Pulling PBM gaming back from the brink

[GrimFinger]

Some say that PBM gaming teeters on the brink of destruction. Other say that PBM gaming went over the edge long, long ago.

Apparently, there was a great conflict, of some sort. Or, maybe I am simply looking at the evidence wrong. These PBM gamers, now these fellows (and the occasional PBM lass or three), they meant business, back in the day.

What you've got to understand is that these sons of bitches meant business. Play by mail gaming was serious business to these folks. They invested lots of time, lots of money, lots of energy into the hobby. Hell, they invested bits and pieces of themselves into these games, into these dad-burned PBM games, as they called them - play by mail. Some sank their hearts into it. Some sank their souls into it. A few of these crazy bastards even invested their life savings into it, and became what you or I today might call "game moderators."

Man, that's a big, fancy term. Game moderators. PBM game moderators. These were the czars of play by mail. Why, if it weren't for them, there's no telling where PBM might have ended up.

Flash forward to the present date. Now, look about you. Welcome to Czarville - PBM gaming that is consolidated, antiquated, dilapidated. But, beneath it all, the old beast lurks even still. Oh, it's down there, all right. Watching. Waiting. Lurking. Just biding its time, until its ready to pounce once again upon an unsuspecting public.

If I posed the question, "Which PBM company has the best PBM website on the Internet?" What would you say? If I posed the question to you of, "Which PBM company has the worst PBM website on the Internet?" There would be one hell of a lot of competition, don't you think?

Maybe what PBM gaming needs is more fees. What do you think about that? Postage fees. Start-up fees. Special action fees. Rulebook fees. Fees for this. Fees for that. Here a fee, there a fee, everywhere a fee, fee. By chance, does anyone happen to know if Old MacDonald, himself, played PBM games, too?

Or, maybe what the PBM industry needs is for someone to pull play by mail gaming back from the brink. How does one save the postal system from itself, though? It's antiquated. It's out of step with the times. It's monopolized, in many instances. Can anyone really afford to use it, anymore? The postal service, I mean. What's it really good for, aside from delivering bills to your doorstep? Aren't you glad that we've all outgrown being entertained by envelopes dropped off at our doorstep or in our mailboxes? Thank God for technology! It has saved us from both the need and the desire to be entertained in such an outmoded way.

Or has it?

As a society, we've apparently chosen to super-size our junk mail. Now, we are beset with spam. The more that things change, the more that they remain the same.

As a kid, I used to look forward to receiving the Sears Roebuck catalog in the mail. Man, what a great thing that was! Now, I can access far more information about stuff that Sears or any of a countless number of other stores carry, via the Internet, of course, than their catalog ever carried, even in its thickest of issues. Yet, how many times have I bothered to browse Sears' website? Uh, they do have a website, don't they?

My role in the grand scheme of things is not to keep the play by mail industry from going over the edge. Some say that they went over the edge long before I ever even started playing PBM games, all those many years ago.

From my vantage point here on PlayByMail.Net, I largely just observe things. Today, for example, during my recent of many explorations of the Internet's past signs of PBM life, I encountered a couple of things that I took notice of - and which I believe are positive signs for the hobby of play by mail.

One of these is our own site user, Ixnay, expressing interest in signing up for a game of Hyborian War that is being organized by, of all things, Duel2 players, rather than by Hyborian War players.

The other is Mica Goldstone's response to KJC Games' forum user Dave No Mates At All, whose plight I had mentioned in the PBM News Blurb for March 14th, 2011.

In order for PBM gaming to thrive, to be brought back from the brink, so to speak, the universe of postal genre gaming requires at least some degree of pollination by players, and at least some component ingredients of service by PBM moderators and/or would-be-PBM-Moderators.

Like the paladin of fantasy gaming fame, Ixnay boldly follows his faith - his faith in PBM gaming as a viable and entertaining medium for enriching his personal life. In the process, he helps grow his hobby.

And Mica? Well, let's just say that it's good to see that Dave No Mates At All did not die in a PBM wilderness area utterly bereft of answers from the PBM game company that he chose to do business with. Mica's response, relatively brief though it was, probably made that poor fellow's day.

[ixnay]

Gosh, Grim, you're getting me all choked up! Now if only I can get the Hyborian Wars company to respond to my emails...

