Forum-Style Play

[wyrdlyng]

I've played in numerous Forum games and PBEM games (they share a lot in common) and I just want to say that a clever indie game developer could use this style of gaming to their advantage.

There's always instance of people wanting to play an rpg but being unable to commit the time to a regularly scheduled face-to-face game. So why not help these people out a bit?

I'd recommend putting the following items on your website: links to free Forums services (like Yahoo groups, for example), some advice on getting a Forum game started, and a Bulletin Board style listing of active games based off of your system (games seeking players, new games starting up, etc.). All of these things would make your site a good jumping point for Forum games related to your game and would also help direct new people who stumble across Forum gaming to your site and thus to your game. All you've invested is the time to add this to your web site and the lesser time to update it when something new comes up.

[xiombarg]

I think you'd have to fight the perception that it's amateurish.

Well, in my opinion, the ideal business model to start something like this would be to piggyback on a particular author's success for it. If one could get a famous RPG author or novellist to produce the initial content for a site like this, it would be an initial draw.

This would establish a proof-of-concept that would allow more "amateurish" versions to thrive... However, your model sounds interesting.