Episodic Strategy Games or "PBM"?

Just Googled today both "PBM" and "Episodic Strategy Games".

Seems like we have discussed this before, to the point of what term would help grow the hobby. Readers are encouraged to Google both terms and see if you then believe Episodic Strategy Games may be better than PBM.

Well, it's certainly much quicker to type PBM than to type Episodic Strategy Games. PBM has three letters, and Episodic Strategy Games has twenty-one, and that's not counting the spaces between the three words that comprise the latter.

Plus, on my Google search results, I see that a posting that I made to the PlayByMail.Net Google+ page stands out quite visibly, over on the right hand side. On the first page of search results for Episodic Strategy Gaming, no comparable equivalent exists over on the right hand side. Visually, my eye is drawn to the right side, on that PBM search results page. It stands out to me.

In a span of less than two full days, an article from the Article Archives of Suspense & Decision magazine is in the 3rd slot on the first page of search results for the term PBM. That's pretty good, I think.

The Episodic Strategy Gaming search yields a first page of results, with all tend entries mentioning a game or something game related, ten out of ten slots.. The PBM search yields a first page of results, with two out of ten slots mentioning games or something game related. Of course, it's not quite as simple as it looks, because if you did an equivalent search for the term PBM Strategy Gaming, Google yields a first page of results with ten out of ten slots mentioning games or something game-related.

In SEO (search engine optimization) terms, you're comparing apples and oranges. Using a long tail phrase for search purposes will always yield more specific results. It's not exactly rocket science. If you do a search for ESG, an equivalent search length, as an abbreviation for Episodic Strategy Gaming, then Google yields a page with zero out of ten slots mentioning games or something game-related.

A search for PBM games yields ten out of ten slots referring to games or to something game-related. A search for PBM gaming yields ten out of ten slots referring to games or to something game-related.

Stacking the search deck, with the inclusion of the words strategy and games, does not mean that, therefore, the search phrase containing the word episodic is the better choice.

I have attached two screen shots to this message for site visitors to compare the two search terms that you suggested.

And, here we are less than twelve hours later, with another screen shot of the Google search results for the search term PBM.

Compare it to the screenshot attached the previous message, the one for the search term PBM. Now, I've managed to get another entry listed on page one of the search results for that particular search phrase, resulting in a different kind of PBM product/service getting pushed off of page one's search results and onto the top of page two's search results.

The PBM entry over on the right-hand side is automatically updating with whatever the most recent posting that I have made to the Google+ page for PlayByMail.Net. You don't have to take my word for it, though. Do a new search for yourself.

Everyone is free to draw their own lessons, whether from this particular discussion or on a broader level.

We can even include a recent brief exchange on the subject over on the Alamaze forum, if you like, so that anyone reading this thread can also have the benefit of that discussion, as well.

http://kingdomsofarcania.net/forum/showthread.php?tid=9151

If you refer back to Issue # 2 of Suspense & Decision magazine, there were some fictional newspaper headlines on display. The first of them was the following one:

Fiction is still fiction, though, right?

Everyone can judge things for themselves. A Google web search for the term PBM now reveals that this invasion is establishing beachheads on page one of Google search results for the term (PBM) that you encouraged us all to Google and see for ourselves.

Also, it has not escaped my attention that for the search phrase Episodic Strategy Games, your own game, Fall of Rome, occupies the number one position on page one of search results for that particular search phrase. Perhaps you would care to reveal how many new players to Fall of Rome that you've had lately.

If having the top slot on page one of search results for the very term that you are advocating in favor of to replace PBM isn't getting you many new players, currently, then how successful do you think that you're likely to be to persuade others to embrace what you are advocating?

Congrats on S&D getting SEO position for PBM. (I'm trying for an economy of letters.) It does take time and is unpredictable as to when the spiders find you. It is nice to see that in just a couple days, "we" now have 2 of the top 4 spots where there were none when I posted.

When I brought Alamaze back last year, it took months for us to get page 1 in Google, but we've beaten out some singer named Tori Alamaze, so we have pretty much the whole page 1 now (one listing I believe from this site).

We all know that "PBM" is going to work perfectly for those people that grew up when games were played by postal service (and for those companies that still do so today, as I was reprimanded about last month), such as circa 1987. My calendar says it is now 2014. Things like the internet were introduced between then and now. I get my property tax statement from local government via the post office, and, well, that's about it for anything via the post office, and I like it that way.

