08-28-2019, 07:23 AM
It's really late, here - about two-thirty in the morning - as I sit here putting words to digital paper. This is the calm before the storm, the pause before the lunge directly into maelstrom that is to be the very next issue of Suspense & Decision magazine - Issue #19!
I was gonna write an article around midnight, but I ended up getting sidetracked, and now I'll probably wait until I've had some sleep to carve out the first words of Issue #19's first article. Even still, I did want want to run a few words through the strainer, before I track down my pillow and lay myself down to sleep.
Issue #18 has been out a few days, now. How am I feeling? I'm feeling good. Really, really good! Not about everything, of course, but about the magazine. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on Issue #18, yet. However, I have heard from a number of different people, and the feedback that has come in, thus far, has been positive. I take that as a good sign. I take it as a positive omen, a harbinger of good things yet to come.
I don't think that any of us has all of the solutions. Now and again, every so often, I try to figure out what lessons that I've learned from this exercise, back from when I first started working on Issue #1 until the most recent issue finally saw the light of day, Issue #18.
One thing that I'm certain of is that if everyone just keeps on doing things exactly as they have been doing them, then we probably won't likely see any substantial positive change of the PBM landscape for the foreseeable future, at a minimum. If PBM companies and PBM moderators intend to keep on keeping down the same road, doing things in the exact same way that they have been doing that got them to where PBM gaming has found itself, today, then if I had to guess, I would be very inclined to say that I think that the status quo will remain pretty much intact. The question that everyone needs to ask themselves is - Is the status quo what you want? Is more of the same the future that you want to see for play by mail gaming?
Most PBM games that ever existed, down through the years of PBM's golden heyday era, I never tried. Many PBM games. hundreds of them, in fact, will likely never be played by anyone, ever again. Why? Because those games are gone, now. Many of their original creators have either passed on or lost interest or simply move don to other things. Yet, I have played a few different PBM games down over the years, and I have had some really wonderful times playing games via the postal service. It's a genre of gaming which, I think, was ahead of its time.
Transitions to electronic and digital forms was seen as THE path to salvation for PBM gaming. Yet, a lot of disruption to the PBM industry has ensued. Some costs were cut - but so, too, were many profit margins upended. The transition to new technologies sounded the death knell for not just countless different PBM games, but to the PBM industry, itself, to a large degree. Not absolutely, but the impact has proved to be very, very devastating, to say the least.
Rick Loomis' recent death cast a solemn pallor across the play by mail gaming realm. As I sit here and reflect, I can't help but to notice that I'm not quite as young as I was, once upon a time ago. And like Rick Loomis, my turn will eventually come, just as yours will, each our own. I can't help but to think that everyone in PBM was so busy trying to cut costs that they may well have cut the industry's throat, too.
For commercial PBM companies, how do you make play by mail gaming more profitable? For prospective PBM players, how do you make PBM gaming more attractive? Furthermore, how do you accomplish both, simultaneously? Honestly, I just don't think that doing more of the same will make that magical formula manifest out of thin air. It's gonna require more.
A lot more!
It's very tiring, at times, arguing with the wind. I've done that a lot, it seems, over the span of the lifetime of Suspense & Decision magazine. Sometimes, it's felt like nothing really seems to matter. Sometimes, people just become set in their ways. I don't say that as a criticism, but merely as an observation from the outside looking in. I'm sure that, in some ways, I'm probably set in my ways, too. So, what now?
Over twenty years ago, I gave a speech, and in that relatively brief speech, one thing that I stressed was that we can either be victims of change, or we can be agents of change. Changes, my PBM friends, is a constant of life. The world changes around us, all of the time. The world changed around PBM. PBM didn't become less fun. It just sort of got passed on by. It's still getting passed by, today.
Much like when an interstate highway supplants previous thoroughfares, and small businesses sometimes pay the price of progress by being cut out of the loop merely as a consequence of technology coming into existence by way of the traffic that they were used to previously then being directed elsewhere, the Internet superhighway left many PBM firms off in the distance, and soon enough, they became little more than distant memories for many. Not all, certainly, but a great bulk of the former overall PBM player base went with this technology, following it along and experiencing new and wonderful and engaging forms of entertainment. And how does the PBM industry of yesterday compete the entertainment offerings of today that the Internet has made possible in such a relatively short time span?
