It's been a strange week. I find myself in a much different place from where I thought that I was gonna be, this time a week ago. But the chaotic nature of life in the PBM lane means that you really must be flexible and prepared to rebound from whatever you encounter along the way.
Which means that I have spent some time, very recently, pondering such things as what constitutes a judicious use of my PBM time, and how does the PBM gaming scene remind me of star formation and black holes?
While it may sometimes seem as if I have an infinite and unlimited amount of time to devote to things PBM-related, the truth of the matter is that I don't. And even though this is the beginning of a new PBM year, I really don't have time to waste on a whole lot of PBM-related stuff that I find adds no real value of consequence to my life. Accordingly, the sifting of PBM wheat from PBM chaff is a necessary part of my overall PBM process. To each, their own - and I embrace that philosophy for myself, also!
Last night (Sunday night, 01/14/2023), I somehow ended up on various websites browsing articles about black holes. PBM Chaos is, of course, more of a general PBM type of digital publication. Sure, I have my own personal favorite PBM game (Hyborian War), but PBM Chaos tries to cover and to advertise a lot more in and across PBM gaming than just that one game.
The more popular PBM games kind of remind me of black holes, in that they tend to suck in all (aka the majority) of active PBM gamers, and they can be voracious in their appetite, in that regard. But this is a normal part of the natural order of PBM gaming. It's a feature, not a flaw.
These black holes of PBM gaming aren't really the problem, even though they may, at first, sometimes appear as if they are a big part of what's wrong with play by mail gaming. It's not that PBM has too many black holes in it, but rather, the actual reality is that PBM has too little star formation (new game creation) currently taking place within it. In other words, PBM gaming needs to put more games in the gaming. Options matter. That people gravitate towards PBM games that they like, that's PBM's equivalent of gravity, if you ask me. It truly is an integral part of the natural order of PBM gaming and the PBM scene.
If I went by the historical record, as far as which PBM company or GM that I feel would be the most likely to create a new PBM game, then on that basis alone, my gut instinct tells me that KJC Games would be the one most likely to bring a new PBM game to the market, out of all of the possible PBM candidates.
But the historical record seems to have diminished substantially, in recent years, in some regards. When was the last time that KJC Games brought a new PBM game to market?
Of course, in fairness to KJC Games, I could just as easily ask, when was the last time that any PBM company brought a new PBM game to market? KJC games is still in business, and it still has a number of active, paying PBM customers, at present. But in the old days, KJC Games was arguably the best example of a PBM company willing and able to advertise. Plus, they also had what may well have been the best PBM ads in the entire history of PBM gaming. I love some of their PBM ads, even to this very day.
But that was then. What about now?
Now, it's a lot more difficult call to pick who I think would be most likely to bring a new PBM game to market. Maybe none of them, if I'm being totally honest with myself. Maybe PBM's time has passed, entirely. But never say never, as the old saying goes. Have faith. Have hope. Seek out possibilities, rather than anchor one's self to impossibilities.
Being an American, I would love to say that I feel that PBM's best chance to bring a new PBM game to the market lies with an American PBM company, but my gut instinct is telling me that's crazy to even think like that. Nope, I am far more inclined to believe that a genuine new PBM game, if it is to originate anywhere at all with an existing PBM company, then the Olde World is where it's most likely to breathe the first breath of life. And for me, that means the UK. RSI is busy doing Duel2 face-to-face tournaments.
Rolling Thunder Games saw Russ Norris retire. It's not so much a question of experience or capacity, but rather, it's more a question of sheer will (and willingness). What other American PBM companies are likely to be prime candidates for launching new PBM games anytime soon? Currently, it's looking more and more like Elon Musk will land a man (or a woman) on Mars, before the Americans will ever lead the PBM race, again, as far as the launching of new PBM games goes.
Star formation - where will any new PBM games, if there are to be any, ever again, come from? They will come from either PBM companies or PBM GMs. In the present PBM universe in which we all live, I would give the nod (and the advantage) to some sole GM, one that is not a part of any PBM company. Creating a new PBM game requires an investment of time, energy, and resources. Or said another way, it's an inherently risky proposition - and established for-profit companies do not like to incur risk (not unnecessary risk, anyway).
Neither do individuals unassociated with any company, but if I had to bet on one or the other, I definitely think that betting on an unattached individual would be the wiser bet of the two.
