07-01-2012, 05:32 AM
OK, so maybe they're not all saints, and maybe it's not so much a march as it is that they're just trudging along. Many of them are tired of wandering around in the PBM wilderness for years on end. Is the PBM Promised Land anywhere in sight, yet?
Over on the Facebook page for Starweb Play By Mail ( http://www.facebook.com/StarwebPBM ), which I visited, today, I took notice of two postings from a few months back.
The first of these two postings was dated September 1, 2011, and it explained that a Starweb player of over 30 years, someone named Lee Knirko, had decided to retire from playing that game. He was 88 years old, and he just wasn't able to manage it, anymore.
The second, but related, of these two postings was dated November 18, 2011. The news that it heralded was more sad than the first. You see, Lee Knirko had died.
I never knew Lee Knirko, but I knew guys like him - long time players of play by mail games. Eighty-eight years old, and still playing PBM games - almost right up to the literal very end. Now, that says something - both about Lee, and about this thing that we call a hobby.
Resilient. Enduring. Legacy.
I sent out an e-mail to PlayByMail.Net's site users a little while ago. Another one of those PlayByMail.Net News Alerts, as I like to call them. It was conspicuously silent about this editorial. Why? Because, I hadn't written it, by the time that I mailed it out. In fact, I had no plans to even write another editorial pertaining to PBM gaming, tonight. But, what the Hell? Why not??
Whenever I send out those mass e-mails to the not-so-massive mass of site users that receive them, I tend to monitor the site shortly thereafter. Why? To see how long that it takes for the early bird to get the worm.
Shortly after firing that latest News Alert into the nether void of e-mail cyberspace, along comes site user Hatch. Not long after Hatch takes the bait, what do my eyes behold, with their PBM vision so keen? Dastardly old Greybeard!
OK, so maybe he's not really dastardly, but he beat most of you to the punch - everyone except for Hatch, of course.
And my point is, you might ask?
My point is that sending out e-mails of this type have always clearly revealed to me how relevant - indeed, how critical - it is for someone to be talking about PBM gaming. Whether it's a News Alert e-mail, or whether it's someone publishing a PBM magazine of some kind, some kind of active pursuit of PBM dialogue goes hand-in-hand, I believe, with the success of the PBM industry.
Even when I am not hanging around this place, and even when I seem to be quite content to allow this site to dry up and die, like so many other PBM gaming sites before it, don't assume that I'm never checking up on the place.
If I want this site to live, and to show signs of life, then it is helpful to me to know and to better understand what makes it die.
Of late, a few have begun posting a bit, here in the forums. It attracts my attention. It renews my interest. Isn't that really at the crux of it all, though? If you want to see a new golden age dawn for play by mail gaming, then isn't what we really need to see happen is that there be a perpetual renewal of interest, on the part of interested parties?
Some of the biggest names from PBM's days of yore are registered on this site. How often do they post, though? Maybe there's just nothing here that's of interest to them. Perhaps they had interest, but lost interest. What if they just don't know what to post?
Lee Knirko fought the good fight. Many like him have fought the good fight. The wars of play by mail are seemingly without end. Some have retired from the conflict, while others have stuck it out to the bitter end.
Decades ago, the seers of PBM looked into the future. They foresaw devastation. Today, we walk amongst the remnants of a once great genre of gaming. We walk in the footprints of giants!
God bless Lee Knirko! May the saints march on.
Over on the Facebook page for Starweb Play By Mail ( http://www.facebook.com/StarwebPBM ), which I visited, today, I took notice of two postings from a few months back.
The first of these two postings was dated September 1, 2011, and it explained that a Starweb player of over 30 years, someone named Lee Knirko, had decided to retire from playing that game. He was 88 years old, and he just wasn't able to manage it, anymore.
The second, but related, of these two postings was dated November 18, 2011. The news that it heralded was more sad than the first. You see, Lee Knirko had died.
I never knew Lee Knirko, but I knew guys like him - long time players of play by mail games. Eighty-eight years old, and still playing PBM games - almost right up to the literal very end. Now, that says something - both about Lee, and about this thing that we call a hobby.
Resilient. Enduring. Legacy.
I sent out an e-mail to PlayByMail.Net's site users a little while ago. Another one of those PlayByMail.Net News Alerts, as I like to call them. It was conspicuously silent about this editorial. Why? Because, I hadn't written it, by the time that I mailed it out. In fact, I had no plans to even write another editorial pertaining to PBM gaming, tonight. But, what the Hell? Why not??
Whenever I send out those mass e-mails to the not-so-massive mass of site users that receive them, I tend to monitor the site shortly thereafter. Why? To see how long that it takes for the early bird to get the worm.
Shortly after firing that latest News Alert into the nether void of e-mail cyberspace, along comes site user Hatch. Not long after Hatch takes the bait, what do my eyes behold, with their PBM vision so keen? Dastardly old Greybeard!
OK, so maybe he's not really dastardly, but he beat most of you to the punch - everyone except for Hatch, of course.
And my point is, you might ask?
My point is that sending out e-mails of this type have always clearly revealed to me how relevant - indeed, how critical - it is for someone to be talking about PBM gaming. Whether it's a News Alert e-mail, or whether it's someone publishing a PBM magazine of some kind, some kind of active pursuit of PBM dialogue goes hand-in-hand, I believe, with the success of the PBM industry.
Even when I am not hanging around this place, and even when I seem to be quite content to allow this site to dry up and die, like so many other PBM gaming sites before it, don't assume that I'm never checking up on the place.
If I want this site to live, and to show signs of life, then it is helpful to me to know and to better understand what makes it die.
Of late, a few have begun posting a bit, here in the forums. It attracts my attention. It renews my interest. Isn't that really at the crux of it all, though? If you want to see a new golden age dawn for play by mail gaming, then isn't what we really need to see happen is that there be a perpetual renewal of interest, on the part of interested parties?
Some of the biggest names from PBM's days of yore are registered on this site. How often do they post, though? Maybe there's just nothing here that's of interest to them. Perhaps they had interest, but lost interest. What if they just don't know what to post?
Lee Knirko fought the good fight. Many like him have fought the good fight. The wars of play by mail are seemingly without end. Some have retired from the conflict, while others have stuck it out to the bitter end.
Decades ago, the seers of PBM looked into the future. They foresaw devastation. Today, we walk amongst the remnants of a once great genre of gaming. We walk in the footprints of giants!
God bless Lee Knirko! May the saints march on.