Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?

From: keenuward@hotmail.com (Rob Alexander)

Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 11:38:47 +0000

madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral) wrote in message news:<20030113161036.10419.00001359@mb-ba.aol.com>...
> >>most other PBEM players I know are students, seem to have
> >>time in abundance, and are notoriously short on money :-) <<
>
> Well, there you are! <grin>  Almost *none* of our players are students.  Our
> average player is in their 20s, 30s or 40s and in full time employment.

I think this is illustrative of the difference between the PBM and
PBEM traditions. PBEM, I think, started in the same way MUDs did:
students and academics with access to networked UNIX machines. The
advanced operating systems and programming languages made it
relatively easy to implement automated processing, and email cost
nothing, so the games could be run as a hobby, and offered for free.

PBM by comparison started with people, not necessarily students,
coming from tabletop RPGs or wargaming. They had costs right from the
start (printing and postage) so it made sense for even the hobbyists
to charge for each turn. Generally, computer-moderated PBM used PCs
running MS-DOS and used languages like Quick BASIC and Turbo Pascal.
Even when the internet became widespread, automated processing was
difficult to implement.

In terms of player demographics - it depends on the company, and the
game. When I was playing Crasiworld Quest round about 1994 there were
lots of players aged 13-16, whereas the players in Phoenix now are
generally older. I played PBM while at school, but stopped while at
university because there were much more immediately exciting things to
do. Now that I'm working full time, I've started on PBM again, and
have a fair amount of money to spend on the right game.

rob

References

Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
Enno Rehling <enno@despammed.com>
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 17:22:56 +0000
Re: MMOG PBM stategy game, your opinion?
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Mon, 13 Jan 2003 21:10:36 +0000