21-year-old computer geek makes £1m with online game

Just something to think about and discuss. How much money have you spent on Lusternia? I spent $134.99 USD to purchase 400 credits (30% bonus). I'd probably have spent more if I started earlier but now I have half a mind to save up for Tears of Polaris because there's no way I can afford to compete with some of the top players here.

It always amazes me when less impressive products have hugely more successful rates of purchase. He has 16,600-ish subscribers. That's quite a bit, especially when you consider how little coding time went into that compared to, say, Lusternia. For that sort of difference, someone has to be doing something either very right or very wrong.

EDIT: And I am so not answering the money spent question. It makes me sad.

Hey, there is a huge gap that divides well-crafted and populist. Consider movies: Why does summer formulaic Hollywood blockbuster crap rake in huge $$$ when artful, quality films (like Sundance quality) often see limited release? Why do so many "Average Joe" Americans guzzle down Budweiser when they could opt for a higher quality micro-brew or import?

One appeals to the masses, the other has a niche market. Same is true of many things... guessing this is also true for Lusternia.

The high quality of RP & game mechanics sets a bar for the types of patrons the game is intended to attract. That is why we giggle when someone steps out of the portal with a name like Phatlewt (and don't tell me you don't LOL after you point them to the Name help file). I'm also sure the same is true for retaining players. Unfortunately the need for a healing system & combat arities might prohibit keeping people around.

3 dollars a month compared to 300 dollar credit packages just to trans guild skills.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Two reasons: imagined quality by imagined connoisseurs, and range of distribution.

Using your Sundance example, some are very good...and most of the really good ones get national distribution and make buttloads of money, just like any big budget film. Saw? Napoleon Dynamite? The model works just fine when the end product is good. For years when independent studios just don't create the quality, Sundance serves as a sort of Special Olympics for second-rate filmmakers to encourage themselves. Those years, film snobs turn up their noses at how horrible it is that "populist" tendencies keep good movies from reaching the mass market. It's true that a big budget film of moderate quality is going to get more sales than a low budget film of equal quality, but that's because the publishing house can throw lots of money at marketing and ensure that practically every American at least has the option to see it.

I don't drink beer (I think it all tastes like yeast and cheap instant oatmeal), but wines sure have quality at all sorts of price points, and some of that gets ignored because of wine snobs. The preferences of one or two "prominent" wine critics have really tainted the whole wine connoisseur scene. Robert Parker likes his wines dry and hot with a distinct oak taste, Robert Parker influences a lot of magazines, so winemakers make their wines dry and hot in new French oak barrels, or they sell it cheap. I totally appreciate dry reds, but I like my whites sweet, and 11-12% alcohol fits my palate much better than 14% most of the time. People trying to impress other people (like the people who turn their noses up at anything that doesn't come out of Sundance) don't want to "make a mistake" by serving wines that don't score well by Robert Parker, so a whole lot of expensive, dry, hot red wines get served at parties.

Jesus christ Xavius just outsnobbed the world.

Oh yeah, I'm keeping that.

So, following your logic, are there gaming snobs? Like if it isn't German and made by Klaus Tauber then...

Wait. What does this have to do with Lusternia again?

I always thought IRE charged too much for their credits. I'd buy them if it were more cost-effective to do so.
(trying to find a way back into Lusternia without it taking too much of my time)

Pillars of the Earth is an excellent board game, I'd recommend it to anyone. Also, the expansion is pretty nice as well

$20.

Just goes to show the power of micro payments.

sounds like torn has about 17,000 paying customers. (also the claim that the game is only text based seems in acurate based on the "screenshots")

Taking a little bit of money from a lot of people is a good business plan. Compare that to the outlandish price of credits.

As well as being cheap, I'm willing to bet the game is a bit more simple to play than Lusternia as well.

From the game's page, it clearly isn't text based in the same way as Lusternia. There are pictures visible in the screenshots there.

I get the feeling that it's text-based in the same way that Popmundo is text-based. Everything of consequence is in text.

I don't get how that's considered text based... it's more like web page based.
But I shouldn't be surprised that newspaper story's reality is completely different from the first impresssion gained by the headline/blurb.

The big problem with Lusternia (and other IRE games) I think stems from that it is incredibly complicated. Combat is a nightmare in itself, but add on top of that politics, trades, quests... everything in Lusternia is huge. And you can't do much to prevent yourself from being trust into it beyond not playing. What makes it great is also what makes it less appealing to the regular gamer.