Re: [WW] RE: Pyramid subscription was Re: Rudolf Hess (was Re: [WW] Magic in theTrenches)

["Steven D. Nelson" <sdnelson@advancenet.net>]

On Wed, 13 Jun 2001, Allan Seyberth wrote:

>  >If you break down the cost of a Pyramid subscription
>  >it comes out to pennies per article. Not too bad
>  >considering they've got some pretty big names writing
>  >for them.
> 
> Crichton? King? Clancy? Updike? Vonnegut?

C'mon Allan... King is not a big name, it's only four letters long!  He's
talking about Liebonowitz, Schwarzenheimmer, Van Landingham, and
Christopherson.

You're just jealous because with a name like Seyberth you can only hope to  
publish on Games Unplugged like those other medium length named people...

As for the whole matter of whether an online subscription is worth
anything vs printed matter, that's rather up to the individual.

Personally I like printed matter.  It's solid, it's tangible, I can take
it with me wherever I go and read it.  I can store it on a shelf, in fact
I have lots of printed matter that I store on shelves, and my wife
constantly threatens to burn because it's cluttering up space.  You tell
me, how can 10 years of various Dragon, Dungeon, White Dwarf, Pyramid,
Inphobia, Duelist, Scrye, Inquest, Inquest Gamer, Orcs in the Hills,
Action Pursuit Games, Paintball Sports International, Paintball,
Paintcheck, Paintball Consumer Reports, Paintball News, Guns of the Old
West, True West, Wild West, Civil War, PC Games, Computer Gaming World,
Rolling Stone, Spin, and Computer Shopper magazines be considered anything
other than extremely valuable reference material.  How dare she call that
clutter!?!?!?

Which brings us to the good aspects of electronic media.  The clutter of a
lot of it only affects virtual space.  If the data is online you can
access it from anywhere you have internet access.  You can get the newest
edition instantaneously, instead of waiting for your postal service to
deliver the subscription (my brother in law has no end of problems with
their local postal service, when he complained to the larger office they
directed his complaint back to the local branch which seems to have made
his service even worse... even had his electricity cut off once because he
didn't get an electical bill OR the cutoff notice for 2 months...)

So, instead of blindly condemning electrical media, or rabidly supporting
it, I will say that it's not for everyone.  Is $15 a year a fair price for
a virtual subscription?  Sure, if you like that kind of thing.

For Pyramid it was probably a decision of printed matter not being
profitable enough for them to continue the magazine.  If you're favorite
gaming magazine was either going to go under completely or switch to
electronic media, which would you prefer?  Personally I've seen a lot of
good stuff in the gaming world disappear completely, and a lot of it I'd
be willing to purchase as electronic media, just so I could have access to
it.

As far as Pinnacle releasing electronic only media for some game
supplements (Epitaph #3, and the Area 51 Scenarios for GRW) I'm fine with
that as well, so long as I can take the purchased electronic media and
print a solid paper copy at my own expense to leaf through in the comfort
of my bed, where I do most of my game related reading.

Just my 2 deutchmarks,

Steve Nelson