Re: Bad News for UK PBM players

From: phy6drhj@ast.leeds.ac.uk (Dean Johnson)

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000

In article 62M@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU, gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes:
> In article <155878991wnr@phildee.demon.co.uk>,
> C:DEMONSPOOLMAIL <phoenix@phildee.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
> >Greg Lindahl is presumably one of those people who thinks us "greedy
> >moderators" are making a fortune out of exploiting gullible players.
>
> Nope. Please don't put words in my mouth. In fact, a high-school
> friend of mine has had plans for many years to launch a pbm company,
> and I expect him to do well when he gets going. Of course, he does
> have an MBA degree, so I suspect he'll have enough capital to survive
> postal strikes.
>
> >I've no complaints about his preferring free games (if that is indeed
> >the case), that's his choice. But I do object to offensive and
> >ignorant comments.
>
> Then stop making them up and putting them in my mouth. The only
> offensive comment I've made recently was an indirect one about the
> business sense of companies in mail-strike-prone countries which can't
> survive a mail strike. That's bad business. Period.
>
> This whole bru-haha reminds me of the debates over the gnu c compiler:
> anyone who likes something free can easily be painted as
> anti-capitalist. Oh well. You still have to explain why I continue to
> play in pay PBM games...
>

Quite frankly both sides of this argument are right.

One has to accept the fact that on the whole PBM is not GOOD business.  Phil
is right that building up cash reserves is hard in PBM.

Greg has to know in his heart that most people run PBM mainly because they
love games not because they are business men.

Besides that, some people make a living at it.  WOW is what I say.

I have had friends who ran PBM companies.  Here is my 2 cents of advice.
The only way to get really BIG is have computerised games.  Better still
if you can get a friend to develop one for essentially nothing.  Once
you have a popular computerised game (or two), your are making enough
per turn for some product development (i.e. programming).  Look at Midnight
Games (Legends) and KJC (gods knows how many computerised games).

IMHO any firm that does not make this step will always suffer from
undercapitalisation because they were probably started by someone out of
love, not out of money.

Dean

References

Re: Bad News for UK PBM players
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 26 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Bad News for UK PBM players
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Fri, 26 Jan 1996 00:00:00 +0000