Maybe it can't. Or, as I believe, maybe the remaining PBM powers that be simply won't. Maybe they are done trying. Maybe they've grown older along with the rest of us. Maybe they've already fought their good fight. Maybe they just want to live out their remaining days in peace, perhaps even enjoy some of those new forms of Internet entertainment right along with the rest of us.
If I can't persuade anyone, either on the PBM company side or over on the PBM game moderator side that any notable and sizeable degree of positive change in the overall PBM player base requires notable and sizeable change on their side, then I don't know that there's anything that I can do, personally, effectuate the kind of change and the amount of change that will get PBM gaming thriving, again.
I believe that the big pieces of the puzzle are already in place. I believe that the overall player numbers of PBM gaming can swell to prodigious numbers - numbers that have not been seen in a couple of decades or more. Yes, I really do honestly believe that.
But I also believe that, in order to achieve that, in order to realize that, there's gonna have to be some lightning and some thunder and a true willingness to embrace change. There are some great PBM games, and lineal descendants thereof, out there. But are you willing to go the extra mile?
Because if you're not, then what's the point? You've tried it your way - some of you have tried it your way for decades on end. Maybe what you have been doing all along works for you, and you're simply not inclined to change. After all, who am I to tell you that you need to change?
How many PBM players do you have? How many PBM players do you want to have?
Me? I want to open the floodgates. I want them to come pouring in. I want them to like what you've created and have on offer to the gaming world at large.
Over in the Alamaze community, there's some fabulous stuff going on. Over at RSI, they've got a fabulous game in Hyborian War going on. Over at Phoenix: Beyond the Stellar Empire, they've got some fabulous player loyalty going on. And those are just a few examples that I can cite. But they are important examples.
But are your player numbers what and where you want them to be?
Suspense & Decision magazine is back, and Issue #19 is right around the corner. I decided to give it one more try. Won't you?
I was gonna write an article around midnight, but I ended up getting sidetracked, and now I'll probably wait until I've had some sleep to carve out the first words of Issue #19's first article. Even still, I did want want to run a few words through the strainer, before I track down my pillow and lay myself down to sleep.
Issue #18 has been out a few days, now. How am I feeling? I'm feeling good. Really, really good! Not about everything, of course, but about the magazine. I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on Issue #18, yet. However, I have heard from a number of different people, and the feedback that has come in, thus far, has been positive. I take that as a good sign. I take it as a positive omen, a harbinger of good things yet to come.
I don't think that any of us has all of the solutions. Now and again, every so often, I try to figure out what lessons that I've learned from this exercise, back from when I first started working on Issue #1 until the most recent issue finally saw the light of day, Issue #18.
One thing that I'm certain of is that if everyone just keeps on doing things exactly as they have been doing them, then we probably won't likely see any substantial positive change of the PBM landscape for the foreseeable future, at a minimum. If PBM companies and PBM moderators intend to keep on keeping down the same road, doing things in the exact same way that they have been doing that got them to where PBM gaming has found itself, today, then if I had to guess, I would be very inclined to say that I think that the status quo will remain pretty much intact. The question that everyone needs to ask themselves is - Is the status quo what you want? Is more of the same the future that you want to see for play by mail gaming?
Most PBM games that ever existed, down through the years of PBM's golden heyday era, I never tried. Many PBM games. hundreds of them, in fact, will likely never be played by anyone, ever again. Why? Because those games are gone, now. Many of their original creators have either passed on or lost interest or simply move don to other things. Yet, I have played a few different PBM games down over the years, and I have had some really wonderful times playing games via the postal service. It's a genre of gaming which, I think, was ahead of its time.
