Re: PBEM websites

From: Brandon Blackmoor <bblackmoor@spamcop.net>

Date: Fri, 14 Apr 2006 17:24:11 +0000

PBeMPortal wrote:
> People are all about choice and if they
 > can't find what they're looking for they
 > will, and rightly so, look elsewhere.

Exactly. It doesn't matter if there are four PBEM RPG sites or fourteen,
just as it doesn't matter how many grocery stores there are. As a player
looking for a game, or a consumer looking for a particular product, I
don't have to look at every site, or in every grocery store. I just have
to look until I find what I am looking for. If I look in one store and
find what I want, that's great. If there is only one store and it
*doesn't* have what I want, though, I'm out of luck.

On the other hand, as a GM looking for players, or as a manufacturer
selling a product, I *want* my game/product in as many sites/stores as
possible, because that increases the chance someone looking for a game
like mine will find it. And, unlike putting one's physical product in
grocery stores, the incremental cost to me to put my announcement in
another web site is (if the site is well designed) trivial. It doesn't
matter that Food Lion may have 80% of the market share: another 5% is
another 5%, and it increases the chance that a potential player will
find my game to be what they are looking for, and vice versa.

In my opinion, people who think having more than one site is a bad thing
do not understand the economics of the web. There is little to no
transaction cost in searching more then one site (if it is well
designed), and the benefit of having more sites available significantly
increases the chance of finding what one is looking for. (There is a
point of diminishing returns, of course, but we are a long way from that.)

Some will repeat their mantra that claiming this does not make it true.
Nonetheless, it is (in my opinion) an accurate description of reality,
and repeatedly claiming that it is false does not make it so.

More importantly, repeatedly claiming it is false will not make the
additional sites go away, any more than my objections to the geoste.com
PBEM site have made Steve Geoste revise his site according to my wishes.
So it's really a waste of time to belabor the point. What *I* intend to
do, and what I think is the most productive thing to do, is to focus on
doing what I think will benefit the community, and encourage others to
do what *they* think will benefit the community, helping them with
advice and constructive suggestions to the best of my ability.

But that's me. Others, I am sure, feel differently. And that's okay.

--
bblackmoor@blackgate.net
2006-04-14

References

Re: PBEM websites
Paul Walker <usenet@blacksun.org.uk>
Sun, 09 Apr 2006 00:19:12 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:31:52 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
Brandon Blackmoor <bblackmoor@spamcop.net>
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:08:34 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:51:28 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
"PBeMPortal" <pbem@tapirdesigns.co.uk>
Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:51:42 +0000

Referenced By

Re: PBEM websites
Paul Walker <usenet@blacksun.org.uk>
Sun, 09 Apr 2006 00:19:12 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 18:31:52 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
Brandon Blackmoor <bblackmoor@spamcop.net>
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:08:34 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 13 Apr 2006 23:51:28 +0000
Re: PBEM websites
"PBeMPortal" <pbem@tapirdesigns.co.uk>
Fri, 14 Apr 2006 07:51:42 +0000