Re: Charging for rules

From: jonmmorris@aol.comnospam (John Morris)

Date: Sat, 02 Sep 2000 21:18:20 +0000

Mark Wardell wrote:

>Bringing this back to charging for rules perhaps an option for a closed-ended
game would be to offer free rules, but charge a setup to begin the game. That's
just a thought off the top of my head, I don't run a closed-end yet so I've not
looked into all of the different issues going into starting/finishing such a
game. And of course what works for me and my game(s) may not work for others.

I use a setup charge (with two free turns) and provide economic incentives to
prepay the game or at least pay for turns in blocks of 10.  Also, I cultivate a
list of standby players to take over abandoned countries at a reduced cost.

To reduce the number of dropouts among those who've been bludgeoned by war, I
toyed with the idea of a rebate for players who completed the entire game but I
gave it up as impractical - I've found it more effective to just reduce the
per-turn charge for the  crippled player - even though they can no longer win,
they can still have fun, harass someone, and they get a full voice in the
propaganda wars!

Closed-ended, conquer-the-world games are not the best PbM model to make money.
 Your customers are forever driving each other out of the game and you can't
easily add someone into a game mid-stream.  "Look there!  Volcanoes erupted and
a new country has appeared from the sea!  And, with people, government,
infrastructure, military, and an attitude!"

John

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

References

Re: Charging for rules
Mark Wardell <PNMarkW2@aol.com>
Sat, 02 Sep 2000 19:29:26 +0000