Transitions to electronic and digital forms was seen as THE path to salvation for PBM gaming. Yet, a lot of disruption to the PBM industry has ensued. Some costs were cut - but so, too, were many profit margins upended. The transition to new technologies sounded the death knell for not just countless different PBM games, but to the PBM industry, itself, to a large degree. Not absolutely, but the impact has proved to be very, very devastating, to say the least.
Rick Loomis' recent death cast a solemn pallor across the play by mail gaming realm. As I sit here and reflect, I can't help but to notice that I'm not quite as young as I was, once upon a time ago. And like Rick Loomis, my turn will eventually come, just as yours will, each our own. I can't help but to think that everyone in PBM was so busy trying to cut costs that they may well have cut the industry's throat, too.
For commercial PBM companies, how do you make play by mail gaming more profitable? For prospective PBM players, how do you make PBM gaming more attractive? Furthermore, how do you accomplish both, simultaneously? Honestly, I just don't think that doing more of the same will make that magical formula manifest out of thin air. It's gonna require more.
A lot more!
It's very tiring, at times, arguing with the wind. I've done that a lot, it seems, over the span of the lifetime of Suspense & Decision magazine. Sometimes, it's felt like nothing really seems to matter. Sometimes, people just become set in their ways. I don't say that as a criticism, but merely as an observation from the outside looking in. I'm sure that, in some ways, I'm probably set in my ways, too. So, what now?
Over twenty years ago, I gave a speech, and in that relatively brief speech, one thing that I stressed was that we can either be victims of change, or we can be agents of change. Changes, my PBM friends, is a constant of life. The world changes around us, all of the time. The world changed around PBM. PBM didn't become less fun. It just sort of got passed on by. It's still getting passed by, today.
Much like when an interstate highway supplants previous thoroughfares, and small businesses sometimes pay the price of progress by being cut out of the loop merely as a consequence of technology coming into existence by way of the traffic that they were used to previously then being directed elsewhere, the Internet superhighway left many PBM firms off in the distance, and soon enough, they became little more than distant memories for many. Not all, certainly, but a great bulk of the former overall PBM player base went with this technology, following it along and experiencing new and wonderful and engaging forms of entertainment. And how does the PBM industry of yesterday compete the entertainment offerings of today that the Internet has made possible in such a relatively short time span?
Maybe it can't. Or, as I believe, maybe the remaining PBM powers that be simply won't. Maybe they are done trying. Maybe they've grown older along with the rest of us. Maybe they've already fought their good fight. Maybe they just want to live out their remaining days in peace, perhaps even enjoy some of those new forms of Internet entertainment right along with the rest of us.
If I can't persuade anyone, either on the PBM company side or over on the PBM game moderator side that any notable and sizeable degree of positive change in the overall PBM player base requires notable and sizeable change on their side, then I don't know that there's anything that I can do, personally, effectuate the kind of change and the amount of change that will get PBM gaming thriving, again.
I believe that the big pieces of the puzzle are already in place. I believe that the overall player numbers of PBM gaming can swell to prodigious numbers - numbers that have not been seen in a couple of decades or more. Yes, I really do honestly believe that.
But I also believe that, in order to achieve that, in order to realize that, there's gonna have to be some lightning and some thunder and a true willingness to embrace change. There are some great PBM games, and lineal descendants thereof, out there. But are you willing to go the extra mile?
Because if you're not, then what's the point? You've tried it your way - some of you have tried it your way for decades on end. Maybe what you have been doing all along works for you, and you're simply not inclined to change. After all, who am I to tell you that you need to change?
How many PBM players do you have? How many PBM players do you want to have?
Me? I want to open the floodgates. I want them to come pouring in. I want them to like what you've created and have on offer to the gaming world at large.
Over in the Alamaze community, there's some fabulous stuff going on. Over at RSI, they've got a fabulous game in Hyborian War going on. Over at Phoenix: Beyond the Stellar Empire, they've got some fabulous player loyalty going on. And those are just a few examples that I can cite. But they are important examples.
But are your player numbers what and where you want them to be?
Suspense & Decision magazine is back, and Issue #19 is right around the corner. I decided to give it one more try. Won't you?