Slashdot Mirror
An Xbox Live-like Service For Open/Indie Gaming?
Byrne Reese writes "Amidst all the crazy ideas in online video entertainment in the past year, there is a small company called Arena Unlimited that is taking an interesting approach to gaming economies. As near as I can tell, they're trying to open up a multitude of online gameplay services (e.g., opponent matching, free market item trading) to the masses (i.e., open source and independent PC game developers). (I shudder to think what would happen if one could actually introduce a legitimate and real free market economy into The Sims.) It's no Xbox Live, and their list of supported games is pretty small, but if they can do all that they say they may one day support, then sign me up."
how long before 50% of the current commercial big company developed onlien games tank
There will always be fanatics to a certain game that will devote the time necessary to create a place for followers of the game with all these services. PC gamers tend to have longer-attention spans than console gamers and stick to usually at most 4 online games at any give point. I just dont think that the market is there.
Why not test out such things as a real free trade economy on The Sims before we try it out in real life? Would it not make more sense to test these policies out in a virtual world of real people instead of just going straight from a phisophical theory to a real world reality?
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
oh i only briefly looked through the site, but is there a list of games (with genres) on the site?
Can EA finally get an online title going for the xbox because of this? I've had to boycott those teabaggers because of their non-live support.
Microsoft cracked one out of the park with Xbox Live (apparently they save their innovative minds for their side projects). Let's move all online gaming in that direction.
From all my poking around and googling I can really find little/no actual information on it. Their FAQs are empty (except for "future releases") and I can't even tell what it is. Is it a console game/system? computer game?
In all appearances this looks more like a Phantom Then an actual "gaming news story".
Well, I love any company that can plan to be Slashdotted, complete with a google link to their home page at the ready.
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
It's a safe bet the economic impact will be boring.
But does it run on linux so it'll work on my hacked Xbox?
So small, in fact, that you didn't need to pluralize the word "games" in that sentence.
If you have been following GNU Gaming Zone progress recently it is maturing rapidly, just give those dirty GNU hippies a few more years they'll be on par with Microsoft's services.
There's just no way those solutions will be competing with commercial online gaming platforms, like XBox Live, any time soon though. Mostly, for technical reasons: most console users don't want to have to deal with setting up a LAN or even basic routing functionality (as you have to do when using a tunneling tool), no matter how simple, they just want stuff to work out of the box. Exposure is another problem: XBox Live is a household name. Most people, on the other hand, don't even know that independently run online gaming services exist.
It will be interesting to see how the PC gaming crowd, which is generally more inclined to tweak their systems and try new stuff, will react when free, preferably open-source online services become widely available. With high-bandwidth Internet access becoming affordable, or even standard, in many areas this might just turn out to be a very interesting thing(tm).
I can definately see a market for a service where you hook up to a game server, and then pay a small fee for a "stooge" to let you kill him or her (doesn't really matter which) repeatedly in something like Tribes or Unreal Tournament.
Now, wouldn't THAT be a fun job?
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I've been playing online games since what - 1997?
How is an open games service any different from something like Gamespy, All Seeing Eye, or even just finding a server and logging onto it? yes, I know there are the issues with scoreboards and ranking and whatnot, but stuff like Raven Shield does that anyway.
So, to cut my rant short: what makes X-Box Live so great that it needs to be open-sourced?
Secondly, if X-Box Live is so groundbreaking, why the hell do I always hear about open source ripping off other people's models? I mean it's embarrassing! We bitch so much about Microsoft, but spend most of our time copying them: Media Center, Mono, Office, and now an online gaming community... way to go guys...
The jackbooted DMCA-wielding thugs at Vivendi-owned Blizzard Entertainment drove the project underground, so that they can eventually charge people by the month to play Whorecraft.
dont except me to pay 50 bucks for the game AND pay to play online. id pay 10 to 15 max if onlinw play costs me cash. if its more....can u say filedonkey? it may be wrong but show me who can afford 50$ and 20 a month 4 every game. if pay 2 play is to work, the cost of the game must be minimal. unless youre rich, though i doubt you got rich by blowing all your money on stuff like this.
Can any of the current crop of online games either MMORPG or non RPG ones be worth playing for more than 2 or 3 months?
Secondly, what kind of guarantee will you have when you spend 250+ hours a year building a character, e.g., Ultima Online, that
1. you won't be forced to pay an extra $50 year to upgrade
2. that the online game will be supported for the near term and long term future? They don't close down the game and servers for 6+ months after you buy the game.
