21
June

Is the APBA Game Co. looking towards the future?

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:

  1. Archives – getting APBA history digitized and accessible
  2. The APBA Story – documenting what APBA is including downloadable brochures and booklets
  3. 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. 

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3
April

New APBA Co. website design

apba_bb_box_07I just spent a few minutes clicking away at the new APBA Co. website. 

I think it still needs work but I think the basic structure is there for APBA to include content now.  At least, now the contact information is correct and references to the old office are gone. 

I’m also seeing some image rendering issues (some fading in and out that take a little too long).  Perhaps it’s my browser.  

But overall, I like the change from the static web design from before.  I know just a little about this and know that if there is something that needs editing or changing with format, it won’t be too difficult. 

Thoughts?

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8
January

APBA Game Co. launches new Facebook page

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If you haven’t seen it yet (and you have an account on Facebook), check out the APBA Game Company’s new Facebook page.  I personally like the new look. 

Recent entries on the page have photos of boxes of card sets ready to be shipped out.  Nice touch. 

It seems CEO John Herson is trying to open himself up as much as he can to the APBA fans.  First he starts a regular “Ask John” thread on the Between the Lines forum which has been very popular.  Now we see a revamped Facebook page.   All this can only be good, in my opinion.  Kudos, Mr. CEO.

But hey! I don’t see a photo of Herson himself. :)

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28
November

Herson thread on Between The Lines

I just got around to skimming the “Ask John” thread in the APBA-Between the Lines forum.  For those who haven’t been on in a while (like me), APBA CEO John Herson has opened up the floodgates for questions of any kind and indeed, it was a flood. There were at the time 347 messages to go through.

For someone who is most likely very busy at this time of year, Herson was pretty diligent and tried to answer every question he could.  Kudos also to most of forum members.  I expected a lot of cynicism and sarcasm but with a few exceptions, all of participants were asking substantive questions and there was little trolling going on.  I should give the APBA community more credit, right?

For the most part, questions revolved around team roster sizes (that was a big sub-thread), company purchasing policies, season availability, and of course, release date of the 2011 season.

Herson made this comment in regards to the release:

“We expect to begin shipping the disk the week of December 4th.”

That’s like next week.  Crossing my fingers.

If you haven’t already, definitely check out Herson’s thread on BTL.

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24
October

66 Connection has videos of APBA employees appreciation dinner

Francis Rose over at 66Connection.com has some good videos of an Appreciation Dinner held in honor of long time employees of APBA Veryl Lincoln and Skeet Carr.  Scott Lehotsky, who was responsible for the video “Of Dice and Men”, produced the video.

Rose breaks up the video into three parts.  You’ll find part 1 here and links to parts 2 and 3 are there.

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30
August

APBA says goodbye to Lancaster

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credit: Roy Langhans

As of yesterday, the APBA Game Company office in Lancaster was closed.  66 Connection has a write up on this.

The contents of the office were packed up into a moving van and made their way to its new home in the Atlanta area.

Long time APBA fan Roy Langhans was there and took some photos.

And before we get all doom and gloom, please read this Rod Caborn comment in a previous post.  You don’t necessarily have to agree with all of it but he does give a perspective that worth considering.

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