Finally a subject where I feel I can safely contribute.:)
I've spent a few years in the MMP (Massively Multi Player) arena so I think I know my way around. As founder and CEO of Nevrax, where I initiated the Ryzom RPG and the NeL technological platform, I've had plenty of time to reflect on the state of this industry.
First let me say that MMPs are an entirely different class of video games. The technology, the gameplay dynamics, almost everything is different. It just happened that the game industry got its hands on them first because it had the closest ties, but it could have been otherwise.
The most important thing to remember is that MMPs have a radically different business model.
In the traditional game industry you create a game, put it a box, then try to move as many boxes you can in the few month the public stays interested. It's a product oriented business. The typical business plan for a studio is:
1- Convince publisher to finance the production of a game 2- Try to make a small profit in the process 3- Make some royalties (maybe) if the game is hugely successful 4- Start all over again
This is not very different from what goes on in the music business or in the movie business. Basically to make it simple, the author/studio gets a lousy deal from the publisher/distributor who gets to reap all the benefits.
The MMP industry could - it's not there yet, but it will eventually - be very different. An MMP producer creates a virtual environment, then sells access to this environment. It's a service oriented business. A simplified business plan for an MMP producer could be:
1- Create a Massively Multi Player Game 2- Make the client software as easily accessible as possible 3- Sell access to the MMP on a recurrent basis 4- Profits!;) 5- Keep improving your MMP over time > expand user base > more profits!
This would be the equivalent of a musician cutting the middle man and selling his music straight on the Internet. With one enormous advantage: An MMP producer has no fear of having the client software copied since all that does is expand his potential user base. Whatever you do, you *have* to pay if you want to get the experience. Which is, IMHO, the reason why so many people are whining about the subscription fees. It's not that it's too expensive (12$/month for 20H of entertainment time in average is cheap compared to say, movies), it's just that they can't freeload anymore.:)
My guess is, in the coming years, there will be a real distinction appearing between traditional studios (doing regular PC and console games) and companies building MMPs.
Now back to the current game industry. The hardest part with the model I just described is making "step 1" happen while still retaining the control of your creation. That, from my painful experience, means avoiding to be financed by either game publishers or vulture capitalists, as they will find a way to wrest control from you. The problem, as it has been said before, is that making a professional MMPs is expensive.
Sure, they are ways to get the numbers down if you know the trade secrets, but it's still going to be expensive.
That's where Free Software can help.
My initial idea for Nevrax was that Free Software and MMPs were a perfect match. You get all the benefits of Free Software, but keep a strong business model where you can avoid having a competitor piggyback on your work as you stay in control of all the "data" (art assets mostly). One of the big cost associated to running an MMP is due to maintenance. Also, having a robust tech on launch helps a lot. Those are things that Free Software can help alleviate tremendously. This is why we created NeL. A Free Software engine for MMPs.
As an added benefit, now that I am starting a new company out of the hands of the VCs, I can freely reuse all the tech we did at Nevrax. My software development costs just got divided by a factor of 10. Imagine that... And the best thing is: you can do it to!:)
One last thing I would like to say to people who think that Everquest & co are boring and ugly: you are right. But real communities formed around these games, and that's what is truly fascinating about MMPs. As time goes, you will see MMPs that are more and more geared towards fostering these online communities, and less and less "games" in the sense that we understand it today. Just because you don't see the point of playing today, doesn't mean that you won't see the point of playing tomorrow...
And I know I'll be working hard to make that happen !;)
>There's this company called Nevrax founded by Slashdot reader Lejade...
Err, that would be me...:)
Thanks for the plug, but I am not longer at Nevrax. I left the company by the end of last year due to some severe divergence of opinion with the board of directors regarding the company's strategy. So to make a long story short, I have nothing to do with Ryzom anymore. I just hope it turns out as good as it was supposed to be.
And sorry for the website not being standards compliant: it shouldn't be that way but there's not much I can do about it now. I'll still try getting the word across, though...
On the bright side, I've been working on a new project that also uses NeL (more on that later this year).
So now you have two companies working on NeL and Free Software based MMPs instead of just one!
Ain't the GPL great?;)
And that's not even counting pure community driven efforts like Arianne or Worldforge which, by the way, deserve a lot more respect than they actually get. Most people just do not understand how hard it is to make these games, even with a team of seasoned professionals.
I know, and I am simply amazed at what these guys are able to do.