I really can't see this one working. If developers are cheap enough to use a small, cheap, independent service such as this one - and consumers don't want to pay for it - why the heck does anyone think they're going to buy anything that's advertised?
Over at IBM's Alphaworks site they've got a project called Business Integration for Games that seems to be oriented along these lines.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
The real money is in real world games..
I'd pay if someone could tell me where the nearest topless women's volleyball game was, or even drop in floor hockey on a tuesday night..
This whole 'internet' fad is bound to fade soon, I mean look at CB radio's, and we'll be back at home with no friendsters, and duke nukem forever still six months away!
I hate spyware and spies
...true capitalistic free market anyway.
It's called the "Black Martket".
Drugs, cigarettes, prostitution, software, satellite cards, anything that is regulated and/or taxed to opression or overpriced or has unserved demand due to a monopoly has a black market and as such also has a true free market.
All that participate, do so by choice. They take the risks for the rewards. They pay the costs for the product. All suppliers compete in a totally unregulated fashion and all buyers are free to choose based on price and product.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
Shouldn't any game or application just be able to do a nslookup type of query to find an online open to game player at anytime anywhere, etc?
This is what Valve's Steam content distribution and gaming system is heading towards. I gives you a friends list (like icq), lets you voice chat in game and IM across games (Valve supported ones), and does automatic patching with anti-cheat updates.
A similar 3rd party system for non-Valve games would be cool and useful. Especially the extension to the real market for MMORPG's.
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
For one, there is an external force artificially deflating the number of available sellers and buyers. Sellers further reduce their own availability through rather underhanded behaviors. Buyers rarely have more than one supplier, and actual price competition is equally rare. Product has frequent impurities / misrepresentations. Information is horded by those who have it, lest external forces come down upon them.
True free market economics, where every party knows all of the prices available to them and the actual quality level and statistics of the products offered, is impossible without regulating bodies ensuring that all parties adhere to such high standards of information accuracy.
Just because a market is flying under the radar of the "evil, oppressive, taxing government" doesn't mean it is a free market. Try getting 5 quotes for verifiably 90% pure cocane on a Friday night.
The ______ Agenda
I shudder to think what would happen if one could actually introduce a legitimate and real free market economy into... life?
I am very sucseptible to "let's have another drink"
Well now I can play counter strike on live with my friend in bombay, who is on 128 dsl... which is VERY pricy..... i feel for him... but then again, there is not really going to be a huge fan base there seeing that people there are still without a computer, let alone a dial-up connection, or high speed broadband for that matter.
-Kids in the back seat causes accidents.- -Accidents in the back seat causes kids.-
i am the lead developer of an open source game,Fmorg and somehow these arena unlimited people got my emailaddress, and sent me THIS:
e velopers/5726ae9795213d5e2d10c8278e9d0c4ca0a62fa6
To whom it may concern:
You are invited to check out Arena Unlimited's new, free online service
for Open Source and independent game developers.
Our technology aims to allow developers to convert their virtual game
items into real commodities that can be bought, sold, and traded. Also,
we intend to enable developers and publishers to create, sell, and
manage dynamic advertising space, objects, sponsorships, and other content
within their games.
On Friday the 13th, we made available a preview release of our project
showing off some of our basic features. We want to give developers a
chance to check out what we're doing and evaluate the approach we're
taking to ensure usability in the upcoming production release.
Please visit the Developer's Corner
(http://arenaunlimited.com/site/dev/) to see what we offer. Comments,
questions, and suggestions are welcome and wanted.
Sincerely,
Dan Chow
CTO, Arena Unlimited, Inc.
P.S. You are receiving this invitation because you are a developer for
Open Source or independent game content. We're sorry about the mass
mailing, however this is the first, last and only e-mail we'll send you on
the subject if you don't want to sign up for the mailing list. We
believe in opt-in, not opt-out.Your address "_my_sf_email!_@users.sourceforge.net" has been invited to join
the developers mailing list at mail.arenaunlimited.com by the developers mailing list owner. You may accept the invitation by simply
replying to this message, keeping the Subject: header intact.
You can also visit this web page:
http://lists.arenaunlimited.com/mailman/confirm/d
Or you should include the following line -- and only the following
line -- in a message to developers-request@mail.arenaunlimited.com:
confirm 5726ae9795213d5e2d10c8278e9d0c4ca0a62fa6
Note that simply sending a `reply' to this message should work from
most mail readers.
