Is There A Future for MUDs?

Computer games, by basic design, have always been at the mercy of the technology that built them. Now while the same basic programming tools that were at the disposal of programmers in the 70s and 80s are arguably still used in one form today, the platforms they ran on no longer are. Now turning this point towards MUDs we reach the age-old argument of graphics against pure text environments. There are many within the community that will, and have, argued to the timeless nature of text and the imagination. Therefore there is the assumption that MUD will always be successful after all text technology is not going to adapt and overtake it. Now there is a slightly paradoxical situation here people will argue that claiming text-based gaming is going out-of-date would be akin to books not being popular any more, being completely surpassed by the visual medium. But people must remember that history tells a story here, and we should ask what prevents this history being repeated again?

In the early-mid 80s it would have been hard to own a computer and not have played an adventure game by companies such as Infocom or Scott Adams. But, you may have noticed, such games are no longer available. Most of the companies that produced such games either got sucked up by large publishing houses at their peak or slipped away into oblivion. The basic fact is that text adventure games are no longer commercially viable, so what makes MUDs so different from them. From the arrival of graphics it was clear that the adventure game industry had to evolve to stay alive and with companies like Sierra releasing games such as the King’s Quest series it was hard to see why audiences would remain loyal to the traditions of text. The collapse of the commercial text adventure has forced the genre into the small corners of the internet where a still vibrant (but renamed) ‘interactive fiction’ community works away on hobbyist titles (of often exceptional quality).

With such a pessimistic history why is it that MUDs should be considered so different? After all such games are simply text adventures with a multiplayer element in. It is true to say that since the 80s and early 90s there has been a distinct failing within the old commercial MUD market. Games that once dominated the sector such as Shades or Gemstone III are either found running for free or are not running at all. Commercial MUDs have to fight against the thousands of MUDs out there that anyone can play for free, a product much show exceptional technical competency to be able to even gain a starting player base. None of this is helped by the availability of many MUD ‘engines’, it is a simple matter of downloading the MUD server of your choice and setting it up before you have a fully fledged ‘stock’ MUD to run.

So why then do some commercial MUDs still remain? Well to look at MUD2 it has several things backing it when compared to the free alternatives. It carries a history and heritage; derived from the first MUD it carries a certain curio stake of the market. Equally attention will then be drawn to the competency the game has at coping with particular problems, if time develops skill then MUD should be one of the most developed systems out there. MUD2 carries with it uniqueness, it’s not derived from the stock systems out there which can be so easily identify considering many of them carry exactly the same areas. It could be argued that unlike the single-player text adventure experience the game lacks any significant contribution from the hobbyist sector. It would be unfair to say that all the games out there lack imagination or creative input but the number of ‘duff’ games out there far surpasses the number of great games. This is contrary to the single-player world where writers must take time and effort (often learning specific programming skills) to craft a world in front of an often heavily critical audience.

The growth of the internet has made such on-line games much more accessible, and while single-player games diminished multi-player games were tapping into a whole new audience. The ability MUDs have to take an audience and captivate them means that any audience share a game manages to grab it can often keep for an extended period of time. The elusive goals and difficult challenges of such games draw people back for more, important for a commercial model which requires people to make regular payments. There, of course, the added attraction of new friends to be made through the medium and meeting these people on a regular basis compels people to continue playing.

In the early 90s the MUD market could be sustained by ISPs licensing games to their users. Companies such as AOL or Compuserve could make the games available as exclusive content to their users; such licensing provided a boost to the MUD development community as it provided development opportunity and sustainable income. However in the case of MUD2, and the industry in general, this practice has died out; both MUD2 and MUDII are run as the sole commercial offerings of the sites they appear on. Despite this more recent failing this period of history could be seen as giving the industry the extension of lifespan that single-player adventures never had.

As for the future of the game it is hard to predict. As long as there are players (and new players) who are prepared to pay for a commercial text product and as long as there are individual prepared to provide it the future looks good. But if one is to fail (and probably the former rather than the later) then things could take a downturn.