Think coordinating coders over the net is hard? Try artists...
What I really would like to know is if Matrox is going to release a Free Software driver for this thing. If I remember correctly, they used to have a pretty friendly attitude towards GNU/Linux and Free Software. I really hope this hasn't changed as I'm sick and tired of Nvidia's proprietary crap and it would be nice to finally have good hardware acceleration on a Free Software system.
When just about anyone can already install a file sharing software, download all the latest films to their hard drive, SVHS to their TV and watch it as many times as they want, for free?
With cable/DSL connections, 100 Gig HD becoming dirt cheap and DVD-Rs just around the corner, I know many people are using eDonkey, Morpheus and co to do just that...
Wake up: video on demand is already here. And it's not controlled by the megacorps...
Alewando's comment is totally irrelevant: the FSF is a non-profit and therefore does not have the same preoccupations as a business. It lives on donations and does not have a "business model" but a goal. Also, the FSF is over 15 years old now, and I fail to see how it can be related to the tech bubble burst in any meaningful way.
"Well, all I know is that his ideology gets so twisted in the translation through other people, that the only thing I'm sure about him is that he's fat, hairy, and he doesn't take showers."
Well, all I know is that you're either lazy or not very interested in the subject, in which case you shouldn't be speaking about it. It's not like it's very hard to find out about RMS's ideas straight from the man himself...
Also, if you don't feel like reading, you could download some of RMS's speeches listed at the end of the page. The ones he recently gave at NYU and MIT about "Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation" and "Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks" are of particular interest. I strongly recommend them
Please try to form your own opinion before lashing out at RMS with uninteresting tidbits and hearsay.
And I've just seen a demo of the beast. The guy shows what looks like an extract of the upcoming CGI film Final Fantasy from Square, but then he stops the scene at any point, rotates it in real time changes the lightning with no visible degradation... It's simply *amazing*.
From what the guy said, their was 500000 polygons on the screen. He also said it was a prototype and that Sony doesn't sell them yet.
"OpenAL, the Open Audio Library, seeks to become the audio counterpart to OpenGL for audio. With OpenAL it is possible to create three-dimensional sound across many platforms, such as Linux,Apple Macintosh, Windows and more, with quality suitable for professional projects like games and multimedia applications.
OpenAL is supported by a growing number of hardware vendors and developers (such as Creative Labs and Loki Games)with the goal of creating a powerful, elegant C-based API for creating rich, high-quality 3D sound content, with cross-platform compatability as a design goal.
>American-boy: do you have any idea as to how French law applies to this issue?BR
Well as a matter of fact I'm a French-boy and I can easily answer this one : French Law is exactly the same in this respect as American Law. In France companies are considered as "moral persons" i.e individuals. Therefore, if it's not a loophole in the US, it's not one in France either.
- Is EROS Free Software? What are the terms of use? EROS is not free software. EROS is being made widely available for personal, research, and certain non-profit use. All such use must be non-commercial. It will also be made available under reasonable licensing terms for commercial use. Draft versions of the license agreements can be found here. The draft licenses are an attempt to compromise between making the system widely available and not losing my shirt. These drafts can be taken as a reasonable indication of intent, but please note that they are not yet final. Many people seem to have the idea that EROS should be given away in the style of Linux or the various BSD-like systems. These people are entitled to their opinions. I do not share them. I have put a large amount of effort and my own money into this project -- teetering on seven figures, when last I sat down to calculate it. I have absolutely no sympathy for the idea that writing a few hundred lines of driver code should give you the right to free use of this work, so please don't delay the release by trying to convince me with an argument of this form. If you build a good driver, I'll gladly incorporate it into the system and redistribute it for you. If you want that driver to have the BSD copyright so that others can derive from it, that is fine. For the present, I am not incorporating GNU-copyrighted materials into the core system.
- How about Open Source? It may prove, in the end, that the Open Source model is the best way to advance a commercial EROS effort. We are tentatively leaning that way. If so, that decision will be taken as a strategic marketing choice. When the time comes to make that decision, we'll solicit input from the community. Please don't distract us from getting the release out by pressing the matter now. If we do go the Open Source route, we will do so with at least one modification: Because EROS is a secure system, there needs to be a central source that ``vets'' and ``brands'' the distribution. When somebody asks ``secure according to whom?'' There needs to be an answer. Also, people need to know if they are running the vetted version or some modification of that. This means that we will be fairly strict about the use of the name ``EROS.'' If you distribute a modified system, you will be able to call it ``EROS derived,'' but you will not be able to call it ``EROS.'' The official release will also be digitally signed or one-way hashed so that users can verify its authenticity. The implications of this issue have not yet been thought out. As I said before, we will solicit input at the appropriate time.
