Stake-Holding

Members of communities act and interact in community space. If they own some of that community space, it can help them feel like they’re a permanent part of that community. For virtual worlds, that generally means they should own some virtual place of residence. It shows they care for the community space, and therefore (by extension) for the community.

Textual worlds introduced the idea of owning property; indeed, building their own house was a major preoccupation of players of TinyMUDs from the very beginning. Many MUDs using codebases that didn’t let players access content-generation tools also allowed characters to own houses, although the practice was not widespread. Its importance was only really highlighted by its inclusion in Ultima Online, where it proved a galloping success ¹.

Stake-holding is good for other reasons, too. Like any property, players see housing as an investment. If they spent weeks collecting the necessary resources, found the perfect plot and designed exactly how they wanted their building to look, they will be loath to quit and leave it to decay.

From the live team’s point of view, property can be a useful indicator of a community’s well-being. If the area where all the bards congregate is run-down, with few people on the streets, something is wrong in bardland and it merits investigation.

I’m talking about stake-holding in terms of housing here, but it doesn’t have to be just that. Players who create in-world works of art, or who have acquired some (other) unique piece of content, will often feel that they have more of a stake in the virtual world than those who don’t.

There are no major reasons not to have housing (or some equivalent) but plenty of major reasons to have it. Unless you have a compact or highly content-driven virtual world, put it in.