attended local gaming con this weekend

[Angerak]

Maybe a good start for a Consortium agenda would be to retain a spokesperson of some notoriety and good voice to do a Youtube to introduce what PBM is.  Somewhat awkward, since its not PBM anymore.  But the idea being to explain in a couple minutes the multi player (not massive player) strategy, turn based, text based genre is like and why you should try it.  Maybe the companies offer a free game that participate?  If we had ten companies each contributing $1000 and having their links there shown, with maybe production values like graphics and sound behind it, and link with Facebook, other social media.

I have no idea what celebrities cost, but I'm pretty sure that there is no way to get somebody of worth in on that budget - even for just a voice over.  The exception might be one of the game-loving celebrities who might do it for the good of gaming.

That being said, I think this is a major step in the right direction and something I'd be happy to participate in.

I think there are a number of challenges to be overcome to make this happen, not the least of which is trying to adequately describe PBM gaming (a rose by any other name would smell as sweet) inside of a 3 minute window.  I have trouble explaining it to people in a 30 minute window! LOL

It might be worthwhile to create a PBM portal site too.  A launching pad to the various games that the video can direct viewers toward.  Trying to hit them with a list of URLs might be challenging for the viewer.

[Davin]

At Alamaze we are nearing completion of a conversion from HTML to  SQL, which will have several advantages: for increased versatility with color and fonts and graphics in turn results, and the implementation of the legendary "Ready Button" we introduced in Fall of Rome.  Just weeks away.  The Ready Button means instead of having a deadline (and in Alamaze, turns are due various days of the week no later than exactly noon Eastern USA and are available within 5 minutes after the deadline), a game can process as soon as all players have hit the Ready Button.  Players will choose whether they want this faster format or stay with the traditional deadline in any particular game forming.  But our Duel format: just two players on a smaller map with a light fixed fee for a game of no more than 18 turns should really enjoy the Ready Button.  But most players accustomed to the old style PBM with 2 weeks turn around take awhile to get used to two turns a week, although there is no waiting for the mail to be delivered.

In Galac-Tac, we have considered a "ready button" effect numerous times, even back in the days of paper mail, as Galac-Tac is a game well-suited for that sort of approach.  But we've always decided against it (except for "solo" games).  I feel like the variable timing could be a stumbling block for players.

For example, let's say that you're playing a game with a two-week turnaround, and the due date lands precisely on Christmas day.  But you have to be out of town and away from your mailbox (or computer) for about 10 days before and after Christmas.  No problem, grab the before-Christmas turn as soon as it comes in and quickly write up a turn and get it submitted.  Now you're good until well after Christmas, so when you get back in town you grab your turn and get that one done, in time for the next deadline.  All's well.

Now, assume the same situation as above but the turns process whenever everyone has their turn in.  Also, everyone wants to avoid Christmas so they ALL submit their pre-Christmas turns right away.  Now the game processes more than a week ahead of the usual schedule, and the next due date is shortly after Christmas day.  But when the new due date arrives you're still out of town, so you miss the turn entirely, you didn't even get any warning, and you're NOT happy!

Thus, I've tried to keep a fixed schedule of due dates for Galac-Tac because being able to run turns sooner than scheduled may actually cause players to miss turns unexpectedly.  Don't you agree that would be a good reason not to have variable processing dates?

[Davin]

It would be nice if PBM companies could form some sort of consortium to help spread the word, but previous efforts in that direction have not been successful so everyone is on their own.

A consortium for generic "advertising" sounds like a good idea, but I haven't got any funds (and limited time) available to contribute to such an effort.  I can certainly contribute some free play time for those that we connect with.

I think that the hardest part will be getting exposure to a fairly broad base of people.  Certainly formal advertising channels are far too expensive for this sort of thing (in addition to production costs), and YouTube might be handy and cheap, but how many people would actually find and play the video? If we can get people to watch, I think an explanatory video would be effective - I'm just not sure about the first step.

What about some sort of person-to-person dissemination (of text or video or whatever), where PBM advocates email/post it to their friends and talk them into sending it to their friends, etc.  You probably wouldn't get too many to forward it on at each step, but if you could get one or two to forward it most times it would still end up covering a reasonably wide base of people.  Facebook or similar might be an easy way to "like" it's way around the net.

[ixnay]

I doubt there are 10 companies with $1000 cash sitting in their bank accounts. I'd be pleasantly surprised if there were.

I think we have met the Consortium, and it is us. Grim's Riders. The best and most cost-effective marketing mode these days is online/social-media. Grim has done the difficult work of starting the forum and the magazine. It does need constant care and feeding, so maybe we should all commit to contributing a little something -- to every issue of S&D, and to the S&D facebook feed every week, and most certainly to here on the forum. (I've been battling a cold for a bit, but am trying to get back into the swing of things.)

Perhaps the one semi-organized thing we could do would be to create a good one-page flier/brochure and a one-page landing-page on this domain, to which interested parties might be directed.

[Angerak]

I certainly don't have a $1,000 to waste, but a friend of mine in sales/marketing told me a long time ago (just before he drove off in his Lamborghini), "Advertising doesn't cost. It pays!"

Well, it paid him well enough - that's for sure.