The PBM Player: The Original Graphical User Interface (GUI)

[GrimFinger]

Down through the years established play by mail companies have spent a lot of time and energy reinventing the wheel. The wheel that I am referring to is the graphical user interface, or GUI for short.

In the postal genre of gaming, the original graphical user interface for play by mail games was the player, himself. Each PBM game came stocked with a brain and an imagination. Graphics resolution was a non-issue, for players' imaginations enjoyed open-ended resolution. In their respective minds, entire worlds - even entire universes - took shape and became populated with details. Hardware compatibility issues were non-existent, as players' imaginations could absorb any play by mail game, even if players simultaneously seemed seldom capable of mastering the games, themselves.

Play by mail game moderators have struggled over the years to transition their entertainment products to the digital age. Apparently suffering under the self-imposed mass delusion that graphics were key to a form of entertainment that was traditionally and historically bereft of graphics, they set about the formidable task of "enhancing" their games with graphical capabilities. The ensuring result? Failure, typically.

While it should, perhaps, be binary to PBM companies that play by mail gaming was never graphics-dependent, either to survive or to thrive as a viable medium of gaming entertainment, nevertheless, PBM's Old Guard apparently suffered great difficulty seeing the forest for the trees.

Rather than bringing tried, tested, and proven entertainment to an Internet-empowered potential user base numbering in the millions, PBM's Old Guard opted to take advantage of technology to alter their core entertainment products. The result, as predictable in hindsight as it may be? Mass failure. Mass rejection by the gaming public. A sharp decline in the genre as a whole.

While opinions on such topics may vary widely, I would like to make one observation: The Internet did not kill text as a viable medium of communication.

So, if the vast bulk of play by mail games of old were largely text based games, why do people think that the Internet killed play by mail or somehow or other rendered it obsolete? Even if it did, was it because this medium of entertainment was primarily text based?

Personally, I think that such is exceptionally unlikely. If play by mail gaming has died, all readily available evidence to the contrary not withstanding, then its demise likely has nothing, whatsoever, to do with classic PBM games being exercises in text writ large, pardon the pun.

[Ramblurr]

I agree with your sentiments. Imagination is at the core of all PBM experiences; however I disagree with the observation that GUIs are irrelevant today.

There is a certain type of text-based game that still thrives today: The MUD. This interactive text-based games, the precursors to modern MMORPGs, have their own niche in modern gaming. They are successful without appealing to this delusion that graphics were important. The sacrificed visuals for instant feedback, I'll touch more on this tradeoff in a moment. So, text-based games can thrive in todays modern world.

On the other hand, I want to point out several successful PBM games which use a GUI.

Eressea - An old Atlantis offshoot that was wildly popular in Germany. They use the Magellan player client.

Norberg Game's Fate of a Nation - One of our own here on this forum. I really like FoaN's order creator, for while it certainly isn't beautiful, it is elegant and stays true to the text medium. The majority of the interface is text, with the only non-text element being the map. Moreover, the text is organized into a tree structure, making it easier to find. In fact, you'll notice on common thing about all these GUIs: they all utilize a tree structure to present text information.

VGA Planets.nu - Here we have a complete remake of an old PBM game using modern web technologies. Personally, I think the UI is beautiful. I don't know if it is or will be successful, but I think it has a good chance -- as with all the PBMs I'm listing -- of succeeding.

Email Games - All of EMGs games have a simple order creator and turn viewer. I haven't played these games, but I've noticed activity on this site over the past couple years, so I think it is safe to assume it is working for them.

Rolling Thunder's Supernova:ROTE - This beast of a game uses a GUI for creating orders, but not viewing turns. Players have developed massive spreadsheets to cope with all data rich environment of the game. A joke among players is that the name of the game is Supernova: Spreadsheets in Space.

Phoenix: Beyond a Stellar Empire - This classic PBM has gone completely digital. Check out the Nexus Tour to get a glimpse of their web based GUI.

I suspect (this is only a conjecture) that there are more PBMs active today which make available to players a GUI of some sort, than those that lack any GUI component.

Moreover, it is not uncommon (as I've learned from reading forums and usenet posts) for players to create their own information management systems, usually spreadsheets. From a personal perspective, I stopped playing Supernova, not for lack of imagination or fun factor, but from information overload. There was too much data, and too much pressure to 'get it right' on the first try (after all I was spending $20+ a month on the game).

Now I want to address this statement:

Rather than bringing tried, tested, and proven entertainment to an Internet-empowered potential user base numbering in the millions, PBM's Old Guard opted to take advantage of technology to alter their core entertainment products.

