Re: Turn fees (was Crime Games)

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

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

Greg Lindahl <lindahl@pbm.com> writes
>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.)
>
First off, to avoid confusion, I'm just talking about traditional play
by mail games using paper, stamps etc.

Advertising helps the player in that they have less time to wait for
their game to start, and more varied people to play with thanks to a
larger player base. Turn fees shouldn't be raised to pay for
advertising, the cost of the advertising should be built into the
turnfees in the first place - it's definitely a bad move to launch a
game then raise the turnfee a few months later.

>> 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?
>
Perhaps, but I don't think there's much scope for making money in email
games. But they're supposed to have something 'big' in the pipeline,
maybe they're going to come up with some amazing innovative automated
product?

>> 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.
>
Yes, there's definitely a much smaller market for PBM games now than
there was five years ago, and five years ago the market was much smaller
than it was ten years ago. People who run PBM games have to eat, pay
rent, and do everything else that anyone else does, so the costs of the
GM have gone up as well, you can't forget about them! Or do you mean
that the GM is merely a typist? Magazine production costs have also
fallen dramatically over the past few years, but I've not noticed them
hesitating to put their cover prices up on a regular basis.

Phil Shulkind
PHILDEE ENTERPRISES
Professional Play By Mail since 1990
http://www.phildee.demon.co.uk

References

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