If you want to decline this invitation, please simply disregard this
message. If you have any questions, please send them to
developers-owner@mail.arenaunlimited.com.
as was reported on slashdot before, this virtual property thing is real big now, some kid sold his UO virtual property biz for like 10 million if i remember correctly. this sounds like a sort of scam to get us OO & indie game developers into some kinda contract on the off chance our game hits it big, and creates a demand for this crap. my personal recommendation, JUST SAY NO TO SUITS!! -Ted
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
This is just a data depot to monitor your game playing habits and sold back to likely game/ad companies.
"We are working hard to include more advanced and entertaining features (such as tournaments, player matching, prizes, sponsorships and item trading) for our first public release."
Why are they repeating this? At first you only need username, password, and email. However, the catch is you'll have to register more identifiable personal information (and an entry fee once a game reaches critical mass) in order to enter for "prizes", "so we can send you the money".
Internet connection is required even for single player is questionable enough. This is obviously a spyware hiding behind games. This thing will only benefit game or ad companies, and them, while players give up their privacy like farm animals to the slaughter.
The Open Source aspect is just a ruse to display their good/openness image. If gamers don't value their privacy, then this will be "good" for them.
You hit it on the head. If people would actually read through the site they would see that the company's goal is to add layers of real-world commercialization to online game worlds. They specifically mention out-of-game trading of virtual goods, in-game ad placement, and sponsorship of "high profile" gamers who would get paid to play to attract other players.
Jeez, would it be alright for people just to have fun, without getting pimped to every minute? I guess not.
I took the liberty of visiting that opt-in link. Enjoy your free subscription! :)
i am the lead developer of an open source game,Fmorg and somehow these arena unlimited people got my emailaddress, and sent me THIS....
:-) So far the project has been entirely self-funded (all our cars are beaters and paid for if you don't count the repair bills -- by the way does anyone have a spare alternator for '92 MX-3?). Our biggest hurdle to date (aside from trying to find Other People's Money) is tearing ourselves away from BZFlag and Armagetron long enough to get some work done.
First, let me apologize if the e-mail was unwanted. Your e-mail address is listed on the Fmorg project page and we thought you might be interested in what we're doing.
this sounds like a sort of scam to get us OO & indie game developers into some kinda contract on the off chance our game hits it big, and creates a demand for this crap
Second, we're not a contract-based service. We don't charge or require anything from developers. Period.
Personally, I'm an advocate of and contributor to the Open Source community. As long as I have any input, games released under any approved license will never be required to pay licensing or developer fees to use our system.
We are constructing and offering a set of tools to be used at will by any developer who might benefit from the inclusion of such features. For example, if a developer wants to sell, say, cars to augment a racing game to help support development, etc., then we would like to help facilitate that in a convenient and secure manner. We don't have or want any say in setting the price. We're looking to support ourselves by collecting a small percentage of the sale (the majority of the revenue goes straight to the developer).
my personal recommendation, JUST SAY NO TO SUITS!! -Ted
We're really not suits, we promise! (If you don't believe us, then check out our pictures.)
But if you feel violated by our approach, I sincerely apologize. I hope you continue work on Fmorg with our without our help, as it looks very promising.
moto411.com
shudder to think if one could actually introduce a legitimate and real free market economy into The Sims.)
Is that when little AI controled computer people buy stuff from me off of an ebay like system?
"What do you do with the mad that you feel when you feel so mad you could bite?" - Mister Rogers
YOU FAIL IT!
I'm a programmer, and have worked on one of the XBox Live games available now. All these things people rant about-- consistent UI, etc, are a *TON* of work to implement, and implement absofraggingly perfectly (or MS will fail you). All these features sound nice, but they don't come cheap or easy-- they take time away from working on, say, the game.
