Q: The Internet rumor mill holds several reasons leading to the downfall of the XBAND network. One of those was identifed as "pulling", where players would terminate their phone connection just as they were about to loose a match in order to protect their stats.
* How much of a problem was this in reality?
* What types of actions did Catapult take to address the problem?

A: What led to the downfall of XBAND was a dire lack of customers. I don't think we ever exceeded about 15,000 subscribers. My understanding is that the operation of the service eventually reached the break-even point -- income equaled the cost of running the service and (maybe) customer support -- but that doesn't pay for engineers and management.

Cord-pulling was a significant problem. Users became unhappy, and unhappy users (a) call the customer support 800 number, costing Catapult money, and (b) are less likely to continue subscribing.

Shortly after leaving Catapult I wrote up a description of the problem and what might possibly be done about it:

http://fadden.com/techmisc/online-game-conduct.htm

The page includes a list of things Catapult tried. I spent a lot of time trying to make the service deal with "evil" gamers, but it was a tricky thing to deal with.

Q: Next is the rumor of "long distance hacking". It is claimed that some users were able to figure out a way to record and playback the dial-up sequences used by the XBAND modem to trick Catapult into initiating a long-distance call at Catapult's expense which the user would then utilize for gaming or voice calls.
* Did this actually happen?
* How much of a problem was it?

A: I believe this did occur, but don't remember details. I think the actual approach was for two users with XBAND units to challenge each other and pick up extension phones when the initial connection succeeded, allowing voice conversations for the cost of an XBAND match.

This was done with the "XBAND Nationwide" service. I don't remember how the billing worked, but I don't think Catapult was on the hook for the excess charges. The problem may have contributed to the demise of the XBAND Nationwide service though.

Q: How much of an impact did the development of the Internet play in declining use of the XBAND network? Do you have any insight into why the Internet version of XBAND didn't take off?

A: The XBAND PC stuff was under development when I left. Game consoles didn't have much to do with the Internet back in those days -- you were more likely to get a login shell than a direct PPP connection back then. XBAND used direct modem connections for gameplay, which allowed significantly reduced latency compared to the Internet (especially back then!).

Q: Did the Internet play a role in preventing the Japanese adoption of XBAND for the Sega Saturn?

A: After my time. Internet gaming was just becoming mainstream while I was at Catapult. There were a brave few who rigged up Kali to route IPX packets to play Doom. It wasn't until games went client/server that playing over the Internet made sense. Pre-1995 era you had a few action games (Netrek, Xpilot) and some PBEM stuff, but those weren't much in conflict with console gaming.

Q: What in your opinion were the most successful advertising efforts used in increasing XBAND membership?

A: I'm not sure we ever had a really successful ad campaign. The initial TV ad was bad. Some of the magazine ads were helpful. The fundamental problem was that we had to sell the system twice: first we had to convince kids that they wanted it, then we had to convince parents that they (a) wanted to buy it and (b) wanted to plug it into their phone line. The latter was a lot of fun when they started asking, "will this cause long-distance charges?"

Eventually we started marketing to the 30+ sports game crowd, since they had their own money, had some control over the phone line, and could afford the device, the monthly fees, and the games.

Q: Was the "XBAND 6 pack" successful?

A: No idea.

Q: Was the lack of an included keyboard a detriment?

A: Not really. We eventually built and sold one, but it didn't sell well. Including it would have raised the cost and reduced sales. Whenever we asked, "would you like a keyboard", the overwhelming response was "yes!", but apparently that came from kids without disposable income.

Q: If you could do it all over again is there anything you would differently?

A: The fundamental difficulty with XBAND is that you need a lot of people around you (in your local calling area) who are playing the same game. The best thing we could have done is taken the money we spent on the TV ad and used it to give away units. Once you have a strong crowd in an area, word of mouth handles the rest.

We opened the service for business a week or two before Thanksgiving in 1994. By the end of the year we had about 3,000 customers. Somewhat disappointing.

Q: Are you surprised that even now ten years later there are still fan groups devoted to the platform?

A: Not really. It was a pretty cool system. :-)

Q: What do you think of modern incarnations of player match-up systems such as X-Box Live Arcade, or GameSpy's technologies?
* Do you think they have learned from XBAND's failures?
* What do you think they could be doing better?

A: I haven't used them much. My online gaming tends toward FPSs like Quake 3 and Battlefield 2142, so the basic "meta-server" setup works.