Re: PT drop-outs (was Moving to PBEM)

From: jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)

Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2000 03:21:56 +0000

Bill Heron wrote:
>What're you insinuating :)) ?

Whoops!  I thought you might have been playtesting other people's games.
Judging by the number of ads in r.g.pbm announcing playtests for games that are
never heard from again, I wouldn't have been surprised if half of them
collapsed before completion.

>Half of 'em dropped out. Perhaps I should have mentioned that these were
_email_ only playtests. The pen'n'paper ones had a much better success
rate - less than a tenth of the testers -- 'dropped out' and in most cases it
was outside pressures rather the game itself. As Rob said though it does give
you damn good feel for the scale of disruption that can happen.

Were the pen'n'paper playtesters recruited differently?
Before I had e-mail, my main source of new players was mail inquiries and
referrals.  Referrals are the best but the mail inquiries weren't too bad
either.  The same can not be said about the folks who inquire nowadays by
e-mail.

I think someone who goes to the effort of writing a message, addressing an
envelope, and mailing it off is demonstrating a greater committment than
someone who hits the "Send" button.  YMMV

--John

*** (AD) Gunboat Empires has moved from PBM to PBeM
     http://www.gunboatempires.com                      ***

References

PT drop-outs (was Moving to PBEM)
"Bill Heron" <bill@novagames.u-net.com>
Fri, 08 Sep 2000 18:15:45 +0000