All this work is forced onto developers because MS can say "or we won't allow your game to be published." That's one heck of a stick, and it works. How are you going to enforce such a thing for open source? Even if you do one better than MS and actually have source code that drops in quickly (don't get me started on how XLive isn't), creating UIs, etc will take up a long time.
welp, the suits thing was a joke really, i AM sorry if it hurt your feelings, i was just kiddin. as for me thinking it was a scam, these days almost anything that arrives in the form of a mass mail, its not unfair to assume it's probably a scam. most im glad to know you arent trying to rip anybody off, but next time, you should definitely consider an alternate way of advertising yourselves, mas email wil NOT win you customers, especially from techies. i spend 8 hours a day (i'm a network admin in my day job) trying to deal with spam and viruses, and i've come to just downright HATE email as a form of cummunication, spam or not... next time, maybe try either paid ads here on slashdot, or perhaps someplace that targets game developers, like maybe penny arcade, or PVP. i know i'd see it if it were on one of those sites. i can see the business oppurtunity in what you are doing, selling the content rather than the game software. that way the code is free, but the model aren't like. however, i would be ADAMANTLY against doing any kind of DRM or digital signing or encryption on the content that would prevent people from being able to make mods or their own 3d models to use in the games. it would suck to cut off the creative flow like that. as ID sorta did with q3, they can GPL the code, and simply state that the art content is their copyright. i know i personally do my best to respect their rights, and i have learned a LOT from their source code that was of great value in learning how i wanted to do Fmorg. thanks for the clarification, and for not getting pissed at me for taking your email the wrong way. -ted
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
You are winning in ESPN football. Up by 3 in the third quarter the opponent throws the ball into the outstretched arms of your cornerback.
TOUCHDOWN!
And in the middle of your glory the screen goes black, and the only thing left to see is:
Waiting to Connect
15
14
13
12
Holy crap, you mean you'll let me PAY YOU for this? Sign me up!
Everyone that loves video games, bow your heads. Let us pray:
"Please never let anything be like Xbox Live again."
When I read 'store saved games centrally' I hear:
Control game content online.
I can very easily see a centralized service like this becoming a controlling force of the medium.
Maybe in a few years the virtual worlds are too complicated to be called a "game". Real economy, people have part time jobs and you can buy stuff in shops for both real world and the virtual world. ...
We'll see
I'm rather confused... I've been playing online since '94 (Descent over Kali or IHHD). Kali has listed usernames since way back then - When you ran either DOS or OS/2.
Roger Wilco came out years ago.
I don't get it.
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
1994 here. Decent in DOS via IHHD or Kali.
How is an open games service any different from something like Gamespy, All Seeing Eye, or even just finding a server and logging onto it? yes, I know there are the issues with scoreboards and ranking and whatnot, but stuff like Raven Shield does that anyway.
Kali.net gives you a whole slew of games and listed servers to choose from.
So, to cut my rant short: what makes X-Box Live so great that it needs to be open-sourced? Secondly, if X-Box Live is so groundbreaking, why the hell do I always hear about open source ripping off other people's models? I mean it's embarrassing! We bitch so much about Microsoft, but spend most of our time copying them: Media Center, Mono, Office, and now an online gaming community... way to go guys...
IMHO, they all stole the idea from Kali.net. In fact, Jay Cotton (original owner) wouldn't implement some types of compression, so Aaron Brinton, and Kevin Bentley (D3 Networking dude, got D1 open sourced) came out with Kahn.
IIRC, This all occured long before Win98 was even in beta ;)
Pooterman.com is still up, he's got Kali Serial #6 (me with my #144), and may have some links to those apps.
Havokmon
(former op #descent)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
I think Sega had it right with Seganet. If Sega would have had more financial resources, we'd all be playing Dreamcast connected to Seganet right now. Corporate strategy will not beat corporate dollars. Microsoft is a success not because they had a good strategy, they are a success because they had the dollars and they used it. Sony had not originally planned to go online, their system came with no modem, and no harddrive. Sony should include the modem with every system being sold from now on, and include a harddrive as well while at the same time dropping the price of the system. Sony could also hire Sega to build their online network considering the fact that Sega has as much experience with this as Microsoft.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
But isn't the whole point of a website so people can see it? Seems to me like you're responding to the DDoS by effectively taking your site offline, thereby ensuring that the terrorists have already won. Why are the users coming to your site from somewhere other than /. more worthy? For that matter, don't the editors click on submitted link to check the site? Doesn't this ensure that you'll never be featured on any of those sites at all?
A much more reasonable solution would be to serve a lower-bandwidth version of the site, or add a message at the top of the site asking people to post mirrors. The coolest would be to replace the site with a link to a BitTorrent tracker with the contents (having a script to set that up on the fly would be very nifty).
When these kinds of tools first came out they were so bandwidth intensive that normal broadband could only handle two or three players -- have they improved since then?