mmorpg systems security

[gnmarsh]

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20020805/fitch_01.htm

saw this at frictionless insite. Interesting article on systems security and offering a different approach to it. Would be curious to see this groups reaction to it. It is a bit deep.

[Raph Koster]

I thought it was naive, and not just because it quotes me negatively. :)

-Raph

[Jason McCullough]

I say "completely cuckoo." Are dissertations really necessary for goddamn online game security?

[gnmarsh]

has anyone else approached this idea from a cultural standpoint? His ideas don't seem that far off from the basic viewpoint of Gates and company towards the future of the industry. I'm not agreeing with his basic premise, just thought he had some interesting ideas in it.

[Raph Koster]

From a cultural standpoint, distributed content is indeed the future.

But people don't pay us for content. People pay us for storing their data.

-Raph

[Jessica]

I agree with the 'naive' comment. 'Utopian' might also apply, at least when it comes to commerical MMOs. For peer-to-peer games that don't charge for online play, there might be something there.

[gnmarsh]

he makes the point in there that it wouldn't work with current business models. Have to agree with the naive part, be a bit hard to get development money in todays world without some kind of business model.

If you don't mind, Mr. Koster, would love to hear more on the design concept that developers are paid to store data, not for content. I've never thought of it that way, but once it was pointed out it makes a lot of sense. Does that mean then, that content takes a back door to security concerns? How much influence does keeping the data secure play in what's developed? If you had to prioritize where security falls in the back of your mind when a decision is made how high does it make it?

You don't normally see security being that high an issue. Often it has the appearance of being tacked on at the end of the development cycle, even Microsoft gives this impression. Jessica has mentioned in her BTH columns that customer service tools need to be written in right from the begining, is it the same then for security concerns? If so, does that actually happen?

[Jessica]

You don't normally see security being that high an issue. Often it has the appearance of being tacked on at the end of the development cycle, even Microsoft gives this impression. Jessica has mentioned in her BTH columns that customer service tools need to be written in right from the begining, is it the same then for security concerns? If so, does that actually happen?

We're at a point in the history of commercial MMOs at which the experienced developers have learned they need to address the security issues throughout the development process and with a wide variety of monitoring, logging and prevention tools. Unfortunately, that doesn't take in very many games currently in development, as there aren't that many experienced MMO developers right now. And the inexperienced tend to poo-poo these kinds of issues and tools, either not understanding the player trust issues created by poor security or figuring the game systems, mechanics and art are more important.

It is part of the learning process, so we're bound to see some of the same mistakes made again in upcoming games. It seems to be the lot of the industry for first-time MMO developers to ignore history and continually make these mistakes. It needn't be that way, however; all they have to do is either hire some experience or do some research. (BALD-FACED, SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT) Bridgette Patrovsky and I devoted a significant amount of space to these issues in our forthcoming book from Prentice Hall, "Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide." (END BALD-FACED, SHAMELESS PLUG)

This is one of those things that is self-correcting over time by the dissemination of the information through experience. As more people work on MMOs, the less we'll see the same mistakes being made over and over again.