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An Xbox Live-like Service For Open/Indie Gaming?

Posted by simoniker on from the with-added-fourteen-year-olds-swearing-at-you dept.

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."

13 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. PC vs. Console by lake2112 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  2. Hey... by Bendebecker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Hey... by kfg · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Being an economist is definitely a dismal science

      If you aren't familiar with it you might want to see if you can track down a copy of Stephen Leacock's (Professor of Economics- McGill University) "Too Much College" for his view of what the field of economics was becoming, circa 1939, as well as his views of a number of other fields and education in general.

      There's a good chance your library will have this.

      Of course there's another reason none of these political/economic theories has been tried in their purest form.

      They simply don't meet the needs of people. Capitalism and democracy work great in the market place. They really don't in the private home where oligarchy is the only workable system. Communism works great in the monastary and group farm, but only when imbedded in a larger social framework that allows dissenters to leave freely and not distrupt the communal ethic. In the early days of America we experimented with privately held roads and bridges. It sucked. It sucked a lot. Socialism is the only really workable way to deal with such infrastructure.

      Some "political realities" have reality.

      KFG

  3. what games? by tsunamifirestorm · · Score: 2, Interesting

    oh i only briefly looked through the site, but is there a list of games (with genres) on the site?

  4. Re:shakeout of online games by aderusha · · Score: 4, Interesting

    not long i'd imagine, as new games come out with new features/graphics/bell/whistles to replace the old. evercrack and ultima online still are going, but given they're aging tech and the onslaught of newcomers, i don't imagine they'll be generating much revenue for long.

  5. It's a start by AvantLegion · · Score: 4, Interesting
    We need more services like Xbox Live in gaming. When I play something like Battlefield 1942 on PC, or SOCOM II on PS2, I'm always disappointed how some features of Xbox Live just aren't there, or are pale shadows of Xbox Live's. And of course it's not just one game, but lots. One of my best friends from high school is now in the Navy, stationed in Guam. He's mainly a PC online gamer, and it would be cool to have a friends list with him on it, saying what game and what server he's playing on, just like Xbox Live. That, and reliable voice chat.

    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.

    1. Re:It's a start by Deathlizard · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I would have to agree overall.

      Even though it's a pay for use network, and a lot of gaming companies dont like Microsoft getting in their online future business (EA for example), it's still is one of the best systems you can find on a console, and its game portable, which makes it really nice when you want to play more than one game with all your friends.

      And seriously, the one year price at roughly the price of a game is a whole lot better than monthly. Especially considering the value that it does bring to the online gaming table.

      Even the PC is going Live like. From the looks of things, it seems like Steam is trying to be a Live device for all things Valve, since it has buddy lists, automatic updating of content, and online voice chat intergrated. If they can work all the bugs out of it, It would be a whole of a lot better than most online gaming to date.

      --
      In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
    2. Re:It's a start by inteller · · Score: 2, Interesting

      oh give me a break with this touchy feely hippy shit. In order to make stuff like this work you have to have a unified corporate strategy. Just look at the PS2 online mess. EA is trying to put a good face on it but lets face it, it is shit. you have to learn a new interface for eveyr online game, you can't find your buddies on other games......it is just crap. XBL has it made. And no motherfuckers they don't have to "open up" their development tools to non Microsoft platforms. Its called "They Own The Motherfucking Network" Your socialist "lets give this stuff away and make it a success" is utter bullshit cause money is the greatest motivator.

      Not a flame, but the whole motherfucking truth.

  6. Just how is this new and wonderful? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...

  7. sign me up too, but... by pablo_max · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.

  8. value for the money by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:value for the money by Lehk228 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      EQ has been going strong for quite a while now... and they must be innovating still (innovation is directly related to buggieness right?) and with hundreds of thousands of people paying their 12.95/month SOE/Verant would be fools to shut it down....(they just added a new server to accomodate new players) the nature of such an environment is such that when it becomes less profitable(less subscribers) it also becomes less fun (less people online) so when it does die it will probably be a gradual death in which servers are shut down and consolodated (they have 50 servers right now) so EQ is a very safe bet seeing as they clearly are making money off it and people still like it enough to play I would definitely not get into FFXI for at least a year or so... right now there is just no way to know that it will survive, especially seeing that the server selection and other aspects (communication) are irritating at best and a deal-breaker at worst (every chat 'channel' you want to be able to join uses an inventory slot and you have to meet someone in-game before you can chat with them... no going and logging in with friends to start new chars (especially since they auto-balance the servers so you don't get to pick your server) a ton of people on my floor bought FFXI and only 2 people are left playing....

      --
      Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  9. Re:actually, i think its "virtual property" by buhatkj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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'....