Episodic Strategy Games or "PBM"?

[BobMcLain]

My antenna also goes up when I hear "free food" or "cheap women". Other than the antenna thing, I couldn't make heads nor tails of what you wrote.

If episodic hasn't caught on in ten years, it's not going to catch on now, or ever. But really, the "industry" is so miniscule that it doesn't matter what you call it. I don't know of many twenty-somethings who will put down their mobile devices or walk away from their consoles to do "something old guys did 30 years ago before there was the internet", whether you call it PBM (like Rick Loomis does) or turn-based (like Steve Tierney does) or episodic strategy (like you do). I pretty much had my fill of it by 1984, with a couple of brief relapses.

By the way, episodicstrategygames.com is available. If you're serious about branding, why haven't you registered that domain? I hope that no evil person registers it and redirects it to pbm.com.

...

Too late.

[Rick McDowell]

What, did you go for it? 

On the potential customer base, at least most of us are living longer.  Enough sabbaticals. 

Come back, come back.  To Alamaze we will take you.
Alamaze website  

[Starkadder]

Think I am with Bob on this.  When I heard about Starmaster and Quest of the Great Jewels, it wasn't the delivery method that got me to give it a chance and lay the money down.  It was what was offered in background and gameplay that did that.  Starmaster wasn't cheap, so what they offered was great.

Rebranding PBM games will not work, but what will work is offering people something different to make it worth the effort.  In this age of casual web games, Steam (PC) games, and mega console games; your PBM game had better be special.  The one advantage you have that the majority of others don't have, is your personal touch.

If your PBM game is just a computer game you play via the mail, then most likely, people would just want to play it on Steam.  The PBM game creators must put their heart and soul into the game, and the players must be able to see your love in the game.  The PBM format allows you to make your game a living and breathing entity, one in which the creator can constantly interact with the game, faster than any MMORPG company can.  That is the greatest advantage that the PBM world has, but the one that is hardly every used, at least to my knowledge, which isn't that great of field.

I'll say this again, if all the PBM creators are putting out is computer games that have to be played via the postal mail (or email), then you are only going to get is the 'usual suspect' PBM player, no new blood.

Now there are so many casual web strategy games, whether fictional, fantasy, or science fiction.  Personally, I think most of them are crap.  But the new generations don't and they have low attention spans, which is a high bar for PBM world.

Play to your strength, and give your future players something they can't get anywhere else, YOU.

[BobMcLain]

Starkadder: well put, and exactly right.

Back in the late 1970s, I lived in an area where few people were interested in gaming. I saw an ad for Starweb in the back of an issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. I bought the rules, started my first game, and my world expanded to include thousands of other people who liked what I liked. That was the essential appeal of play-by-mail gaming. None of the games themselves were particularly inspired or revolutionary; it was the large player base that made them attractive. I couldn't get that anywhere else.

What's changed? Not the games; they're still the same as they were decades ago, except that instead of thousands playing them, there are now dozens playing them, and it's the same people popping up in each game. Where's the appeal?

Nowadays, I can find hundreds of free games online, with a virtually bottomless player base. I don't much care what they're called. They're games.

Things wear out over time, and play-by-mail gaming is one of them. It was great while it lasted. Companies like Madhouse and maybe a few others do still make a nice secondary income from their games, but that's the extent of it. Somewhere on this forum, Rick McDowell boasted that he'd started 20 games of Alamaze, a re-engineered play-by-mail game that "old guys" played "30 years ago" (and which ironically is promoted with snippets from reviews in defunct play-by-mail magazines from 30 years ago). I believe Rick has done more to promote Alamaze than most moderators do to promote their games, and yet the thoroughly underwhelming results speak for themselves.

Nicky Palmer and I have been playing a bunch of games of "Through the Ages" on BoardGameGeeks.com. Free. Always new opponents. Turn-based. I don't think of it as a play-by-mail game. I don't think of it as anything, really. If it needs a label, I suppose Steve Tierney's "turn-based gaming" works well enough. But what brings me back is the decent game play and the big player base. Thirty years ago, I'd have had to pay for that. Now I don't. Why would I go back, no matter what you call it?

[Rick McDowell]

Geez, Bob.  Wow, you can't see the difference between a free game on your phone and what you want to call PBM?

There's really not much room to go forward on a path of what we may become on that.  It's about the most superficial, uninformed remark on this subject I can think of.  Everyone that can't tell the difference between FOE and, say, Alamaze, should absolutely play free games. 

I don't know why this thread turned so much to "not episodic games" from, "how can we attract new players?"  Oh, and it wasn't 20 games of Alamaze started, its been more than 100, more than one a week, since our Resurgence in mid 2013.



 

[BobMcLain]

What's FOE? I don't play games on my phone - did I write that? Maybe I'm getting senile, but I don't think so. Someone's getting senile.

Good luck starting your next 100 games by mid-2016.

[Rick McDowell]

Bob,

If you have a television with a cable or satellite attached, you must know about Forge of Empires (FOE) or any of their five sister games.  They advertise constantly on TV, and are what you seem to like: you play as a dufus for free, and then you start paying to be relevant. 

Look, if you think World of Warcraft is a great game, not just a great money maker, go for it.  If you want a great game, try Alamaze.
I don't know of anyone in 30 years who has played Alamaze and not liked it.   See the reviews, including Dragon Magazine, et al.

We will have another 100 games started in 2015. Three started this week. Come back, Come back, to Alamaze we will take you!

[Harlequin]

Nicky Palmer and I have been playing a bunch of games of "Through the Ages" on BoardGameGeeks.com. Free. Always new opponents. Turn-based. I don't think of it as a play-by-mail game. I don't think of it as anything, really. If it needs a label, I suppose Steve Tierney's "turn-based gaming" works well enough. But what brings me back is the decent game play and the big player base. Thirty years ago, I'd have had to pay for that. Now I don't. Why would I go back, no matter what you call it?

Hi Bob,

As a GM of Legends I would answer that and say that our product gives you a level of depth and complexity that you will never get from a board game whether played face to face, or turn based on a website.

In that sense it is a product that is NOT replicated elswhere.

http://www.harlequingames.com/index.html

Harlequin

[BobMcLain]

Is that you, Sam?

I've never played Legends through Harlequin, though I did play it once when Edi Birsan ran it. I have to agree with you: the game does offer a "level of depth and complexity" not found in any board game or in most other turn-based games. I don't think I suggested otherwise. For me, though, simpler games like "Through the Ages" hit the sweet spot.

Are you still calling Legends a "play-by-mail" game? Don't tell that Rick guy...

-- Bob

[Greybeard]

I too, have fine memories of Legends, a great game system, and also played when Edi Birsan ran it. I still look at what is ongoing in the games, but have never taken the plunge to return.