Re: MEPBM:Bill Field Speaks

From: skrenta@pbm.com (Rich Skrenta)

Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 20:51:59 +0000

v313mdm8@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (ROCHELLE NEWMAN) writes:
> First, emailing is more money.

Not for the PBM company.  Email in bulk is way cheap, much cheaper than
postal rates, and the company doesn't have to pay those data-entry clerks.
So they can charge lower turn fees.

Many players already have Net access from work or school, or because
they're already with a provider for other reasons.  If they have to go
out and buy access, they can get it for $10/month or less.  (Even mail
access from CompuServe can be that cheap).

> Second, a lot of people have had problems with email arriving, and
> therefore don't want to trust it.

Bah.  Bottom line is that it's pretty darn reliable.  Plus with an
automated acknowledgement system, you know when your orders have been
received.  You send your orders, the ACK comes back a minute later,
and then you can relax.  The scanner does a simple syntax check on
your orders too, to look for typos, so you can resend them if it
finds an error.

> Third, depending on the email system you have, there can be format
> errors when it arrives, which will lead to it being entered wrong.

Not sure what these "format errors" are.  Certainly there is nothing
that a few trial messages to the server can't clear up.  I've got
players sending in orders from every conceivable mail system, from
mainframe IBM systems which don't understand the TAB character, to
CC:Mail, to CompuServe and AOL players running goofy offline clients,
to a player who is using a mailer which forces all of his messages
into MIME base-64 encoding.  No "format errors" here.

> Lastly, you can't send note cards to other players

Why on earth would you want to, if you have email access.  :-)
And email is certainly cheaper and less intrusive than phone calls.

> or send in money via email - and if you have to send in your money by
> mail anyway, whats the advantage of sending in the turn by email?

Two-thirds of my players actually do send in their money via email.
The rest only have to bother with an envelope once every three months.

> Email doesn't eliminate typing errors - my understanding is that they
> have to retype it all anyway

Bwah ha ha!  :-)

swater@esd.sgi.com (Adam Waters) writes:
> I can imagine a time not too far away, when pbem will be world-wide,

That time is here already.  Oly has players from Australia, New Zealand,
Germany, France, the UK, Ireland, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands,
Norway, Canada, Italy, and the US.  All in the same game.  Whee!

--
Rich Skrenta <skrenta@pbm.com>

References

Re: MEPBM:Bill Field Speaks
v313mdm8@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (ROCHELLE NEWMAN)
Fri, 18 Nov 1994 17:18:00 +0000