Re: PBM costs

From: gbenage@aol.com (G Benage)

Date: Tue, 29 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Computer Games:  Yeah, I play 'em too.  However, consider the difficulty
most companies are having simply networking a game for 6-10 players.  A
lot of those games are fairly "simple" shooters.  How difficult would it
be to take an RPG like Might and Magic or Ultima, work in all the detail
that a PBM RPG offers, and network it so that 50 players could play at the
same time.   Now, what if they could do a lot of other things besides
dungeon crawling and puzzle solving, like political intrigue, building
armies and conquering provinces, etc.  That would be an immensely
complicated computer game, and I don't expect to see it anytime soon!
Yet, you can play this kind of game for $5.00/turn now (Odyssey and
others).  At a maximum of 500 orders, that's a penny an order...not too
unreasonable.  The amount of depth to a game like Odyssey means that
you're going to get a lot of value for the buck...throw in a lot of e-mail
diplomacy and discussion, as well.

I do think PBEM will move toward more graphical interface.  Odyssey might
have missed an opportunity on that count.  Hell, a nice SVGA map (with the
'grid' overlay) would have been a nice addition.  I certainly think we'll
see more of this kind of thing, once PBM/PBEM companies try to grab a
larger share of the entertainment market.

Regards,
Greg

References

Re: PBM costs
chrisk@yogi.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Chris Kessel)
Tue, 29 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBM costs
chrisk@yogi.NoSubdomain.NoDomain (Chris Kessel)
Tue, 29 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000