Obviously the FAQ hasn't been updated, but I still think it gives us insight on their attitude. Considering how the author felt like a the time, I don't quite understand how he finally went to release EROS under the GPL. It seems like a big turn around...
>If this case is won by the government, they will probably request prison sentences for the senior M$ employees who signed the contracts with the PC distributors in France.
No way. Penal law is only applied if a crime was commited. Selling windows with a computer cannot be described as a crime. (or can it ?;))
>I would expect 5 to 7 people to get ~1 year sentences, and another 20 to 50 to get suspended (avec surcis, similar to american parole) sentences.
Again, no way. You are making us look like a very repressive country. In France you have to be a recidivist or have commited a "real" crime to effectively go to prison.
Even if penal law was applied - wich I repeat, is not the case - they would only get "sursi".
So don't you all start dreaming of seeing M$ execs in prison. It won't happen. Not in France at least...;)
>My impression was that they were pretty clueless and that things were not going well for them.
I have no love for FT either, but you can't say that seriously. FT is on of the world's top telco and is france's most profitable company with around 2 billion dollars profit each year. Although they are only a partly public company, they own a complete monopoly on local calls wich contributes greatly to their war chest.
I'm sorry you got screwed by FT, but I can assure you they are doing fine.
First drugs then what ???
on
New Cyberlaws
·
· Score: 1
Then it will be illegal MP3s, warez, controversial information etc, etc... This has no end. Watch out for the day it'll be a felony to link to Slashdot !
Slashdot Mirror
Finally a subject where I feel I can safely contribute. :)
;)
:)
:)
;)
I've spent a few years in the MMP (Massively Multi Player) arena so I think I know my way around. As founder and CEO of Nevrax, where I initiated the Ryzom RPG and the NeL technological platform, I've had plenty of time to reflect on the state of this industry.
First let me say that MMPs are an entirely different class of video games. The technology, the gameplay dynamics, almost everything is different. It just happened that the game industry got its hands on them first because it had the closest ties, but it could have been otherwise.
The most important thing to remember is that MMPs have a radically different business model.
In the traditional game industry you create a game, put it a box, then try to move as many boxes you can in the few month the public stays interested. It's a product oriented business.
The typical business plan for a studio is:
1- Convince publisher to finance the production of a game
2- Try to make a small profit in the process
3- Make some royalties (maybe) if the game is hugely successful
4- Start all over again
This is not very different from what goes on in the music business or in the movie business. Basically to make it simple, the author/studio gets a lousy deal from the publisher/distributor who gets to reap all the benefits.
The MMP industry could - it's not there yet, but it will eventually - be very different.
An MMP producer creates a virtual environment, then sells access to this environment. It's a service oriented business.
A simplified business plan for an MMP producer could be:
1- Create a Massively Multi Player Game
2- Make the client software as easily accessible as possible
3- Sell access to the MMP on a recurrent basis
4- Profits!
5- Keep improving your MMP over time > expand user base > more profits!
This would be the equivalent of a musician cutting the middle man and selling his music straight on the Internet. With one enormous advantage: An MMP producer has no fear of having the client software copied since all that does is expand his potential user base. Whatever you do, you *have* to pay if you want to get the experience.
Which is, IMHO, the reason why so many people are whining about the subscription fees. It's not that it's too expensive (12$/month for 20H of entertainment time in average is cheap compared to say, movies), it's just that they can't freeload anymore.
My guess is, in the coming years, there will be a real distinction appearing between traditional studios (doing regular PC and console games) and companies building MMPs.
Now back to the current game industry.
The hardest part with the model I just described is making "step 1" happen while still retaining the control of your creation. That, from my painful experience, means avoiding to be financed by either game publishers or vulture capitalists, as they will find a way to wrest control from you. The problem, as it has been said before, is that making a professional MMPs is expensive.
Sure, they are ways to get the numbers down if you know the trade secrets, but it's still going to be expensive.
That's where Free Software can help.
My initial idea for Nevrax was that Free Software and MMPs were a perfect match.
You get all the benefits of Free Software, but keep a strong business model where you can avoid having a competitor piggyback on your work as you stay in control of all the "data" (art assets mostly).