HOWEVER, people that didn't grow up on PBM are not going to go searching for "PBM" to find an episodic strategy game. Oh, maybe I cheated a little there. :cool: And yes, if only me and the mouse in my pocket talk about Episodic Strategy Games, its not going to do any better than "PBM". But that Google search shows that at least a few companies have picked up on it.

Come on, its not about how many letters are in the phrase, its about what draws attention and new players to the hobby. I don't think "episodic" is as daunting a word as you might believe. Is there a better word than episodic to describe how all events are revealed simultaneously after a period of days once the actors have recited their lines (issued their orders)? Once that word is understood, the phrase describes pretty well how these games are different from any other type. Why would we want to call it "PBM" when play by mail is erroneous in fact and dated as far as most current players are concerned. Who is inspired by "play by mail"? Go get some stamps and envelopes, and a pencil - oh yeah!

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='3592' dateline='1407631098']
Congrats on S&D getting SEO position for PBM. (I'm trying for an economy of letters.) It does take time and is unpredictable as to when the spiders find you. It is nice to see that in just a couple days, "we" now have 2 of the top 4 spots where there were none when I posted.

When I brought Alamaze back last year, it took months for us to get page 1 in Google, but we've beaten out some singer named Tori Alamaze, so we have pretty much the whole page 1 now (one listing I believe from this site).

We all know that "PBM" is going to work perfectly for those people that grew up when games were played by postal service (and for those companies that still do so today, as I was reprimanded about last month), such as circa 1987. My calendar says it is now 2014. Things like the internet were introduced between then and now. I get my property tax statement from local government via the post office, and, well, that's about it for anything via the post office, and I like it that way.

HOWEVER, people that didn't grow up on PBM are not going to go searching for "PBM" to find an episodic strategy game. Oh, maybe I cheated a little there. :cool: And yes, if only me and the mouse in my pocket talk about Episodic Strategy Games, its not going to do any better than "PBM". But that Google search shows that at least a few companies have picked up on it.

Come on, its not about how many letters are in the phrase, its about what draws attention and new players to the hobby. I don't think "episodic" is as daunting a word as you might believe. Is there a better word than episodic to describe how all events are revealed simultaneously after a period of days once the actors have recited their lines (issued their orders)? Once that word is understood, the phrase describes pretty well how these games are different from any other type. Why would we want to call it "PBM" when play by mail is erroneous in fact and dated as far as most current players are concerned. Who is inspired by "play by mail"? Go get some stamps and envelopes, and a pencil - oh yeah!
[/quote]

Well, at least our calendars are in agreement. There seems to be no dispute over what year it is. It is 2014.

And, you and I are having this discussion in the PlayByMail.Net forum.

You say that its not about how many letters are in the phrase, its about what draws attention and new players to the hobby. That's a fair statement, and one that I don't take issue with. But, that said, you have your perspective and I have mine - and many others have their respective perspectives, as well.

I understand your lament about PBM. I know that you were as much of a PBM advocate as anybody, back in the day. You designed a PBM game, after all. You just view PBM to be a dated concept, a dated approach. You want something new, something exciting, something to draw them in, as players.

You posed a question - Who is inspired by "play by mail?"

Well, I am, for one. PBM inspires me more - far more - than episodic strategy games does. It does so for a multitude of different reasons.

As I recall, you and I "met" online in a PBM Design Group on Yahoo!

I will be the very first to concede that someone who has never heard of PBM games wouldn't likely do a web search for the term PBM. But, that hardly makes them more likely to do a search for the term episodic.

Let's take a close look at a community of gamers who should know what episodic gaming is. It should run in their blood, since they play in your game and communicate in your forum -the Alamaze forum.

Currently, as I sit and write this posting, your forum's own statistics show that your forum members have have made a total of 13,286 posts in 889 threads, with 254 registered user accounts.

Now, out of those forum users in the midst of that center of episodic gaming, do you know how many of them have used the word episodic in their discussions, in the postings on view in the publicly accessible forum?

A grand, whopping total of just two.

Namely, you and I. My own use of that term in the Alamaze forum preceded your use there by a little more than two years. It's in the Fall of Rome portion of your forum.