Over and over and over, I run such things through my mind. Ironically, the high cost of just about everything, these days, what with the inflation-that-is-not beast driving prices ever-higher (or so the perception goes), creates a riskier environment for some. Me? I see this very same environment as an opportunity waiting to be exploited.
"But you're just saying that, Charles."
And why am I just saying that? Because I have a PBM publication to sell? Oops! That's right. PBM Chaos is free. There are no issues of it to sell. But what was it that I said, back on March 28th, 2011? "My role in the grand scheme of things is not to keep the play by mail industry from going over the edge."
If PBM gaming self-destructs, so be it. Whether slowly or quickly, if PBM's ultimate fate is to die and be forgotten, so be it. I can report on it dying at least as well and at least as easily as I can report on it surging back to life, or just biding its time until something better comes along. Writing is writing, after all, and writing will endure, whether PBM gaming endures or not.
So, why is an inflation-wracked economic environment an opportunity for new PBM growth?
Well, for one thing, if everything else seems higher, cost-wise, then PBM gaming doesn't stand out as being unique, as far as what it costs to play. Does that make sense to you?
When I ponder original form play by mail gaming, the kind where envelopes and postage costs are part of the equation, the key to keeping postage costs at a manageable level is to maintain a disciplined approach to turn results output. Or said another way, what can I get, or what can I do, for the price of a single postage stamp?
Back when I was writing actual, physical letters at different points over the last couple of years or so, generally speaking, I could mail four pages (which equals up to eight pages of text or output, if both sides of the paper is utilized) with a single postage stamp.
Now, lots of turn results for existing PBM games yield far more pages of turn results than that. But what we're discussing, here, is the creation of new PBM games. Yes, yes, there's still other costs to take into account (supplies, labor, and various other "stuff" that businesses have to contend with). But at least the PBM industry no longer has to worry about advertising costs, huh? If you don't advertise, then there's no advertising costs to contend with. And when an industry ceases (or largely ceases) advertising for an extended duration of time, then you can bet your bottom dollar that said industry is already behind. How is the PBM industry going to dig itself out of the holes that the PBM industry dug for itself? It sure as hell wasn't the Internet making the decisions for the PBM industry. Individuals within the PBM industry made those decisions - for better or for worse.
In case you didn't catch it, that's an attempt at humor, in light of the PBM industry's current model of abandoning advertising. Oh, sure, maybe there's some sparse, scattered PBM advertising that still takes place, occasionally, in the PBM universe. But whatever vestiges of PBM advertising that still remain, it's nothing even remotely approaching what it was in the old days. But then again, that was back when the PBM industry was gung ho, and not nearly as complacent as it has "evolved" to be.
Evolved, of course, means "by choice." The Internet doesn't tend to reward silence. It tends to amplify noise. The Sound of Silence makes for a really nice song, but silence doesn't tend to make for an effective advertising or marketing tool.
After all, you either choose to advertise or you choose to not advertise. Advertising, the same as always, is but a part of the overall price of doing business. And commercial, for-profit PBM companies are engaged in business, right?
But to bring new PBM games to the market requires an investment of time and energy and resources. It requires research. It requires different processes. PBM gaming is like NASA, you know. It forgot how to get to the moon. If forgot how to take gamers to the PBM moon.
Of course, if I'm wrong about this, then I invite any and all PBM companies across the entire PBM industry to prove me wrong. If it's true that you can't make money in PBM gaming, anymore, then why are there still a number of PBM companies in operation?
You see, in the old days, an entire industry - the PBM industry - sprung up around the underlying premise that people liked to play games. PBM games, after all, are turn-based games. They've never been an entirely new species of entertainment. Rather, their initial medium of delivery was what "felt" and "seemed" new. Just look how many years/decades that it took for the postal medium to begin to be exploited as an opportunity for commercial game entertainment. It's not like the postal service was created, originally, for the purpose of being a medium by which games could be played. Where there was a will, though, there was a way.
In the old days, back during the golden heyday of PBM gaming at its height, PBM customers were treated to entertainment delivered, if not to their doorstep, then right to their mailbox. Just curious, but what do Amazon and many companies throughout the world do, today? They deliver all kinds of things to people's doorsteps, or in many cases, to their mailbox (either directly or through proxies). These days, it's cutting edge business to embrace such an approach.
