Episodic Strategy Games or "PBM"?

[GrimFinger]

Congrats on S&D getting SEO position for PBM. (I'm trying for an economy of letters.) It does take time and is unpredictable as to when the spiders find you. It is nice to see that in just a couple days, "we" now have 2 of the top 4 spots where there were none when I posted.

When I brought Alamaze back last year, it took months for us to get page 1 in Google, but we've beaten out some singer named Tori Alamaze, so we have pretty much the whole page 1 now (one listing I believe from this site).

We all know that "PBM" is going to work perfectly for those people that grew up when games were played by postal service (and for those companies that still do so today, as I was reprimanded about last month), such as circa 1987. My calendar says it is now 2014. Things like the internet were introduced between then and now. I get my property tax statement from local government via the post office, and, well, that's about it for anything via the post office, and I like it that way.

HOWEVER, people that didn't grow up on PBM are not going to go searching for "PBM" to find an episodic strategy game. Oh, maybe I cheated a little there. And yes, if only me and the mouse in my pocket talk about Episodic Strategy Games, its not going to do any better than "PBM". But that Google search shows that at least a few companies have picked up on it.

Come on, its not about how many letters are in the phrase, its about what draws attention and new players to the hobby. I don't think "episodic" is as daunting a word as you might believe. Is there a better word than episodic to describe how all events are revealed simultaneously after a period of days once the actors have recited their lines (issued their orders)? Once that word is understood, the phrase describes pretty well how these games are different from any other type. Why would we want to call it "PBM" when play by mail is erroneous in fact and dated as far as most current players are concerned. Who is inspired by "play by mail"? Go get some stamps and envelopes, and a pencil - oh yeah!

Well, at least our calendars are in agreement. There seems to be no dispute over what year it is. It is 2014.

And, you and I are having this discussion in the PlayByMail.Net forum.

You say that its not about how many letters are in the phrase, its about what draws attention and new players to the hobby. That's a fair statement, and one that I don't take issue with. But, that said, you have your perspective and I have mine - and many others have their respective perspectives, as well.

I understand your lament about PBM. I know that you were as much of a PBM advocate as anybody, back in the day. You designed a PBM game, after all. You just view PBM to be a dated concept, a dated approach. You want something new, something exciting, something to draw them in, as players.

You posed a question - Who is inspired by "play by mail?"

Well, I am, for one. PBM inspires me more - far more - than episodic strategy games does. It does so for a multitude of different reasons.

As I recall, you and I "met" online in a PBM Design Group on Yahoo!

I will be the very first to concede that someone who has never heard of PBM games wouldn't likely do a web search for the term PBM. But, that hardly makes them more likely to do a search for the term episodic.

Let's take a close look at a community of gamers who should know what episodic gaming is. It should run in their blood, since they play in your game and communicate in your forum -the Alamaze forum.

Currently, as I sit and write this posting, your forum's own statistics show that your forum members have have made a total of 13,286 posts in 889 threads, with 254 registered user accounts.

Now, out of those forum users in the midst of that center of episodic gaming, do you know how many of them have used the word episodic in their discussions, in the postings on view in the publicly accessible forum?

A grand, whopping total of just two.

Namely, you and I. My own use of that term in the Alamaze forum preceded your use there by a little more than two years. It's in the Fall of Rome portion of your forum.

In practical terms, none of your players are using that term. You are, but only sparingly. I used the term, initially, there, simply because I know that you like the term.

It's not that it's a bad term, per se, or that it is inaccurate. Rather, it's just a term that most people never use. I know that you would like to change that. By all means, go right ahead - convince the world of gamers to think in terms of episodic.

Tell me this, Rick, what draws attention and new players to the hobby?

For Fall of Rome, if memory serves me correctly, you did quite a bit of paid advertising. How did that turn out?

Alamaze has proven to be a far better vehicle for attracting players than Fall of Rome ever was.

I view PBM to be a better starting point to lay a foundation for growth on than I do episodic strategy games. You are free to hold a different point of view. By all means, grab the episodic strategy games ball and run with it.

I am quite comfortable discussing such subjects at length, and at entertaining comparisons of the two. It's not as though I haven't ever bothered to ponder and to consider at length the concept of episodic strategy games.

Beyond that, I enjoy such discussions. I like having them.

Personally, I don't think that this gaming hobby of ours requires or necessitates going forward with embracing one concept while shunning the other. I am quite comfortable opening yet another front in this war for gamers.

Such search terms are, when all is said and done, merely different means to a common and greater end.

Indeed, a few companies have picked up on episodic strategy games. But, for a category of web search, the search numbers are relatively small, as far as search terms go.

You, at least, communicate on the subject. Not everyone does.

If you want or need some help in trying to make progress along the episodic strategy games path, then I am willing to assist you in that undertaking. However, I will continue to plod the PBM path. I think that there's much gold to be mined there, yet.

But,t hat doesn't mean that I don't wish you well in your new quest for the gold of the Episodic El Dorado.