In practical terms, none of your players are using that term. You are, but only sparingly. I used the term, initially, there, simply because I know that you like the term.

It's not that it's a bad term, per se, or that it is inaccurate. Rather, it's just a term that most people never use. I know that you would like to change that. By all means, go right ahead - convince the world of gamers to think in terms of episodic.

Tell me this, Rick, what draws attention and new players to the hobby?

For Fall of Rome, if memory serves me correctly, you did quite a bit of paid advertising. How did that turn out?

Alamaze has proven to be a far better vehicle for attracting players than Fall of Rome ever was.

I view PBM to be a better starting point to lay a foundation for growth on than I do episodic strategy games. You are free to hold a different point of view. By all means, grab the episodic strategy games ball and run with it.

I am quite comfortable discussing such subjects at length, and at entertaining comparisons of the two. It's not as though I haven't ever bothered to ponder and to consider at length the concept of episodic strategy games.

Beyond that, I enjoy such discussions. I like having them.

Personally, I don't think that this gaming hobby of ours requires or necessitates going forward with embracing one concept while shunning the other. I am quite comfortable opening yet another front in this war for gamers.

Such search terms are, when all is said and done, merely different means to a common and greater end.

Indeed, a few companies have picked up on episodic strategy games. But, for a category of web search, the search numbers are relatively small, as far as search terms go.

You, at least, communicate on the subject. Not everyone does.

If you want or need some help in trying to make progress along the episodic strategy games path, then I am willing to assist you in that undertaking. However, I will continue to plod the PBM path. I think that there's much gold to be mined there, yet.

But,t hat doesn't mean that I don't wish you well in your new quest for the gold of the Episodic El Dorado.

Not so much about gold, as about oxygen for the hobby.

I doubt many advertisers in S&D want to share active customer emails with my company, so we all need new players as despite your earnest efforts and open attitude to about any approach, we all would like to see significant new entrants into episodic strategy gaming, or PBEM which may not be happening with a focus on PBM. Yes, I understand the sentimental value, and the connection potential with the older players that we have not yet connected with. Well, I guess that's about it on this subject, until someone else brings it up. Horse & Buggy, or Automobile? Flying Machine or Jet?

Rick and I and Steve Tierney (Madhouse) and a couple others had this discussion about rebranding "play by mail" as "episodic strategy games" about ten years ago. It got no traction then, and it has no traction now. For the relatively small number of people interested in play-by-mail games, the sense of being part of a community or a gaming genre that stretches back a ways trumps completely the appeal of an awkwardly worded "modern" alternative. I think Madhouse calls its PBM games "turn based gaming", which is not quite so bad and which has some connection with the much, much larger MMO turn-based strategy game industry. If I'm a newcomer, I can understand "turn-based" games; but "episodic strategy" - what's that, "turn-based"? Also, to the wider gaming community, "episode" means something very different from a turn:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_video_game

Way I look at it, if you design a great game that everyone wants to play, you can call it "shit from shinola based gaming", and people will send you money.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='3595' dateline='1407725574']
Not so much about gold, as about oxygen for the hobby.[/quote]

No amount of colorful analogies constitute a viable substitute for effective advertising. You want "oxygen" for the hobby, then you won't get it by recirculating ads that don't work in the first place.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='3595' dateline='1407725574']I doubt many advertisers in S&D want to share active customer emails with my company, so we all need new players as despite your earnest efforts and open attitude to about any approach, we all would like to see significant new entrants into episodic strategy gaming, or PBEM which may not be happening with a focus on PBM.[/quote]

That's because these days, the old practice of sharing customer data, which actually helped promote and grow the PBM hobby and industry, is widely frowned upon these days.

[quote='Rick McDowell' pid='3595' dateline='1407725574']Yes, I understand the sentimental value, and the connection potential with the older players that we have not yet connected with. Well, I guess that's about it on this subject, until someone else brings it up. Horse & Buggy, or Automobile? Flying Machine or Jet?[/quote]

Again, more attempts at colorful word play, but your arguments are unpersuasive.

In all of the years that you've been arguing your case in that manner, your persuasiveness on the subject hasn't improved.

From my perspective, you argue in favor of a one-legged horse, one that can't walk and get anywhere, for the very simple reason that you can't find your horse a second leg to stand on.

