Re: PBM costs

Kythyn (kythyn@aol.com)
28 Aug 1995 01:53:19 -0400

Actually, I meant that $10 turns ARE acceptable. For a time, it semed
that many PBM companies felt that there was a $5 ceiling on price per turn
and most of them just couldn't make the economics work out. Volume
increases actually hurt them, due to increased labor costs. And so many
quality games folded after some intial success. The most obvious victims
were the hand moderated RPGs.

There has since developed a market for more expensive games that offer
significant value. Ask a serious SuperNova II or Legends player what a
$100 turn looks like.

But I agree that a properly run site such as Gamer's Den or Shadow Island
Games is the future, where volume increases generally do not increase
costs, and should be able to offer high complexity at reasonable costs. I
too, will play Odyssey (as many games as they can fill), but I'll still
keep playing Adventurer's Guild at $9.75 every two weeks, as well.