A team of online game developers and boosters told the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday about worries that the big ISPs could fragment the Internet with "pay-for-priority" arrangements, causing economic troubles for the gaming industry similar to those created by mobile access providers.
"Software platform developers like Microsoft and Facebook pose less of a threat to innovation than infrastructure owners," one developer told the agency, according to notes of the meeting. He added that "if the Internet were balkanized, and developers had to negotiate separately with each ISP, that would be a substantial drag on innovation because it would divert resources from development."
The game makers included Asheron's Call producer Dan Scherlis, Jon Radoff of GamerDNA, Christopher Dyl of online world-maker Tubine, Matthew Bellows of voice chat developer Vivox, and Darius Kazemi of the International Game Developers Association. Kent Quirk also attended, speaking for himself and not his employer, Linden Lab.
Most arguments for net neutrality are made without any analytical support or fail to explain why existing mechanisms, such as antitrust proceedings would not work to solve the problems identified.
However, the game developer's coordination argument could be provided with analytical underpinnings. It is well recognized that markets can fail when (1) many agents must signal relatively small values, and (2) a few agents can claim relatively large returns, but less than could be obtained if a negotiated solution involving the many "small" agents could be obtained.
Whether game developers are sufficiently many, small and diverse to prevent them from effectively signaling their value remains an open question, but arguably other developers should be added to this group. That would increase diversity and numbers, making it harder for the broader group to signal their valuations to ISPs.
Most arguments for net neutrality are made without any analytical support or fail to explain why existing mechanisms, such as antitrust proceedings would not work to solve the problems identified.
However, the game developer's coordination argument could be provided with analytical underpinnings. It is well recognized that markets can fail when (1) many agents must signal relatively small values, and (2) a few agents can claim relatively large returns, but less than could be obtained if a negotiated solution involving the many "small" agents could be obtained.
Whether game developers are sufficiently many, small and diverse to prevent them from effectively signaling their value remains an open question, but arguably other developers should be added to this group. That would increase diversity and numbers, making it harder for the broader group to signal their valuations to ISPs.