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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."

7 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. 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.

  4. 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!
  5. 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...