Here’s some other thoughts about taking fun out of gaming.

Player Perspectives: Is it Time to Quit, a good article from MMOPRG.com My favorite quote is “The MMO Industry doesn’t want you to quit, of course. It makes money by your loyalty to its game styles and brands, just like any other entertainment business.”

Respecting your Players at the excellent gaming blog “Eating Bees”. (Yeah, I sometimes wish the Bar would let me name a legal blog something really cool… ain’t gonna happen though). My favorite quote from this insightful article is ” I took this job because I thought the product was worth believing in, and because people are pretty much people no matter what the topic is. But having deep, sincere respect for what it is that my players love is going to fuel me for the long haul.” It’s a reminder there are, and will always be, a lot of developers, moderators, and administrators in the video-game and online game business who treat it as more evangelism than simply business. Thanks to them!

Sunk Costs, Pre-orders, and Game Over at the deep-thinking blog “The Psychology of Videogames”. It talks about the reasoning behind following “good money after bad” in a video-game purchase. My favorite quote is ” Robyn M. Dawes even describes in his book Rational Choice in an Irrational World4 how this is pretty much the same logic that a heroin addict would use to avoid treatment before reaching rock bottom. Yeah. Think about THAT. ”

Maybe I’m alone in thinking of an insidious “long-tail of excessive-lawsuit fever”; known forevermore as Lota Elf. I’d be interesting in hearing from developers if they’ve ever scrapped a cool feature of an online game because of worries over possible litigation, or if an online community administrator decided to shut down an otherwise pleasant community because of one or two “dangerous characters” who were repeatedly threatening lawsuits over one topic or another. Remember, it’s the game that doesn’t get made, or the really cool “wave of the future” mod/add-on/enhancement that we will never miss because we never meet (sorry for the chick-flick reference!).

Jay Moffitt is a Tennessee attorney. This blog is for entertainment and educational purposes only and does not consitute legal advice or create an attorney/client relationship. Jay Moffitt is not certified as a specialist in this area by Tennessee and Tennessee does not certify specialists in this practice area. All comments will be answered promptly and courteously as long as they are germane to the discussion and do not contain specific game names or incidents.