If haven’t seen the latest update on the APBA Company website written by CEO John Herson, I encourage you to read it. It has a lot of new information on the direction of the Company.
Herson makes mention of the survey that The APBA Blog did a couple months ago and “read with interest the responses” (for those who haven’t seen the results, here is a post with links to all the survey results). Herson believes the answer to marketing the game is the “APBA community sharing its experiences”. In that, I think he is correct.
One solution in APBA’s eyes, is a total website redesign (“excluding the store”) and Herson seems to have really thought this out. It’s a three tiered plan:
- Archives – getting APBA history digitized and accessible
- The APBA Story – documenting what APBA is including downloadable brochures and booklets
- Leagues – a section highlighting existing APBA leagues
One interesting point from the article:
I would also like to offer articles from the APBA Journal. These articles are available on at least one other website. I would appreciate if the new journal owner would contact me to discuss this.
As far as I know, Francis Rose holds the rights to the APBA Journal (or maybe not, thanks for the correction, Phil) but if something could be worked out between the two, that kind of thing would be fantastic. There are some real gems in those issues.
In concept, I think I like where this is all going. One can have the best sports simulation game in world but if it’s not marketed correctly or not integrated with its current fan base, it won’t grow. I think Herson realizes this and wants to change that. The question is how to do that. APBA fans ARE sharing their experiences now on places like Facebook groups, blogs, and Between the Lines. It may almost be an issue of APBA integrating in the community as much as integrating the community into APBA.
John Herson is thinking ahead for the future. I’ll say that much.