One of the big cost associated to running an MMP is due to maintenance. Also, having a robust tech on launch helps a lot. Those are things that Free Software can help alleviate tremendously. This is why we created NeL. A Free Software engine for MMPs.
As an added benefit, now that I am starting a new company out of the hands of the VCs, I can freely reuse all the tech we did at Nevrax. My software development costs just got divided by a factor of 10. Imagine that...
And the best thing is: you can do it to!
One last thing I would like to say to people who think that Everquest & co are boring and ugly: you are right. But real communities formed around these games, and that's what is truly fascinating about MMPs. As time goes, you will see MMPs that are more and more geared towards fostering these online communities, and less and less "games" in the sense that we understand it today. Just because you don't see the point of playing today, doesn't mean that you won't see the point of playing tomorrow...
And I know I'll be working hard to make that happen !
>There's this company called Nevrax founded by Slashdot reader Lejade...
:)
;)
Err, that would be me...
Thanks for the plug, but I am not longer at Nevrax. I left the company by the end of last year due to some severe divergence of opinion with the board of directors regarding the company's strategy. So to make a long story short, I have nothing to do with Ryzom anymore. I just hope it turns out as good as it was supposed to be.
And sorry for the website not being standards compliant: it shouldn't be that way but there's not much I can do about it now. I'll still try getting the word across, though...
On the bright side, I've been working on a new project that also uses NeL (more on that later this year).
So now you have two companies working on NeL and Free Software based MMPs instead of just one!
Ain't the GPL great?
And that's not even counting pure community driven efforts like Arianne or Worldforge which, by the way, deserve a lot more respect than they actually get. Most people just do not understand how hard it is to make these games, even with a team of seasoned professionals.
I know, and I am simply amazed at what these guys are able to do.
Think coordinating coders over the net is hard? Try artists...
Olivier
What I really would like to know is if Matrox is going to release a Free Software driver for this thing. If I remember correctly, they used to have a pretty friendly attitude towards GNU/Linux and Free Software. I really hope this hasn't changed as I'm sick and tired of Nvidia's proprietary crap and it would be nice to finally have good hardware acceleration on a Free Software system.
When just about anyone can already install a file sharing software, download all the latest films to their hard drive, SVHS to their TV and watch it as many times as they want, for free?
With cable/DSL connections, 100 Gig HD becoming dirt cheap and DVD-Rs just around the corner, I know many people are using eDonkey, Morpheus and co to do just that...
Wake up: video on demand is already here. And it's not controlled by the megacorps...
Alewando's comment is totally irrelevant: the FSF is a non-profit and therefore does not have the same preoccupations as a business. It lives on donations and does not have a "business model" but a goal.
Also, the FSF is over 15 years old now, and I fail to see how it can be related to the tech bubble burst in any meaningful way.
"Well, all I know is that his ideology gets so twisted in the translation through other people, that the only thing I'm sure about him is that he's fat, hairy, and he doesn't take showers."
Well, all I know is that you're either lazy or not very interested in the subject, in which case you shouldn't be speaking about it. It's not like it's very hard to find out about RMS's ideas straight from the man himself...
For instance, you could go read some of his writings on the GNU Philosophy Page. They are very well written and explain things simply and unequivocally.
If your time is limited, you should start with "What is Free Software?", "Why Software Should Not Have Owners", "Selling Free Software" and "What is Copyleft?". However, all the essays listed on this page are worth reading, and I encourage you to do so.
Also, if you don't feel like reading, you could download some of RMS's speeches listed at the end of the page. The ones he recently gave at NYU and MIT about "Free Software: Freedom and Cooperation" and "Copyright and Globalization in the Age of Computer Networks" are of particular interest. I strongly recommend them
Please try to form your own opinion before lashing out at RMS with uninteresting tidbits and hearsay.
>the alternative to openGL SMASH
What's that ? I can't find any reference...
And I've just seen a demo of the beast. The guy shows what looks like an extract of the upcoming CGI film Final Fantasy from Square, but then he stops the scene at any point, rotates it in real time changes the lightning with no visible degradation... It's simply *amazing*.
From what the guy said, their was 500000 polygons on the screen. He also said it was a prototype and that Sony doesn't sell them yet.
Oops sorry !
Here's the link
Have you checked OpenAL ?
