An Open Letter to Hal Richman

This will most likely be deleted, so better read it quick! Hopefully I'm not banned for this

Dear Mr. Richman,

First off, I want to congratulate you on keeping SOM alive. Not many game companies can boast being around for as many years as Strat-O-Matic has been. It is a great accomplishment, once to take every ounce of pride in. It's a game that continues to find people who love to play it.

Pride, that is the thing that now stands in your way. This is 2014. The biggest companies are all in Technology now. Where simple sites that allow sharing with friends (i.e Facebook) can generate billions. Where video games have risen to a for real money championships (the League of Legends championship team split 10 million!), and most gaming companies live off 1000's, if not 10's of thousands of people. Here we have what 100, 200 tops? How few of those create a community and visit the boards? how few of those actually log in more than once a day?

Look, I like this game, a lot. But you let TSN run it for so long, do you even realize how many more people used to play this game? There was a time, at it's height, where the boards had new material to read every time I checked in, every hour. Now I could be absent for days and be caught up in 5 minutes. Theme leagues would fill in hours, now weeks and things still are not filled. Have you ever wondered why it has come to this? Did you come up with any answers?

For all of the wonderful additional the online game has made, and it has, where are the people? Where is the community that used to be here? Why is it so depressing at this site, where guys I have been playing with for years, who have money to waste, are not even logging in anymore"? Where has the fun gone?

I'm asking this, because I don't have any answers. I just wish I could go back a 5 years, back when the site was not as good, but the game was more fun. But the site as it is now, with the draconian forum policies, and ghost town vibe, is killing this game for me, and for many others.

Please, find a way to market this game, and bring the "fun" back!

--geekor

Please, look at this as a real problem

Gotta say this game is still lots of fun for me. I check in multiple times per day. This game has gotten so much better since the switch to SOM from TSN. So many improvements have been made to make this game more enjoyable for all of us.

I tend to agree. I think the online game has improved. There are a number of "little" (from the non-programmer layperson POV) improvements that would make the gaming experience better.

But the area I usually miss the most is the "community" aspect of the game. The leagues themselves have the ability to message all, but discussions there even on a one to one basis seem to be pretty rare. And these forums are now focused just on Strat. OK, I get it. It is the product, it is what brings us together as a common link.

But eliminating the off-topic forum and not having more general sports forums either, has sucked almost all the "community" out of the Strat experience. In the "old days," it was common to check my team(s), head over to the message board. Was there any new posts about "best value" players? Questions about strategies? Complaints about the computer manager? Fan analysis and ratings of cards? I would read and contribute where I could. Then I'd check out a sports forum or two. Who's going to win tonight's Spurs-Heat game? How about the series? What do people think about Michael Sam? Johnny Manziel? Donald Sterling? Then, off to the off-topic forum...and a discussion about the prisoner swap, the Affordable Care Act, the invasion of the Ukraine, or the fav blockbuster film of the summer. But I spent time on the site, which tended to make me spend more on the online product, which led to me spending more time on the site, wash, rinse, repeat. Granted, some of the discussions were rough and tumble, offensive, and even occasionally nasty. On the other hand, there were also "real-world" friendships and connections made through this site as well.

I realize Strat isn't TSN. Heck, TSN isn't even TSN by what I used to treasure of its offerings. But I think the approach is far more transactional and not enough community-building, and Facebook and Twitter are not what they are because of being transactional websites.

I spend time in the Forum Archives looking for material for the Strategy Forum/Newbie Advice Thread. Gone are the days of multi-page "Help My Team" and strategy talk threads. Just this morning I came across a thread from 2011 in which Jeepdriver asks the same question that you are (the decline in message board participation is not recent). A lot of the talk is about pricing and the economy but kylerose256 mentions making the message boards more accessible. I think a banner on the Front Office page pointing managers to the forums would be a good start.

Well said geekor.

You need to email it to them.

I'm also generally happy with both the current SOM online and its services. As someone who has been playing it since the beginning, when there was only 20xx, I never envisioned that there would be 4 Mystery games leagues to play, as well as all the ATG games and live drafts.

I do, however, see room for improvements and places where SOM can be able to improve them. I particularly agree with the suggestion for an off-topic sports forums where we could discuss the NBA, the NFL or other non-baseball sports events and issues. I'm not necessarily against a non-sports forum, but, considering how nasty some SOM and baseball posts can get, I really wouldn't want to see how nasty debates on political, social, and/or religious topics could be.

But, while I do think SOM could and should do things to improve matters--and my following suggestion in no way suggests otherwise--I do think we community members (including myself) could also do more to improve our community. Here are two ways I think we could do so:

1. Participate in and contribute to more forum threads: A lot of forum participants will only contribute to forum threads directly affecting them personally--such as individual league chats--or will only respond to forum threads or posts by their friends or posters they know. If many (if not most) of the posters keep doing this, new posters will have no opportunity to "join" the community, since nobody will respond to posts applicable to them or even respond to their posts.

2. Treat "newbies" and those you don't know--and their posts--with the same respect and/or consideration you would show one of your forum and/or league friends: I've seen posters either treat people with disrespect or discourtesy they wouldn't show their forum/league friends, or attack or team up against them simply because they were debating against their forum/league friends. If this happens to a new member of the forum, we can pretty much expect him or her to never return.

For example, in my very first post on the forum--I avoided the forum for many years--I simply left a small paragraph voicing my agreement with LMBombers' defense of the autodraft. A veteran poster--whom I will not name--responded by swearing at me and calling me (through direct implication) a "communist"...real "welcome to the community" stuff. If some (if not many) community members continue to treat new and/or unknown members in such a way, then we have no chance of enlarging our community...or even keeping the one we have.

So, in short, if members of the SOM community want to improve and enlarge our community--along with SOM doing its part--we need to actually get more communal and more welcoming.

I agree. We should encourage posting, ESPECIALLY by new members.

One thing I'd like to point out, there are a LOT of players that dont' even know these boards exist, or if they do, never check them. Strat could so a better job of advertising not only their product as a whole, but the forums

Well said geekor.

You need to email it to them.

I agree, geekor. Please email it to them. And thanks for the great comments from everyone else on this thread.

The game is fantastic. The technological/social media connections need to move into the new era, and we miss the greater sense of community and participation.

Well said!

Please email your comments to strat, geekor!

Wait a minute.......I thought the forums were dead and no one went there any longer. How did this thread get so many responses in just a few hours then?

Wait a minute.......I thought the forums were dead and no one went there any longer. How did this thread get so many responses in just a few hours then?

Average number of posts by those responding = 1001. The forums are tribal.