Your own forum, one with thousands of postings by your players, is a desert, when it comes to the term episodic. Your own players don't discuss the game that you offer for play utilizing that term that you want to stake the fate of the future of the hobby on.

Since you like colorful word play a lot, here's one for you. Slapping a label on a bottle and calling it Episodic doesn't make it either more palatable in taste or a miracle cure. It is what it is - verbal snake oil.

Am I aware of other games - popular games - that are of recent vintage, and which make use of the term episodic in their advertising? I sure am. It's not as though I have done no exploring and research of my own.

You talk about nostalgia, when you're the one who is nostalgic for a return to the days of yesteryear, to a time when the hobby had a single, unifying term - namely, PBM.

The frank truth is - those days are over. The hobby doesn't have it quite so easy, anymore. The world moved on. Competition has increased exponentially. Hell, the hobby isn't competing against just other games - it's competing against entertainment at large. You're competing with Netflix, with Facebook, with all sorts of things that gobble people's time while entertaining them in countless different ways.

What you advocate for is an illusion. The term that you advocate for - the problem isn't so much an accuracy problem, as far as describing how such games work, as it is an acceptance issue. You've latched onto a word that is ugly and lacks popularity.

Your ugly duckling of a term isn't ever going to turn into a swan.

[quote='BobMcLain' pid='3597' dateline='1408630758']
Rick and I and Steve Tierney (Madhouse) and a couple others had this discussion about rebranding "play by mail" as "episodic strategy games" about ten years ago. It got no traction then, and it has no traction now. For the relatively small number of people interested in play-by-mail games, the sense of being part of a community or a gaming genre that stretches back a ways trumps completely the appeal of an awkwardly worded "modern" alternative. I think Madhouse calls its PBM games "turn based gaming", which is not quite so bad and which has some connection with the much, much larger MMO turn-based strategy game industry. If I'm a newcomer, I can understand "turn-based" games; but "episodic strategy" - what's that, "turn-based"? Also, to the wider gaming community, "episode" means something very different from a turn:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episodic_video_game

Way I look at it, if you design a great game that everyone wants to play, you can call it "shit from shinola based gaming", and people will send you money.[/quote]

Welcome back, Bob! Glad to have you join the discussion.

On that last statement, especially, you're absolutely right.

Hi Bob. Something, you must admit, attracts you to "Episodic", since the last time I heard from you was about 10 years ago, that being the last effort to unify the hobby under a banner. Your antenna seems to go up when you hear "Episodic". Hmmm. Anyway, I hope you bring your passion back to help in what way you might, and I will be looking for your game named, "Shit from Shinola". Yes, that name is likely available, and your success will prove the name of a game or hobby doesn't mean anything. Everyone will be seeking out shit from shinola, based on the strength of your design, and the shit hobby, joined by the growing Shinola faction, following it. Yes, completely meaningless stuff, the name of things.

The thread started pointing out that a search for "PBM" comes up with nothing about our hobby. The search for "Episodic Strategy Games" is all about, well, Episodic Strategy Games. Then the editor suggested, if you put "PBM Games" in the search, you do much better. So someone 25 years old, that doesn't know what "Episodic" means, and would be terrified to learn about it, will not be afraid to learn that "PBM" is, "play by mail. Something old guys did 30 years ago before there was the internet."

Where is my PBM blankie? I want my blankie! Bad man, Momma - bad man!

Once more into the breach, dear friends. This isn't about who can out wordsmith, or put up straw men, or words in another's mouth, though some find that entertaining. It is about getting beyond, "Yes, I know what PBM means!" What about the rest of the world population minus a couple thousand? Is "PBM" the harbinger of growth?

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.

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.
[size=small]Alamaze website  
[/size]

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.

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?

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.

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.

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!

[quote='BobMcLain' pid='6037' dateline='1420644854']

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?
[/quote]

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

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

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. 

Hi Bob and Greybeard. Its not Sam, but Dean. I remember Edi well. When Rahn Games stopped running Legends in the UK, I helped Edi move it over to Harlequin Games for it to keep running smoothly and here I am now helping them run and develop it even more.

Now is a good time to make a jump in if you want. After playing Legends for many years I have now been instrumental in designing the new Legends module and have put in lots of material that I always wanted to find and explore as a player! I have really used the POWER of this system in ANGER in this design :-)

Check out the New Games Launching section on the forum!

Harlequin