First, I am not of the Old Guard, rather I am a member of the new generation of gamers who grew up with video games. To us a 'game' is synonymous with 'video game.' It is my peers and those younger than me who make up the "potential user base numbering in the millions." PBMs lack two fundamental features that we associate with 'games': 1. instant feedback 2. a graphical component. MUDs lack a GUI, but offer instant feedback. PBMs do neither. From our perspective if it doesn't have those, it isn't a game (even board games have limited visuals), and as soon as we realize that we stop listening and move on. You cannot convince us to come and stay in sufficiently large numbers if you lack both of those features. Admittedly, this is an unfortunate flaw of my generation, but it isn't going to change any time soon.

Grimfinger is correct. PBM didn't decline, because of the lack of a GUI. It declined because it failed to attract new players. 10 or 15 years ago modern gamers didn't have this primal need for visuals, and that is when they should have been given the opium of PBM. However, today, PBM will continue to decline if it doesn't attract new players, and it cannot attract new players unless it (1) acquires a GUI, or (2) sacrifices depth and imagination for instant feedback. Which is more important?

The core of PBM play is not the pen and paper or the envelope. It is your imagination and the accompanying feeling of anticipation in between turns. These are powerful, powerful fun factors, that modern gamers can still be hooked by. Lets not alienate them completely.

[GrimFinger]

I agree with your sentiments. Imagination is at the core of all PBM experiences; however I disagree with the observation that GUIs are irrelevant today.

I didn't say that GUIs are irrelevant, today. An interface - how players interface with the environment of the game - is always important. However, much effort is often expended on graphical user interfaces, but the games often end up all the poorer for it.

VGA Planets.nu - Here we have a complete remake of an old PBM game using modern web technologies. Personally, I think the UI is beautiful. I don't know if it is or will be successful, but I think it has a good chance -- as with all the PBMs I'm listing -- of succeeding.

I used to love playing VGA Planets as a BBS door game, back during the heyday of computer bulletin board systems. I first encountered the game on a BBS in California, and talked a local BBS Sysop into setting it up to run as a door game on his BBS, the first instance of VGA Planets running as a door game local to my area back in the day, to my knowledge.

When VGA Planets moved to a Windows client, I immediately hated it. I bought it, but then ceased playing it. The difference? The interface.

Thanks for the link to this site taking a new approach to VGA Planets. I had not visited it, before, I don't think.

First, I am not of the Old Guard, rather I am a member of the new generation of gamers who grew up with video games. To us a 'game' is synonymous with 'video game.' It is my peers and those younger than me who make up the "potential user base numbering in the millions." PBMs lack two fundamental features that we associate with 'games': 1. instant feedback 2. a graphical component. MUDs lack a GUI, but offer instant feedback. PBMs do neither. From our perspective if it doesn't have those, it isn't a game (even board games have limited visuals), and as soon as we realize that we stop listening and move on. You cannot convince us to come and stay in sufficiently large numbers if you lack both of those features. Admittedly, this is an unfortunate flaw of my generation, but it isn't going to change any time soon.

I grew up with video games, too, from Pong to Pac Man to Donkey Kong to the Atari to the Nintendo to the Sega Genesis. I have nothing against great graphics in games. Many games that have great graphics suck, though. Likewise, interface issues sink many games. I would argue that the focus upon interface development should be upon making the interface intuitive, even at the expense of graphics.

Also, I do not agree with the stereotype of instant feedback and graphical component being necessary for the current - or even future - generations of gamers. Far from being obsolete, the surface of text based gaming environments has only been scratched, thus far. One of the primary appeals of something that current generations affectionately refer to as "texting" is the entertainment value that inheres in that medium.

Grimfinger is correct. PBM didn't decline, because of the lack of a GUI. It declined because it failed to attract new players. 10 or 15 years ago modern gamers didn't have this primal need for visuals, and that is when they should have been given the opium of PBM. However, today, PBM will continue to decline if it doesn't attract new players, and it cannot attract new players unless it (1) acquires a GUI, or (2) sacrifices depth and imagination for instant feedback. Which is more important?

Suffice it to say that I don't agree. I don't agree with your basic premise from the point of inception.

I think that PBM declined for a number of different reasons, but I wouldn't include a supposed "primal need for visuals" as being one of those reasons.

As far as "instant feedback" is concerned, I certainly wouldn't consider that to be a prime requisite for a game of either the current generation - or of future generations - to be successful and popular.