Re: Turn fees (was Crime Games)

From: lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)

Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk> writes:

> Interesting point, are KJC's games overpriced?
>
> They operate as a 'real' business, in that they invest heavily in
> advertising, both in terms of magazine ads and mailshotting. They also
> produce top quality rulebooks with well illustrated full colour covers
> and so on that are on the whole good enough to compete on equal terms
> with game materials you'd pick up in the high street.

Does advertising help the player? No. It helps the business, so
raising turn fees to pay for advertising is generally not a good idea.
(Ideally, advertising pays for itself, by attracting more players
and creating economy of scale.)

Fancy rulebooks can be nice, but most players may not care enough to
pay extra for them.

A game with a small turn-fee, because it doesn't advertise and doesn't
have expensive rule-books, isn't necessarily "cheap".

I'll gladly pay extra for good game design and a reliable, backed-up
computer system. I'll also pay extra for a company that is
well-capitalized, which KJC probably is.

> Seeing as KJC are the most successful PBM firm in Europe, they are
> obviously doing something right.

Yep. But they might do even better if they offered fully-automated
games like Olympia. Or if they wrote a game like VGA Planets, but with
superior design. Who knows?

> I've not researched this, so I could well be wrong, but my gut feeling
> is that PBM turn fees haven't risen anything like in line with either
> wages or inflation in the past ten years.

Right, but that depends on other factors -- more people playing
computer games, fewer people playing board games, automated email
games having lower costs, falling computer prices... the only costs
that have risen are the wages of the designer and the typist, if you
have one. Oh, and postage and paper, if you use it.

-- g

References

Turn fees (was Crime Games)
Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk>
Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Turn fees (was Crime Games)
Phil Shulkind <phil@phildee.demon.co.uk>
Thu, 15 Jan 1998 00:00:00 +0000