Re: Newsgroup suggestions - for moderators

From: "Scott R. Turner" <srt-nospam@pbm.com>

Date: Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:00:00 +0000

With the elimination of the sniping, this has gotten fairly interesting.

MadCentral wrote:
> What I *meant* wasn't that those costs are particularly high
> for the PBM
> company, but that the costs are enough to discourage *players*
> from taking part
> and from the average person getting online.

That's an interesting situation.  However, from a business perspective,
I think you are overlooking two factors.

First, the costs of being on-line are probably going to change fairly
rapidly in the next few years.  The US is admittedly way ahead of the
curve as far as computer networking goes, but I think most people
expect places like the UK to catch up quickly.  If nothing else, the
big US based ISPs are going to see places like UK which have
artificially
high costs for network access as great business opportunities.  It might
therefore behoove you to be forward-looking to those changes.

Second, your country-centric view might not make much sense in these
days of global networking.  While you might have the right business
model for right now in the UK, why should you bother with that market?
As a PBEM company on the network you could sell your games to a vastly
bigger market.  I'm always surprised how many foreign players my games
draw.  I think Singularity at times has more than 50% non-US players.
So again, you might want to start thinking of yourself as a company that
provides PBM games to the world, rather than to the UK.

All that aside, I think that most PBM GMs are better off making
decisions
based on what pleases them, rather than how they can make the most
money.
You obviously enjoy providing PBM games to the UK market, and there's no
reason for you to change, unless you think that the additional money you
could make in the global PBEM market would be more pleasing to you than
the enjoyment you get running UK PBM games.

-- Scott T.

References

Re: Newsgroup suggestions - for moderators
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Newsgroup suggestions - for moderators
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:00:00 +0000

Referenced By

Re: Newsgroup suggestions - for moderators
lindahl@pbm.com (Greg Lindahl)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:00:00 +0000
Re: Newsgroup suggestions - for moderators
madcentral@aol.com (MadCentral)
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 00:00:00 +0000