Re: pbm game fees

From: crb11@cus.cam.ac.uk (Colin Bell)

Date: Wed, 30 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000

In article <950828172159473@mdcs.com>,
Keith Langley <keith.langley@mdcs.com> wrote:
>As someone who runs what some would consider a "large fee" game ($10 per
>turn flat), I'd like to respond.  First, an analysis of the GM's costs
>per turn processed:
>[long analysis deleted]

I agree with most of what Keith said: I think it should also be
pointed out that many of the cheaper games are run as hobbies by
people who have other sources of income, and are usually happy to do
so for little more than cost.  For example, I run a postal game for
about 80 people who pay about L1 (UK pound) per turn. It takes an
entire (and long) weekend to run per turn: let's say 24 hours. Let's
say my time is worth L10 an hour, which is roughly what I get from
doing tutoring undergraduates, and is probably quite cheap for the
skills I'm using. Divide the excess cost amongst the players and it
goes from being a L1 a turn game to a L4 a turn game. And that doesn't
include all the admin, printing and sticking-things-in-envelopes,
which is done by someone else, so it would seem perfectly reasonable
for it to cost the equivalent of $10 a turn if it were being done for
a living. Quite aside from the fact that the program used to run the
game took the best part of a man-year to write (and is still not
entirely complete).

The PBM industry is not one where you can get rich quick (unless you're a
true cowboy and very lucky) and relies very much on the goodwill of the
GMs who are forced to put many weeks of work in before making anything out
of the game at all, and even then barely breaking even. It's a shame many
of the players don't seem to realise this.

Colin

--
-
Colin Bell, CRB11@CUS.CAM.AC.UK
Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Cambridge.

References

pbm game fees
keith.langley@mdcs.com (Keith Langley)
Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000