Thoughts about r.g.p on its 20th anniversary (long)

David Marston

unread,

Nov 20, 2010, 12:06:40 AM11/20/10

to

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the rec.games.pinball newsgroup.
It is not only a vital resource for the world of pinball, but also a
great example of how a Usenet newsgroup can remain successful over
the long haul. It's especially poignant to mark 20 years of success
in the same week that we note the cessation of two significant
institutions in the pinball world (GameRoom and PinWizCon) that had
similar duration. I've seen the whole history of r.g.p, and I'd like
to revisit the formation proposal as the scorecard for its success.

The Call For Discussion dated 16 September 1990 suggested seven topic
areas that the proposed rec.games.pinball newsgroup would be likely
to cover. For each, I offer my opinion on how well that area is now
being covered. Then I'll go on to suggest two other areas that we,
the pinball community, discuss here often and that should be thought
of as extensions of the original plan.

1. Descriptions of new (and favorite) machines
This has been quite successful over time, even to the point of
reporting on prototype games in test locations that manufacturers
might prefer to keep secret. Sometimes rulesheets have been built
up by cooperative effort here, though there is less of that now.
Still, more than half of the new games get a detailed playing
guide published here. And for older machines, you can ask about
any minute detail of the rules and you'll probably get an answer.

2. Playing tips, both general and machine-specific
In this area, r.g.p shares the success with video resources like
YouTube and the how-to-play DVDs. Again, the sentiment here is
that no question is too detailed to ask.

3. Best places to play when traveling
I think this is the most interesting topic in this retrospective,
because the pinball community realizes that r.g.p is actually
carrying too much of the burden. About 10-14 years ago, r.g.p was the
place to discuss regional-listing websites that could be federated to
provide a Web-based worldwide list. We are now in the early-to-middle
stages of analyzing how to federate locators built on databases, and
using r.g.p as the forum to air the problems and opportunities. (More
about that under "Double Bonus" below.) At this time, it's still a
good bet that if you ask here about pinball places in a target city,
you'll get knowledgeable and timely answers.

4. Information for collectors
This somewhat amorphous topic has been addressed astoundingly well
by r.g.p, both directly and in support of our magnificent
community-built resource, the Internet Pinball Database. In
addition to gathering, validating, and storing the facts at IPDB,
we also use r.g.p to provide restoration tips and techniques,
identify appropriate (or inappropriate) products and services,
and exchange the full gamut of game-specific information.

5. Dissemination of information from manufacturers
Of the seven original goals, I think nearly everyone would say this
is the one that has not been fulfilled...yet. Oh, we often get
information from individual employees, or press releases secondhand,
but none of the manufacturers ever really embraced r.g.p for direct
outreach. I suspect the main reason in the past was that they didn't
think there were many operators here. Or in a related line of
thinking, they should be communicating to ops, locations, and
players by letting the distributors handle it. It is only very
recently that the only "real" manufacturer started a purposeful
effort to get a message to end users of the games, and so far, they
are still reluctant to engage the pinball community here.

6. Offering of machines for sale and trade
This is another area of great success for r.g.p, and the wanted
postings are robust as well. Intriguingly, r.g.p also serves as
the forum for justice that eBay and Craigslist refuse to provide
of their own volition. Of course, the for-sale activity includes
parts, paper, partial/project games, and new plug-compatible
replacement boards developed just for us.

7. Tournaments, trade shows, and other news
In this area, r.g.p has adapted to the advent and subsequent
ease-of-entry of the World Wide Web. As far as I can tell, all the
North American tournaments and collector shows get announced here,
though very few have the preferred "ANNOUNCE:" prefix in the Subject
field. However, when you want to check the info on some event, you
are better served by fetching information from one of the websites
that has calendar listings, or from the Web page of the event
promoter. But r.g.p has been very important in helping event
promoters organize their events, float ideas for comment, solicit
volunteers, get advice, and otherwise ensure that the community
supports their efforts. The only note of shortfall that occurs to me
is that r.g.p has not been very lively (lately, anyway) on tournament
administration, scoring systems, and the like. Overall, I think the
fullness of the pinball calendar now is due in part to discussions
on r.g.p that act as feasibility studies for proposed events.

BONUS: Exchanging ideas for marketing pinball
The first topic area that I want to suggest would have been in
the r.g.p charter if we had known then what we know now is about
grassroots efforts to promote pinball. We use r.g.p to discuss
eveything from showing machines to your kids' friends to get the
next generation interested all the way to trying to tell Stern
Pinball how to spend the million-dollar marketing budget they
don't have. This includes discussions of marketing for museums
and world-class arcades, which are now growing to supplement the
collector shows that fill particular weekends. We share pointers
to mentions of pinball in print, radio, TV, songs, and movies.
In this forum, we occasionally even organize in the political
sense to rally support for a good playing location that is under
siege from its local government.

DOUBLE BONUS: Supporting cooperative efforts
The second topic area in the "if only we knew then what we know now"
category is a summary of several points I've made above. The
community has come to realize that r.g.p is the best place to gauge
reaction to ideas; a place where momentum can accrue to the ideas
whose time has come; and yes, a den of skeptics who prevent wasted
efforts. This newsgroup is worldwide and runs continuously, and it's
archived. One symbol of that shared sense that we can accomplish
great things is the way we (many of us, anyway) talk about Stern as
a company that we should nurture, not as a big commercial enterprise
having way more resources than the community here. The pinball
players and fans have built many great things, and most of those
projects have used r.g.p to one degree or another for outreach to
start or sustain the effort. We use r.g.p to spread the word about
places, hardware, services, events, publications and videos, and
online sites that we like and that we hope will thrive. When we do
that, we employ r.g.p as a NEWSgroup, fulfilling the original vision
of Usenet, and we ensure that r.g.p itself will thrive over many more
years to come.
--
................David Marston at MV