’t get many songs until you pay, to strain your metaphor). Second Life should be the same. Where they have run into trouble is that they do not manage “song creation” / virtual asset creation by their players well so their DRM system is not effective - and has begun to undermine the player-driven economy. Whether it is possible to do so in a system like Second Life is a subject of a different discussion, but “song sales” seem to be growing rapidly as the business model (according to Gamasutra, microtransactions now drive about 50% of the Korean online game industry).
dmx said on November 29th, 2006 at 11:06 am:
I actually think copybot is the best thing that could happen to SL.

The problem with SL, is that its utterly gripped by what bugs me abour RL. Socially constructed limits to subjectivity based on wealth. “I’d love to be a hoverboat owner, but I cant afford it”. Well, in my take It’d be nice to be able to drop into a virtual world and hoon about in a hoverboat, but damn it if I cant afford to in SL either.

Of course I *used* to be able to go;-

@create hoverboat

And in the old currencyless Mush’s I could go “Yo, queegle, copy me your battlefrog and we’ll go nuts on each other”.

Richard Stallman talks alot about distopia for him being a world based on intellectual property, and whilst RL is not quite there.

And I got to be honest, I think its going to strangle the hell out of the game. Currently theres alot of discontent within SL about the intrusion of the corporates into the game. I dont blame its residents. Walking around and seeing boring IBM and NISSAN signs plastered everywhere seems to invoke everything negative about baudrilares (spelling?) hyperreal I can think of. But the growing distopia in SL is a creation of the culture of the place itself. Talking about building librarys of open source items and whatnot can draw looks of almost horror out of residents “You’ll undercut my market!” and so on. Im tempted to reply “Well, why isnt that a bad thing. Its a game, and more stuff means more fun”, but then I remember that many of these poor sods are attempting to actually make a living in it. Its like some sort of bizare categorical error made intentional. Well of course IBM and NISSAN will turn up. Theres a buck to be made. But wheres the fun?

Now, I dont necessarily disaprove of ingame currency. Heck, eve online is my favorite game by a mile, and the buck rules the show there. But the core undercurrent is NOT “If I move x widgets, I can trade my lindenbux for realbux” , its “man, if I pwn the band of brothers I can wave my doodle around in 3D and be the he-man I dreamed of as a child”.

But I can imagine a 3d world that isnt shooty, but more social buildy, and frankly Im more inclined to imagine that as one based on a set of freedoms that precludes exploitation and constraint by wealth and intellectual property.

Well, I really hope copybot succeeds and forces some freedom into that game , because frankly if online world makers might get the idea that SL’s monetisation of fun really is a good idea.

Only the cyberpunks will save us now!