Filling dropped positions

[Gavin Wynford-Jones]

> At present my list stands at 5 players, but I do not have Gavin's name on
> that list.

I trrust this has now been corrected? <g> As you know, I am always willing
to consider a dropped position; my victory came from a dropped position, by
the way. Unless the position is absolutely dire (enemy characters in every
pop centre, one turn away from a 110% tax rate etc) then it's usually no
worse than a minor starting position. I have no problems with neutrals.

Of course, this reopens the whole debate about dropouts in PBM games...
Chris Harvey had the right idea when he charged a deposit in his games.

Gavin

[Harlequin Games]

Um a deposit - could be interesting but I doubt that the players would go
for that - (so players please inform me what you want!)

Clint
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-----Original Message-----
From: Gavin Wynford-Jones <GavinWJ@...>
To: INTERNET:mepbmlist (AT) onelist (DOT) com <mepbmlist (AT) onelist (DOT) com>
Date: 04 September 1999 21:44
Subject: [mepbmlist] Filling dropped positions

>From: Gavin Wynford-Jones <GavinWJ@...>
>
>> At present my list stands at 5 players, but I do not have Gavin's name on
>> that list.
>
>I trrust this has now been corrected? <g> As you know, I am always willing
>to consider a dropped position; my victory came from a dropped position, by
>the way. Unless the position is absolutely dire (enemy characters in every
>pop centre, one turn away from a 110% tax rate etc) then it's usually no
>worse than a minor starting position. I have no problems with neutrals.
>
>Of course, this reopens the whole debate about dropouts in PBM games...
>Chris Harvey had the right idea when he charged a deposit in his games.
>
>Gavin
>
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[Gavin Wynford-Jones]

> Um a deposit - could be interesting but I doubt that the players would go
> for that

I feel a Flagship article coming on... I was going to write one after the
Con in London but decided against it. Provisional title? "Marketing: An
Alien Concept in PBM". <g>

Gavin

[ColinForbes]

Gavin wrote ...

> I feel a Flagship article coming on... I was going to write one after the
> Con in London but decided against it. Provisional title? "Marketing: An
> Alien Concept in PBM". <g>

I'm sure Carol would be delighted to print such an article, it'll
certainly provoke a debate. Marketing is of course certainly not unknown
in PBM, just look at how Madhouse and KJC operate!


The question would be of course, would players pay a deposit. This has
been tried several times and it just didn't work, people just played
other games.

Which opens a bigger can of worms, namely why (to generalise somewhat)
are PBM players unwilling to pay what a game is actually worth? I'm
talking in terms of development work as well as time taken to run a game
and and material costs. Very few PBM's make anything like a reasonable
profit (many actually make a loss). Even some "big" PBm Companies don't
operate at the profits people think they do!

Colin.