Retro Darwinism At T Minus 33 RPM
Retro Darwinism At T Minus 33 RPM
As for all this Monday morning quarterbacking, rave on.
Always good to educate the possibilities, the delta streams of choice and consequence.
Continuous finger pointing and flag waving around 'what if' scenarios might cut a circular rut,
at that point, play it backwards and maybe we can channel a psychic hot line to John Lennon or Charles Manson.
Oh, if Manson ain't dead yet, that may be a direct psychotic feed. Please disregard.
Once upon a time in the analogue age,
when the vinyl LP spun at musical 33,
t'was a paper carpeted land with a superimposed hexagonal grid,
on which cardboard legions cross referenced their tables of fate to the roll of 6 sided dice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategy_&_Tactics
Wikipedia said:
...
When TSR took over SPI, it made a colossal blunder: it refused to honour commitments to these dedicated S&T subscribers. SPI unfortunately had no assets to its name when the takeover occurred, and over 1,000 subscribers had been accorded "life-time" status, meaning that they were entitled to all future issues without any further payment. TSR saved money in the short term, but alienated its best customers.
Greg Costikyan claims that this was the turning point in the wargaming industry; few S&T subscribers renewed, even though the magazine continued to be published (TSR published issues 91 through 111); many also refused to buy any TSR titles due to bitterness over the handling of their subscriptions.
SPI's design staff moved on to Avalon Hill, where they set up a sub-company based in New York called Victory Games. It produced many unique and popular titles, which by the late 1980's were outselling even Avalon Hill games. TSR continued making games, hoping to recoup its investment in SPI (another reason was the enthusiasm of some staff members for wargaming), but despite a healthier distribution chain than SPI had enjoyed, its wargame line was never successful. S&T Magazine was eventually sold to 3W, a small company which published The Wargamer magazine, a direct competitor. By this time, other companies were also stepping up production, and a splintered market ensured that the days of selling 50,000 copies or more of a title were gone. Publishers became happy to sell 10,000 copies, with 20,000 being considered phenomenal.
...
Board games were most often turned based, yet some of the small unit tactical simulations experimented with "phases".
Yah, in the 1970's, real time with pause, kids.
Hex grid made it's commercial debut in the 1960's, nothing new there , so move on.
Difficulty in arranging to meet with human opponent made the concept of AI a wistful 'gleam in the eye', and long spells of solitaire side swapping.
Fog of war efforts were silently begging for an umpire or game master.
The more complex games were a plea for digital representation.
I am suggesting that while p-n-p was d-n-d-ing,
a parallel enhanced growth of the board game demographic would have broadened the demand for strategic and tactical gaming,
even before the 8-bit processors had their day.
A broader base of educated gamers in the hundreds of .... well lets speculate, the hundreds of thousands would have been ready, willing, and able ...
to abandon the paper hexagonal grids and card board pieces for what ever 4 or 8 color glory that would have been awaiting them, if,
if,
SPI had survived to nurture this lost and forgotten market with even grander issues of STRATEGY AND TACTICS MAGAZINE!
No guarantee that the history buffs would have been any less addicted to tales of mighty thews grappling with lusty elven love goddesses,
still, many would have been ready at the drop of a Kepi to argue with extreme righteousness the number of grains of powder in the various paper cartridges at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Think of the shear gravitational mass of outrageous opinion that those valiant veterans of contrary discourse could have mustered, if ...
if they had not been demobilized after the fall of SPI.
D and D might have meant Dahlgrens and Dragoons!
Round and around we go,
some times, paraphrasing Douglas Adams, some times ... I think it was a mistake to come down from the trees.
But, that's an extreme retro Darwinism, I will just have to live without.
So all you Monday morning quarterbacks, you arm chair generals,
load up your turn tables, and,
rave on.
Rave On said:
Little things you say and do
Make me want to be with you
Rave on, this crazy feelin'
And I know it's got me reelin' ...
4too
