04-01-2011, 05:09 AM
If one wants to conduct an autopsy of the Play-By-Mail industry, in order to try and gain some insight into how to improve the industry, one malignancy to look at is something commonly referred to as the set-up fee or the start-up fee. It is a blight that continues to ail the industry, and it constitutes an obstacle and a barrier to entry into the gaming genre of Play-By-Mail. While technology has brought mankind into the Twenty-First Century, the set-up fee is a throwback to the prehistoric days of the Play-By-Mail industry. This is one Neanderthal that deserves to be slain.
There are enough obstacles and barriers to entry into the genre of Play-By-Mail gaming, without PBM companies erecting additional ones for gamers to overcome. In a day and an age when PDF documents can be generated quickly and easily, and are common place in a society that has embraced computers and the Internet, set-up fees make less and less sense.
As a long time veteran of playing Play-By-Mail games, I balk at the fees that PBM companies continue to charge for being set up into this Play-By-Mail game or that one. If people like me balk at it, then do you really think that people who have no experience with Play-By-Mail games, but who otherwise might find PBM games to have merit, won't be likely to balk at paying them, either?
Certainly, paying ten bucks here or forking over fifteen bucks there is not the end of the world, but how many Play-By-Mail companies do you think that someone completely uninitiated would be willing to go out on a limb with - if they are beset with set-up fees right from the get-go. To get more people re-interested in trying Play-By-Mail games, in order to re-grow the PBM industry, every last obstacle and barrier to entry needs to be eliminated.
It may, indeed, be impossible to reinvigorate the genre of Play-By-Mail. If technology, itself, has slain the great beast, then PBM cannot be made any more dead by analyzing it and by criticizing it. In their pursuit of the Holy Grail of automation, Play-By-Mail companies continue to treat set-up fees as sacred cows. Preserving these archaic barriers to entry only helps to ensure that Play-By-Mail gaming cannot make a comeback. The best thing to do with these sacred cows is to make hamburger out of them!
If given a choice between trying a Play-By-Internet game that is free of charge, and a Play-By-Mail game that carries a legacy of both start-up fees and per-turn fees, all else being equal, which do you think that the average gamer is likely to go with? How many Play-By-Mail games are still thriving that charge a per-order rate, I wonder? The good old days of Play-By-Mail's golden era are not golden because more Play-By-Mail companies charged start-up fees back then, compared to now. There was no e-mail nor World Wide Web back then. Rulebooks for Play-By-Mail games had to take physical form, and had to be physically delivered from Point A to point B - and made all the more expensive because postal rates were part of the nature of this beast of the player getting set up with all that he needed to have, in order to be on par with his fellow gamers in whatever Play-By-Mail game was in question.
In a day and an age where PDF reigns, why were advances in computer technology incapable of empowering PBM companies to tackle the beast of set-up costs? In truth, it did, actually. It's just that PBM companies chose as a matter of personal choice to retain this antiquated fee structure to the consumer's detriment. If there is to ever be a new era of Play-By-Mail gaming, then I just don't think that set-up fees and start-up fees will be a driving force in making such a reality. And, reality being what it is, a new era in Play-By-Mail gaming may simply be unrealistic.
But, the golden era of Play-By-Mail's heyday was not achieved by individuals whose primary driving force was realism. Rather, it was fueled by imagination and innovation. It was a golden era of imperfection, one of bug-plagued games and moderator eccentricities.The genre of Play-By-Mail is waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of adventurous souls. Who will they be that chart new ground in this field? Or has man become too timid to unleash his imagination once more?
I'm going to go ahead without you. Follow me, . . . but only if you dare!
NOTE: Originally posted in 2010 on the old PlayByMail.Net forums.
There are enough obstacles and barriers to entry into the genre of Play-By-Mail gaming, without PBM companies erecting additional ones for gamers to overcome. In a day and an age when PDF documents can be generated quickly and easily, and are common place in a society that has embraced computers and the Internet, set-up fees make less and less sense.
As a long time veteran of playing Play-By-Mail games, I balk at the fees that PBM companies continue to charge for being set up into this Play-By-Mail game or that one. If people like me balk at it, then do you really think that people who have no experience with Play-By-Mail games, but who otherwise might find PBM games to have merit, won't be likely to balk at paying them, either?
Certainly, paying ten bucks here or forking over fifteen bucks there is not the end of the world, but how many Play-By-Mail companies do you think that someone completely uninitiated would be willing to go out on a limb with - if they are beset with set-up fees right from the get-go. To get more people re-interested in trying Play-By-Mail games, in order to re-grow the PBM industry, every last obstacle and barrier to entry needs to be eliminated.
It may, indeed, be impossible to reinvigorate the genre of Play-By-Mail. If technology, itself, has slain the great beast, then PBM cannot be made any more dead by analyzing it and by criticizing it. In their pursuit of the Holy Grail of automation, Play-By-Mail companies continue to treat set-up fees as sacred cows. Preserving these archaic barriers to entry only helps to ensure that Play-By-Mail gaming cannot make a comeback. The best thing to do with these sacred cows is to make hamburger out of them!
If given a choice between trying a Play-By-Internet game that is free of charge, and a Play-By-Mail game that carries a legacy of both start-up fees and per-turn fees, all else being equal, which do you think that the average gamer is likely to go with? How many Play-By-Mail games are still thriving that charge a per-order rate, I wonder? The good old days of Play-By-Mail's golden era are not golden because more Play-By-Mail companies charged start-up fees back then, compared to now. There was no e-mail nor World Wide Web back then. Rulebooks for Play-By-Mail games had to take physical form, and had to be physically delivered from Point A to point B - and made all the more expensive because postal rates were part of the nature of this beast of the player getting set up with all that he needed to have, in order to be on par with his fellow gamers in whatever Play-By-Mail game was in question.
In a day and an age where PDF reigns, why were advances in computer technology incapable of empowering PBM companies to tackle the beast of set-up costs? In truth, it did, actually. It's just that PBM companies chose as a matter of personal choice to retain this antiquated fee structure to the consumer's detriment. If there is to ever be a new era of Play-By-Mail gaming, then I just don't think that set-up fees and start-up fees will be a driving force in making such a reality. And, reality being what it is, a new era in Play-By-Mail gaming may simply be unrealistic.
But, the golden era of Play-By-Mail's heyday was not achieved by individuals whose primary driving force was realism. Rather, it was fueled by imagination and innovation. It was a golden era of imperfection, one of bug-plagued games and moderator eccentricities.The genre of Play-By-Mail is waiting to be rediscovered by a new generation of adventurous souls. Who will they be that chart new ground in this field? Or has man become too timid to unleash his imagination once more?
I'm going to go ahead without you. Follow me, . . . but only if you dare!
NOTE: Originally posted in 2010 on the old PlayByMail.Net forums.