Re: Letter to RSI

From: stuff@hp.uwsuper.edu (Sharon Tuff)

Date: Thu, 11 Nov 1993 00:31:16 +0000

Mark Hughes (mhughes@garnet.msen.com) wrote:
: Just Me (look_out@delphi.com) wrote:
: :  This is a letter that I am planning to send to RSI. I would like to make
: : this a community letter, so any input would greatly be appreciated. If you
: : have ever played Duelmasters, or have attempted to play it, let me know what
: : you think.
: :......
: : Let me know what you think.
:
: A few comments on your letter:
:
: 2. They will not believe you solicited the opinion of many of their customers
:    unless you get several of them to put their name on this. Sorry, you can't
:    use my name because I haven't played Duelmasters.

Hi, I responded to your initial letter (Just Me) and just want to add that I
will gladly add my name to your letter given the chance for a final look
before it is sent.  How would we send it?  We obviously all can't sign the
same petition.  Maybe we could each send a copy with our signature... it
would be amusing for a couple of dozen identical complaint letters to
arrive on the same week.

: 5. Remember that most play-by-mail game companies are not "real" companies.
:    Most are "basement operations", run by people who do other things for a
:    living. RSI is one of the larger companies, but probably still only has
:    a couple of employees. They, and most (probably all) other pbm companies
:   certainly don't have a quality control department, or any other "department"
:    for that matter.

Last time I checked, RSI had a staff of over a dozen people.  There were two
technicians/programmers, 1 customer service person (sometimes 2), 8 to 10
part-time envelope stuffers and data entry (read turn entry) persons, and
2 to 3 'management' people.  This was when there was only ~50 arenas and
about a dozen and a half hyborean war games going on - no other games at
the time were being run by them but they were picking up Alamaze.  I am
sure they have more people working for them now.
There usual strategy involved having 1 person monitor/administrate about
4 to 6 arenas at a time, sometimes 8 to 10.  A lot of people had more than
one job.  There really were no departments per se, rather, big problems were
filtered to management and little ones were handled on a soonest opportunity
basis.

:6. Don't be too disappointed if nothing comes of this. They will only bend over
:    backwards so far for your couple of bucks per week. If you are really
:    dissatisfied, find another game.
: Mark
:

I completely agree with both statements.  There are other good games out
there.

Sharon

References

Re: Letter to RSI
mhughes@garnet.msen.com (Mark Hughes)
Thu, 11 Nov 1993 03:30:58 +0000