Re: pbm game fees

From: desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)

Date: Mon, 11 Sep 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Doug Luke <DLUKE@msu.edu> writes:
> I'm not so sure how true this is. The vast majority of VGA Planets gamers
> have not had previous PBEM gaming experience. I think what you might be
> seeing is that PBEM games that LOOK like traditional PBM games are drawing
> from the same market.

You are quite right.  I don't generally include VGA Planets when I refer
to "PBEM" although one certainly could.  I'm not counting two-player
games (either computer or board) played by email, either.  I was just
referring to moderated PB(E)M gaming: commercial or free, but of the
traditional PBM format where turns are sent to a moderator (not a
player) who processes the turns and returns the results.

One problem is that it's hard to measure the volume.  I really don't
know how many people play a PBEM game like VGA Planets seriously, by
which I mean playing one or more games to completion with several people
who are widely separated geographically.  With the constant uploading
and downloading of files, it seems to me to be much more difficult for
the players to play such a game than to play "traditional" PBEM with a
text-based interface.  Of course, the players of such games probably
feel exactly the opposite!

> For example, Odyssey looks to be a great PBEM game, but it's likely to
> scare off people new to PBM-gaming with its spare, no-graphics,
> database oriented reports. In fact, I know some people who are using
> PERL and GREP to process their turns! This is no way to build market
> share.

As an early playtester I certainly found heavy use of such text
processing tools to be essential.  I am not sure, however, that I
believe your implied assertion that changing the report format would
change this.  It seems to me that building large databases of
information is essential in this type of game, and that this would be
true regardless of how the reports are presented.  Adding graphical
interpretation of results, by itself, would not change this.

David desJardins
--
Copyright 1995 David desJardins.  Unlimited permission is granted to quote
from this posting for non-commercial use as long as attribution is given.

References

pbm game fees
keith.langley@mdcs.com (Keith Langley)
Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: pbm game fees
gl8f@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 07 Sep 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: pbm game fees
desj@ccr-p.ida.org (David desJardins)
Thu, 07 Sep 1995 00:00:00 +0000
Re: pbm game fees
DLUKE@msu.edu (Doug Luke)
Mon, 11 Sep 1995 00:00:00 +0000