PBM Gaming: Expanding the Beachhead

[GrimFinger]

Using the postal system is dead.

Perhaps for you, it is, but not for everyone. We certainly still receive plenty of bills in the mail, here. Plus, it's how my Hyborian War turns arrive to me for Hyborian War game # HW-854. If using the postal system were dead, then how do those turn results arrive in my mailbox? Magic? The Tooth Fairy?

We've discussed this before and I can see you are still clinging onto the past. Sure, no-one can be sure of the future, but all the evidence, trends, future projections and forecasts point to the chance of the postal systems playing a major role in gaming is non-existent.

On a personal level, I'm not worried if the postal system plays a major role in gaming. As I stated on the site here almost three months ago. "I'm not here to save the play by mail industry from a final death, nor am I here as a harbinger of a revival of the hobby of postal gaming."

See editorial titled: Gloom, Despair, & Agony

Where trends are concerned, there will always be trends. I don't worship trends, though. I'm not opposed to there being trends. If I were following a trend, then this website wouldn't be here.

A handful of games which still continue to use the postal system does not justify it's existence for such purposes.

The postal system exists for many purposes, and because it exists, it is a de facto medium for gaming. People love to game. They love to be entertained. They love to have fun. People tend to use all mediums for games. As trends happen, gaming naturally follows those trends. The postal system exists as a matter of law. Thus, it's there. It was only about two weeks or so ago that I last used it to receive a set of turn results for a play by mail game - one that does not offer receiving turns by e-mail in lieu of paper turn results delivered via the postal service.

These games are just a drop in the ocean when compared to the PBMs of old let alone the vast array of online games of today.

I don't disagree. But, so what? I still enjoy the hobby, and one goal that I have, if I can ever make the time in between trying to generate content for this site, is to design and create and run a play by mail game for approximately a half dozen people or so. If everyone else in the entire world wants to abandon playing games via the postal service, then that's certainly their choice.

But, once Ilkor: Dark Rising is up and running, compared to the very same number of games that you point to online, the number of players that play your game will likely be a drop in the bucket, as well. It doesn't deter you, so why should I allow it to deter me?

There are 10s if not 100s of millions of online gamers. I doubt there is even 1,000 players today playing via the postal system. I would bet it is closer to 100

Well, if we included all forms of play by postal games, including chess, there's probably several thousand, at a minimum. One hundred would certainly be far too low of a figure. There's more active Hyborian War players than that, that I am aware of, and the number of players active in that game seems to be on the rise, from what I have been able to tell over the last year or so.

History has shown that there will always be a small niche group of loyal people that refuse to move with the times.

Well, in truth, there are very few people who do not move with the times. I certainly use the Internet. I would use cable Internet or DSL to access the Internet, but both of those stop a half mile or so from where I live. So, today, I am connected at a whopping speed of 26.4K.

I've used a computer on a daily or near daily basis, ever since I purchased an Emerson 386SX 16Mhz PC compatible with 1MB of RAM.

I'm certainly not opposed to change. I wish that Hyborian War turn results would arrive via e-mail. I used technology to hand scan all pages for all 36 player kingdom set-up reports for Hyborian War, after Lee at RSI sent me a new copy of all 36 reports, for that very purpose - to provide a crisp, clear, clean copy to the game's player community.

I don't dislike benefits that technology brings to society, or to gamers. I am a big fan of many such technologies, in fact. I utilize technology to put this website online. Most people on the Internet have never visited this site, and in fact, the absolute vast majority of them will never visit it. So, I know very well what it feels like to be that proverbial drop in the bucket.

But, from the perspective of being a drop, I don't suffer from an identity crisis, nor do I suffer from a lack of self-confidence. I am quite content just being a drop, in either the online ocean or in the gaming ocean or in the postal service gaming ocean.

There are still fan-bases for the very first games ever to appear on the PC. It's true that they exist but its such a niche market it is extremely unlikely it will ever return to the heights that they reached back in the 80s.

Well, I understand what you're saying, Sean, and I can certainly appreciate where you're coming from, when you say that. But, even at its absolute height, postal gaming wasn't a humongous number of people. In this day and age, with the Internet available as a tool of empowerment and communication, achieving a body of gamers playing games via the postal service that equaled - or even exceeded - a few tens of thousands, is not something that is an inherently impossible proposition, I don't think.

