Muds cost money to run and as far as I know, there's a whole bunch of muds which fund themselves through fundraisers such as Valg's - ie using merchandising etc. We certainly do. But the thing is, there's no in-game gain there, and that's what all this is actually about. Maybe the label of "profitmaking" muds would be a sharper illustrator of the difference for people. Ie there are muds out there which exist purely to make money off people (Med, IRE) and use such mechanisms as pay-for-perks to do so.
Now I'm sure that some of the profitmakers are outstanding but I also have this perception that they're a bit cheap and deceitful. Cheap, because they're leeching off the work of us free guys - who do it for the love of our games, and who already have it much more difficult because we don't operate with the luxury of advertising budgets or professional programmers. Deceitful because it's all dressed up and labelled as "free", which is an offensive description to those of us who know the real meaning of what a free mud is and is supposed to be.
I guess with less and less mudders around nowadays, maybe they're finding it harder to attract people from the outside, so maybe they're concentrating on places where it's easier to get their players, such as here. Maybe another topic should be started in the Blue Tavern in which we (the non-profitmakers) could discuss ways to combat those profitmaking muds and leech something back. I don't think it would actually be that hard really. The key is to choose the battles carefully, choosing battles that they can't really pursue because they might cut their bottom line. Ie just giving away stuff that they'd charge for. Anyhow, as interesting as this is, it's just a detraction and not really what this topic is about.
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