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Posts: 667
03/20/08 10:32 AM
Last night in the chat I learned (or understood for the first time): 1. Online versions of DMB have been an important financial factor for the company for a long time, though the DMB name was not used.
2. The only resources available to devote to PC game programming are (1) Tom's available time and (2) Luke's time insofar as he's trained, the only trainer being Tom, which then takes away from (1). Dayne has been saying this all along, but I couldn't resolve how this conflicts with the original "Tom will be freed now to spend all his time on the PC game."
3. If we own the season disks, we will be able to play them on DMB live for free (open question: if we own the PC game, will DMB Live also be available to use for free -- or a nominal charge-- for season disk owners?). This has been a MAJOR concern of mine about the online game.
4. Dayne's vision for the integration of the DMB community. Rather than elaborate, I'll let those interested peruse the chat transcript. I think, however, that this is what had been missing for me. It gives me a coherent grid through which to understand the actions of the company. Letting the DMB website become dilapidated, while it feels like another example of giving the PCers short shrift, is part of a realistic business decision.
5. An alliance with Baseball Prospectus has been concluded. This holds out the promise of a huge new resource for both game and player modeling, and perhaps begins to address for the future the problem of point 2 above. Instead of waiting for Tom to have time, DMB hopefully will able to take advantage of cutting edge work that has already been done.
There is more, but that will do for now. We have sensed all along that Dayne's purpose is to gather the PCers into one big tent with the online community. Some of us have been concerned that this means DMB PC will ultimately wither on the vine, its purpose having been served in allowing the creation of a more profitable online community. It's clear that there is nothing significant coming down the pike soon with regard to the PC game, and it's possible that it may be quite a while if Tom can't find the needed time. However, if PCers aren't hog-tied into coughing up an endless stream of dollars in order to use DMB Live for our own personal season replays, this could become somewhat irrelevant. Instead of clamoring for version 10 of DMB PC, we might end up clamoring for updates for DMB Live.
When all is said, all will revolve around what is actually done, but at least I now feel I have a handle on Dayne's intent. The beta of DMB Live has the hope of being an avenue to my future as a DMBer instead of a road to doom.
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