[JonO]

I have to disagree about Mica's response. KJC considers itself a professional game company, providing a service in return for fees. Any company that ignores a customer for four months and then brushes off the delay with a "Sorry about that, but we've been busy," has forgotten that it is the customers, not the computers that make the game happen, and in my ever-so humble opinion, doesn't deserve to have customers. To make his day they should have gifted him with a goodly chunk of free play. That would have been a way of rewarding a customer for having enough faith in them to still be hoping for a response after a third of a year of being ignored.

[GrimFinger]

I have to disagree about Mica's response. KJC considers itself a professional game company, providing a service in return for fees. Any company that ignores a customer for four months and then brushes off the delay with a "Sorry about that, but we've been busy," has forgotten that it is the customers, not the computers that make the game happen, and in my ever-so humble opinion, doesn't deserve to have customers. To make his day they should have gifted him with a goodly chunk of free play. That would have been a way of rewarding a customer for having enough faith in them to still be hoping for a response after a third of a year of being ignored.

I still think that Mica's response probably made the poor fellow's day.

[JonO]

I still think that Mica's response probably made the poor fellow's day.

And I admire your optimism and faith in human nature.

[GrimFinger]

And I admire your optimism and faith in human nature.

From that player's perspective, the game's moderator had finally responded to him, after he had been waiting for a response for 4+ months. I wasn't praising the game moderator's extensive delay in responding to the poor fellow.

The fact that Mica finally did respond, though, probably had a big positive impact upon the player in question.

[JonO]

Yes, it was Dave the player that I meant you had faith in. I guarantee that after 4 months of being ignored, my response -- as a player -- would have been short and to the point and not very complementary. What they did was quite rude, I am sure you agree.

[GrimFinger]

Yes, it was Dave the player that I meant you had faith in. I guarantee that after 4 months of being ignored, my response -- as a player -- would have been short and to the point and not very complementary. What they did was quite rude, I am sure you agree.

Well, in this particular instance, I'm not sure that I would agree, actually.

I do think that it is pretty damned sad that the player of their games languished in their own company forum - a forum that had apparently become devoid, at some point in the past, of any company moderator presence.

That said, I don't think that they were rude, so much as utterly oblivious. It begs the question, of course, how badly has their player base for their company's games deteriorated - the possible exception of Phoenix, aside?

It may well be that the company's personnel have simply become disenchanted and disengaged, over the last several years. I'm not defending it as good business practice. I don't know the specifics of how or why they devolved to that point. And, in all fairness to the folks over at KJC Games, it may be that all - or perhaps the bulk - of their efforts have been shifted over to their Phoenix game. Even still, if they still have players playing in their other games, then those players shouldn't simply be written off or trivialized, which is certainly the way that it looks from the outside looking in, while browsing their forum.

All of that said and conceded, though, I still think that it probably made Dave No Mates At All's day, once Mica did respond in that very same forum where Dave had been languishing all that time.

[JonO]

You're right. When you take money from someone to provide a service, then it is not rudeness if you don't provide the service (and the forum by existing on their website was implicitly part of the service) it is theft. And if the staff of KJC is accepting a salary and not doing their jobs, that's equally criminal.

But the point isn't important enough to keep arguing. If you think it made Dave's day, since there is no evidence it didn't, I'll take your word for it.

[GrimFinger]

You're right. When you take money from someone to provide a service, then it is not rudeness if you don't provide the service (and the forum by existing on their website was implicitly part of the service) it is theft. And if the staff of KJC is accepting a salary and not doing their jobs, that's equally criminal.

But the point isn't important enough to keep arguing. If you think it made Dave's day, since there is no evidence it didn't, I'll take your word for it.

I wouldn't agree that it is either theft or criminal. The forum in question is closed to new registrations. It was probably provided as a courtesy to their players, but they likely didn't guarantee answers to questions posed there by their players.

If poor service were criminal, then there probably would be few, if any, PBM companies remaining in operation, today.

Poor service, in and of itself, would constitute exceedingly vague grounds whereupon to criminalize the occurrences of such. Hell, one can - and often does - receive poor service at a multitude of businesses, across the entire spectrum of business existence.