Even during its heyday, I dare say that most people in the world had never even heard of play by mail gaming. I've played PBM games since 1986 or so, and if you asked my mama what they were, she wouldn't likely have a clue, just as she likely would be oblivious to the fact that I have played them on and off for a quarter of a century of her life.

I could easily envision some kid somewhere getting hit with the brainstorm idea to piddle around with playing a role playing game via the mail, maybe with a group of middle school, high school, or college friends. Maybe it might happen, just on a whim. It might even be some bullshit game that he or she tosses together overnight, and then the whole thing sprouting and blooming, from there. Then, someone else tries to match it, or one-up it. Trends start with even more humble beginnings. Granted, it might not happen. One could even say that it probably won't happen. But, the possibility is still there, nonetheless, and if it happened, I really don't think that it would be too much of a surprise, to anyone looking back on it years later in hindsight. For the very reason that technology does empower us at the individual level, and to such a widespread degree, these days, I try to keep an open mind about such things.

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that, in many ways I think it is great, but realize it is a minority interest.

Postal gaming has always been a "minority interest," even at its apex - back when you ran Gad Games the first time around. You didn't seem to mind being in the minority then, Sean, so why should I be bothered by being in the minority, today, all these many years later? Hey, it's gaming, man. It's a form of entertainment. It may not be the latest trend. It may even seem to be a bit old fashioned - or even anachronistic. But, nonetheless, I still consider the entertainment that is derived from postal gaming to be as valid a gaming experience, as ever.

You need to face the fact that the majority of the population look forward and embrace new technologies and advancements. It is in the human makeup.

On a purely personal level, I don't utilize all new forms of technology that come along. That should not be misconstrued, however, into myself not embracing the use of such technologies by society at large.

Many things are in the human make-up. Being nostalgic is one of them. Some people deal in antiques. Some tinker with technology from the past. Technology enables us to have this discussion on this website.

But Grim, I am sure you are going to come back with a string of justifications of why postal systems still have a part to play in gaming. I agree it does, but it is something like 0.00000001% of the gaming market and declining.

I'm not trying to "justify" my interest in postal gaming, Sean. You're quite free to disregarding my perspective on things. I just find it a little humorous that we're having this discussion on a site whose very name is PlayByMail.Net.

I would certainly agree that the overall body of active or semi-active postal game players for the commercial PBM industry has declined quite a bit, over time. The PBM industry has likely lost the vast bulk of its former player base. Some commercial PBM companies continue to barely keep their head above water, if I had to speculate. None of them give me their hard numbers, so to a degree, most all of it is speculation.

But, not all commercial PBM companies are either dead or approaching death. There's certainly very few that continue to exist. RSI seems to have some talismanic immunity from the fate shared by most former commercial PBM companies that existed in previous years. The company's player bases for its respective games seem to have jelled, and the company simply benefited from technology empowering their players to find one another online, and connect with one another. I would characterize it as social networking not driven by the company.

I might have to put you in the same category as those that forecast the end of the world in 2012.

Well, I don't believe that the world will end in the year 2012, but you can stereotype me, as you see fit, Sean.

Sure I don't know, maybe they are right, but my gut instinct tells me they are crazy. The return of postal gaming is just as nuts!!

The future is online, just as your website is also online.

Indeed, my website is online, but it exist because of my interest in postal gaming. Plus, my website attracted you. It attracted a few others, as well. It's not a big website. There's not a lot here. I can even hear my own echo, here, at times. But, we're here. Maybe that's nuts, too. I don't know. If every remaining commercial PBM company goes out of business, tomorrow, I'll try to make sure that word of it makes the next PBM News Blurb.

My interest in all of this is not financial gain, Sean. Whether the commercial PBM sector collapses with a deft note of finality, or whether it rises like the proverbial Phoenix, my interest in postal gaming exists independent of the commercial PBM sector. Sure, sometimes I criticize the commercial PBM sector. Hey, there's a lot about it that warrants criticism! But, I don't hate the commercial PBM sector.

I created a PBM game years ago, to have some fun with. Fun was my underlying motive. The very same motive is what drives me with what I am doing with this site, today. For me, it's about fun. It's about a form of entertainment. Granted, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it still entertains me.

Now, if you want to try and strain justification out of what I am doing here, then knock yourself out, Sean. Regardless, it's good to have you join in the discussions, here.