"OpenAL, the Open Audio Library, seeks to become the audio counterpart to OpenGL for audio. With OpenAL it is possible to create three-dimensional sound across many platforms, such as Linux,Apple Macintosh, Windows and more, with quality suitable for professional projects like games and multimedia applications.
OpenAL is supported by a growing number of hardware vendors and developers (such as Creative Labs and Loki Games) with the goal of creating a powerful, elegant C-based API for creating rich, high-quality 3D sound content, with cross-platform compatability as a design goal.
>American-boy: do you have any idea as to how French law applies to this issue?BR
Well as a matter of fact I'm a French-boy and I can easily answer this one : French Law is exactly the same in this respect as American Law. In France companies are considered as "moral persons" i.e individuals. Therefore, if it's not a loophole in the US, it's not one in France either.
O.
There's also a Wired article on the subject :
http://www.wired.com/news/b usiness/0,1367,32154,00.html
Check out these two points in the availability section of the FAQ :
- Is EROS Free Software? What are the terms of use?
EROS is not free software. EROS is being made widely available for personal, research, and certain non-profit use. All such use must be non-commercial. It will also be made available under reasonable licensing terms for commercial use.
Draft versions of the license agreements can be found here. The draft licenses are an attempt to compromise between making the system widely available and not losing my shirt. These drafts can be taken as a reasonable indication of intent, but please note that they are not yet final.
Many people seem to have the idea that EROS should be given away in the style of Linux or the various BSD-like systems. These people are entitled to their opinions. I do not share them.
I have put a large amount of effort and my own money into this project -- teetering on seven figures, when last I sat down to calculate it. I have absolutely no sympathy for the idea that writing a few hundred lines of driver code should give you the right to free use of this work, so please don't delay the release by trying
to convince me with an argument of this form.
If you build a good driver, I'll gladly incorporate it into the system and redistribute it for you. If you want that driver to have the BSD copyright so that others can derive from it, that is fine. For the present, I am not incorporating GNU-copyrighted materials into the core system.
- How about Open Source?
It may prove, in the end, that the Open Source model is the best way to advance a commercial EROS effort. We are tentatively leaning that way. If so, that decision will be taken as a strategic marketing choice. When the time comes to make that decision, we'll solicit input from the community. Please don't distract us from getting the release out by pressing the matter now.
If we do go the Open Source route, we will do so with at least one modification:
Because EROS is a secure system, there needs to be a central source that ``vets'' and ``brands'' the distribution. When somebody asks ``secure according to whom?'' There needs to be an answer. Also, people need to know if they are running the vetted version or some modification of that.
This means that we will be fairly strict about the use of the name ``EROS.'' If you distribute a modified system, you will be able to call it ``EROS derived,'' but you will not be able to call it ``EROS.'' The official release will also be digitally signed or one-way hashed so that users can verify its authenticity.
The implications of this issue have not yet been thought out. As I said before, we will solicit input at the appropriate time.
Obviously the FAQ hasn't been updated, but I still think it gives us insight on their attitude. Considering how the author felt like a the time, I don't quite understand how he finally went to release EROS under the GPL. It seems like a big turn around...
>If this case is won by the government, they will probably request prison sentences for the senior M$ employees who signed the contracts with the PC distributors in France.
No way. Penal law is only applied if a crime was commited. Selling windows with a computer cannot be described as a crime. (or can it ?
>I would expect 5 to 7 people to get ~1 year sentences, and another 20 to 50 to get suspended (avec surcis, similar to american parole) sentences.
Again, no way. You are making us look like a very repressive country. In France you have to be a recidivist or have commited a "real" crime to effectively go to prison.
Even if penal law was applied - wich I repeat, is not the case - they would only get "sursi".
So don't you all start dreaming of seeing M$ execs in prison. It won't happen. Not in France at least...
>My impression was that they were pretty clueless and that things were not going well for them.
I have no love for FT either, but you can't say that seriously. FT is on of the world's top telco and is france's most profitable company with around 2 billion dollars profit each year. Although they are only a partly public company, they own a complete monopoly on local calls wich contributes greatly to their war chest.
I'm sorry you got screwed by FT, but I can assure you they are doing fine.
Then it will be illegal MP3s, warez, controversial information etc, etc... This has no end.
Watch out for the day it'll be a felony to link to Slashdot !
>Goldman doesn't open accounts for less than
...
>500,000 I think. Might be higher now.
yes, actually it's 5,000,000 USD now. So I think you can forget about getting an account at Goldman