Re: Non Master Server games...

From: madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998 00:00:00 +0000

>>That would be good actually - Though I doubt that it would be possible -
Whereas
free PBMs (to a small extent) and also the large-scale Computer Games are
killing
Pay-To-Play PBM off in quite a considerable way I can't see it working.<<

They are, huh?  Wow.  If you say
so I guess it *must* be true. <grin>
You didn't identify yourself or sign
your name so I don't know who wrote this,
but it sure sounds like you haven't
a clue what you're talking about!

>>PBMs are run for the love of it and there are a lot of GMs (including the
Wyvern
boys and girls) who have gainful employment elsewhere sufficient that they can
treat their GMing as a Hobby rather than a source of income<<

There are also a great many successful
commercial PBM firms, including the
Madhouse boys and girls, who are doing just
fine earning a living with quality PBM
and have been doing so for many years,
and have been growing quite consistently
the whole time.  If your games aren't
good enough to *sell*, that's your
problem. Ours *are*.  That's why they do sell.  Consistently and constantly.

>>*I work for a large Bank in Nottingham UK.
*Roy works Tech Support for a large PC Firm when he's not skiving
*Melv works for the Council insulting people on Council Estates
*Mark is a student which is gainful in that he gets a grant to pay for his Beer
Which means that all four of us come home from a hard day at work and actually
devote our time relaxing and writing fantasy and scifi for total strangers -
weird<<

This is all well and good.  I'm glad you
are pleased with your lifestyles.  I wasn't
criticising your free games.  I think they're
great, as far as they go.  I wish you
the best of luck with them.  Your own market
is nothing like ours and so no competition
to us, so why should it worry me?

>>Granted this is sad for those wanting to make money, but times change and I
think
that the Internet is exposing a lot more like-minded people to the idea of 'why
pay?'<<

Do you?  Then you're walking around with
youreyes closed.  We've never been so
busy... busy enough that I'm poised tohire
two more full-time staff.  Virtually all of
our players are on the internet.  They often
play free games too.  Some of them even came to us via free games as an intro.
They choose to play our games, I guess, because they're good games and *worth*
paying for.

>>To finish, I think that comparing a Free meal to a sought-after Free PBM is a
little foolish as it makes MadCentral seem somehow bitter that people don't
want
to pay to play their games. Granted they're probably good, but does that make
Free
PBMs inversely good? Doubt it looking at our own setup.<<

I have no idea about yoursetup and wouldn't
dream of commenting about the quality of your games.  You, in turn, have
obviously no idea about *our* games.  But I'll tell you something, guys, we do
pretty well with them and aren't even vaguely concerned about the 'rise of
internet', which to us, is just anoher avenue to introduce people to them.

In the end the whole
Commercial PBMs vs Free PBMs
argument is as old as the hills.  I'm
not about to get into it again because its
old and its boring.  If you want to do free
games thats great.  if we want to sell them
and can do so, thats great too.

The whole 'steak' comparison was a
joke really, but it seems pretty valid to me.
I'll take more notice of you guys in three
years time, if you're still here at all...

Steve
-Madhouse UK

References

Re: Non Master Server games...
anj <Anj@clara.co.uk>
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Non Master Server games...
anj <Anj@clara.co.uk>
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 00:00:00 +0000