pbm game fees From: keith.langley@mdcs.com (Keith Langley) Date: Mon, 28 Aug 1995 00:00:00 +0000 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: $1.35 postage, manila envelope, recycled computer paper and cost of ink cartridge replacement. That's the physical cost of the materials used. We won't consider other costs like taxes, licensing, the cost of the computer used (depreciation and eventual repair/replacement), social security for self-employed people, mileage to office supply store, some percentage of rent and utilities (assuming operations from home, one could have a house with one room fewer if not running a business), long distance calls (sometimes one needs to contact a customer, and calling collect would be tacky and unprofessional), and of course advertising. All of this, as well as the GM's time, comes out of the $8.65 remaining. So if it takes me an hour to do your turn, I'm making almost as much as a convenience store clerk. Now all I have to do is bust my butt drumming up enough business to keep me busy for 40 hours per week (let's see, assuming a turn every 3 weeks per player on average, I need 120 players) and I have a job that could sort of pay the bills - if no players ever run negative balances and then disappear, or write bad checks, and the hard drive never crashes, and.... What's that you say? Too much processing time? Sure, just make the game 100% computer moderated and you can cut prices? OK, sure. I just need to find (or to BE) someone whose skills are worth $40K+ on the open market, and invest a few hundred hours of that expensive time writing the code, and then a few hundred more playtesting and fixing the bugs. Now I can take the entry time down to maybe 15 minutes per turn (from opening the envelope to printing the results). Now my wages per hour for data entry are up over $15 per hour - and in a few short years the programming costs will be paid for. The preceding paragraph was a response to the indignant "why do those pirates charge so much; Killer Accountants from Saturn costs only $2 per turn" sort of comments. The other half of the PBM cost discussion is "what do you get for your money?" There are a couple of ways to answer this: 1) Physically, you get the aforementioned 5 pages or so of recycled computer paper in the aforementioned manila envelope. Maybe it's laser printed, maybe it even has a spiffy map (not in my game). But compared to the amount of paper and information you get in a TV GUIDE for 89 cents, this is obviously not what you're paying for. 2) I prefer to define return for money spent on entertainment in terms of how much you enjoyed yourself for how long. A bunjee jump costs about $20 per second, a movie costs about $2 per hour not counting popcorn. A $30 boardgame that you play once and then leave on the shelf is a bad value; one that you get out and play every Saturday with 5 friends is a heck of a deal. It seems that in the best PBM games (and I modestly include mine), the fun starts when you open the return envelope to see what has happened during the turn. You should CARE about the result; if the outcome doesn't matter, why are you playing? You should have the sense that good results are because you were clever, and bad results are either because you made a tactical error, or someone else outplayed you - not because of random chance or because you didn't understand the rules. You should know that your destiny is yours to guide, not controlled by a dice toss. Having looked over your turn results, your mind should be swimming with new ideas. The hours you spend exploring options are part of the value for money; if there is a single best path to victory the game gets boring. You should always have more that you would like to do than you have resources available to do it - but not so much more that the game frostrates or overwhelms. You should be rushing to the phone or modem (or the writing desk, you unreformed Luddite) to negotiate with your comrades. Is your neighbor trustworthy? Has she left herself too weak for you to resist the backstab? Or is it a ruse designed to draw you into a disastrous two front conflict? All of this negotiating time is also part of the value received for your $10. When I see five of my players at a game convention (about 25% of my players are local; this gives me a unique perspective and constant feedback) ignoring scheduled events to dicker for hours over ONE TRUE FAITH, I know I'm doing my job properly. In the final analysis, each of us has to decide how much a game is worth. Some games return a very high value per dollar in terms of enjoyment; these include both cheap and expensive games. Other games seem designed to get you "hooked" and then steadily escalate the amount you must spend to keep playing. Many game companies charge too much for their games, but I believe many others charge far too little. When a new game designer puts their game on the market at an incredibly low price, it can force other prices down. When that new designer goes out of business a few months later, his effect on the market remains. The failure rate in the PBM industry is enormous. I'm not suggesting price fixing or minimum pricing, but I will continue to charge what I need to, and trust that some players will continue to find it a good value. I urge other responsible GMs, designers and companies to do the same. Keith Langley keith.langley@mdcs.com 1614 Donovam Pl, Longmont CO 80501 (303)776-7987 noon-midnight MST GM and author, ONE TRUE FAITH Referenced By Up