But wait! I thought that the whole "mailbox thing" was obsolete? What's going on, here? Uh, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but convenience never went obsolete. And prices going up? That's actually not a new or recent thing.
And it is in this current environment of mailboxes being utilized to grow all kinds of businesses, PBM gaming (which beat them all to the punch by making bucks by harnessing the power and opportunities of mailboxes) can't make bucks, anymore, by harnessing the very thing that they mastered and excelled at decades ago? Does that note strike anybody else as odd?
Rick Loomis figured out early on that a mailbox isn't just a mailbox. It's a portal. Loomis used mailboxes as a gaming portal. If memory serves me right, it took his future competitors a few years to figure out what he had already learned and knew. These days, mailboxes are portals for all kinds of different stuff. Even young kids, these days, have strong awareness that mailboxes aren't just and only for mail. They are portals of convenience. They are like smartphones and other forms of computers, in that regard - but mailboxes are portals of convenience for physical items. While people may spend lots of time in the virtual medium, these days, it isn't as though the physical medium has become obsolete or gone extinct.
And technology? Oh, technology is always changing. Technology can also be a strange horse to hitch your wagon to. It's been changing since the dawn of time. How do you deal with that? By adapting, of course. By improvising Not by ceasing to conduct research. Not by ceasing to develop new products. Not by pricing yourself out of the market. But of course, it can be helpful to actually know and understand what your market actually is. From what I can tell, the PBM industry doesn't really understand its products, much less it's market, anymore. At one time, it did. What happened?
The Internet happened? Talk about beating the same old dead horse.
Embracing technology in half-assed ways is not progress. It's not advancing. Eliminating advertising isn't a sure-footed path to securing the future. When in doubt, go back to the basics.
The Internet didn't kill PBM. That's just scapegoating to cover up an industry's own self-inflicted failures and shortcomings. The Internet isn't even capable of killing PBM. The Internet isn't some PBM terminator. What other form of gaming did the Internet supposedly kill, also? Or was it only PBM gaming that was negatively impacted by the Internet's arrival? The Internet has never been a technological bogeyman. It's a tool. It is a multi-faceted tool. It is also what's known as a force-multiplier - unless you're utterly clueless about what all that it's capable of.
But then again, what do I know?
Well, I know how to create new digital PBM publications out of thin air. Does your PBM company know how to create new PBM games out of thin air? I know how to shift expectations on PBM publication frequency, compared to what PBM readers had previously grown accustomed to. I know how to adopt a new model of advertising, one that reduces costs across the board. In some instances, I even seem to be able to learn that some PBM companies are ignoring people who want to become paying PBM customers. I know how to routinely generate PBM-related content. Heck, I even know how to create new PBM ads at zero cost. And since I share knowledge of these things with the PBM public at large, it's not as though PBM companies can't do at least some of the same things.
But like I said, what do I know?
I know that it can sometimes be hard to grow your numbers. I know that sometimes - many times - budgetary considerations are very real things. I know that not all advertising works (but some does). I know very much what it's like to do things while being short staffed. I grasp what it means to be "cost conscious." I also know that many PBM companies spend less time trying to get the word out about their PBM games than myself and others spend trying to get the word out about those very same PBM games.
I also know that the entertainment business, today, is hyper-competitive. Furthermore, I also know and realize that the gaming sector of the entertainment business, overall, is a very profitable sector. Additionally, I know that people still use the postal service in today's day and age. Also, I know that print is not dead. An awful lot of people still actually read, in this day and age, here in the 21st Century.
When the Internet first appeared, what happened to all of those dollar signs that were in PBM companies' eyes? RSI, good old RSI, still does face-to-face tournaments with an old PBM game. This is a regular thing - and has been for a very long time. How many other PBM companies do something similar like clockwork, like they do, where face-to-face gaming (which is an in-person gaming model) with PBM games is concerned? I'm not talking about just getting together, every once in a while, and talking about gaming, but rather, getting together on a regular schedule more than once a year, and actually facilitating and enabling face-to-face gaming between PBM gamers? Does RSI possess some secret knowledge that other PBM companies in the PBM industry don't have access to? What was the last appearance of a PBM company at a gaming convention? There used to be PBM conventions, but no more. Is this what the PBM industry calls "progress?
There's at least one other thing that I know, and that's that the PBM industry paved its streets with excuses. You can't grab the bull by the horns by not grabbing the bull by the horns.
