Encouraged by a friend’s casual observation, I recently undertook some research on eBay, and discovered that an eBay bidder called (for the sake of argument) Seanbaby had registered with eBay in 1999. Seanbaby still had a zero feedback rating, despite having bid on (and in a few cases winning) 29 auctions in the previous 30 days (which is as far back as eBay can conveniently store information). What was truly astounding, though, was that every one of those 29 auctions that Seanbaby bid in was run by another eBay user, Atozgames.

The Editor, selecting a wallpaper pattern prior to redecorating the Simulacrum septic tank.

There may be several explanations for this peculiar set of circumstances. Indeed, a few of the explanations may even be remotely plausible. But the simplest explanation is that Seanbaby was a shill created by Atozgames and used by him/her to attempt to run up the bids. Occam’s Razor sides with the simplest explanation. But when I contacted eBay with this information, I got a very prompt and polite email replying that they could find no evidence of shilling. However, I contacted them once more. I pointed out that a number of winning bidders might not appreciate the fact that they paid more than they should have because the seller was able to artificially raise their bids. And there was the perception that eBay indirectly benefited from this type of behavior by dint of a larger sale price from which to derive its cut. eBay had another look, and Atozgames was suspended shortly after.

The most distressing thing to me was that an appeal based on legal consequences succeeded where an appeal to common sense and good judgement did not. This is one of the reasons lawyers are so dangerous. The other reason is that they look just like us. The special issue profiling Simulations Canada games met with a degree of critical acclaim which I don’t deserve. But then, as Jack Benny pointed out, I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.

Anyway, every silver lining has a cloud, and the huzzahs quickly morphed into despicable rumors about the forth coming special issue on SPI quadrigames. I want to take this opportunity to drive a stake through that rumor’s heart once and for all, to expose its wickedness to the full illumination of the noonday sun usually reserved for mad dogs and Englishmen, to banish its loathsomeness to the fiery pits of everlasting sulphurous flame and eternal damnation. But I can’t, because it’s true. The next special issue will profile the 16 quadrigames published by SPI. Mind you, precisely when this special issue will be published is an unknown that may be described by a quadratic equation with an unknown number of unknowns. And the answer is quite probably irrational. As befits the editor. Go figure.

Issue Size

Speaking of figures, how many of you gentle readers noticed that the last issue was the biggest to date at 52 pages? For the record, I have vowed that I will exceedingly rarely (never say never is a conundrum that calls into question the need for such a word in the English language in the first place) reduce the number of pages in Simulacrum. For those of you who wish to complain to the authorities about this ahem change, I offer you Joe Scoleri as the scapegoat.

Issue 11 was all but completed, awaiting only the arrival of Joe’s Capsule Reviews. They duly arrived (based on the just-in-time principles popularized by modern manufacturers) and I briefly considered truncating the work in order to fit the space available. But it would just not do to leave one iota of Joe’s work hanging out in the breeze — after all, someone might actually notice for a change — and so the command rang out from the poop: “More pages, Scotty!” You have to love these obvious solutions.

Well, maybe the obvious solutions that are also effective. For example, improving Simulacrum’s computational power could have been accomplished with a whole new abacus computer system, but the obvious solution seemed to be to replace only the motherboard. So the existing Celeron 300 motherboard was duly replaced with a Pentium III 866. I think my problem was talking about it out loud (a habit passed down to me by one of my simian forebears) because once it found out it was going to be replaced, the old motherboard erased a number of very critical files from my hard drive. Trust me, that’s the only rational explanation, and I’ve worked with computers since 1969: it’s unwise to let an inanimate object know you’re in a rush, but it’s downright suicidal to let it know you’re dissatisfied.

Anyway, a miracle happened, and when I regained consciousness, the new motherboard was working. Now I can make 10 mistakes in the time it used to take me to make one. Speaking of mistakes, I made the mistake of trying to publish issue 11 in the same month in which I got married. True, the wedding was April 28th, so I had most of the month, but I forgot how much up-front money a wedding needed. My printer extends me credit but Canada Post must be paid in full. Anyway, Fresca and I opted for the traditional course of action and got married. The weather co-operated, the ceremony went beautifully and a good time was had by all. The bride in all her glory and the groom in all his kilt appear on page 50.

E-Bay

I admit to using the services of eBay occasionally. My rating level of 115 (which includes a few unjustified and churlish negative comments that simply prove I am human and bleed like the rest of you) is unremarkable compared to the fervent users with ratings in excess of 1000, so I am not a rabid user. But it also demonstrates that I’m not averse either. I can, with justification, claim dispassion and indifference, and I will.

There are some gamers who loathe, despise and abominate eBay. It’s impossible to get to the bottom of their negative reactions. One can only speculate that their younger sisters were kidnapped and auctioned into slavery on eBay, or something. The pity is that there are many good reasons to dislike eBay, but none that I am aware of to hate it.

For example, I don’t like the way that the bidding suddenly ends … the high bid is therefore a function of timing and not of demand. And I don’t like the way that rutabagas are permitted to use eBay without first having to demonstrate a basic and fundamental level of literacy, numeracy and honesty. And there’s that ridiculous eBay feedback rating system where an excellent record can be held to ransom by the threats of an amoral bastard. There are other forexamples, but none is so terrible that it can’t be worked around, particularly in aid of a good cause such as scoring a Holy Grail.

At the other extreme are those gamers whose world revolves exclusively around eBay. For these people, eBay can do no wrong whatsoever. It is the perfect example of the perfect freedom of a perfectly free market. Those ludicrous prices aren’t really ludicrous, because clearly someone was willing to pay that much, and so that is what they are worth, and you can’t argue with the free market, so there anyway, end of discussion.

eBay is not a free market, in any sense of the phrase. Free markets and true auctions have no limits on the length of time an auction takes, and bidding continues until there is one and only one bidder left. eBay tries to work around this with their system of proxy bidding, but proxy bids are a poor substitute and introduce their own limitations. And never underestimate the drawing power of bidding on an item that you know you can have immediately. Furthermore, free markets assume that the people who are involved in buying and selling all have about the same level of expertise and knowledge … introducing a mouth-breather into the mix calls off all bets about the validity of the bids, and there are monobrows aplenty on both sides of eBay. And free markets give you an opportunity to inspect an item personally … no more wondering whether “mint” referred to the item or to the candy packaged with it.

On the whole, eBay does a good job of mimicking a free market. Items in plentiful supply usually sell quite cheaply, and items of a rarer nature tend to command suitably higher prices. But there are exceptions, and these exceptions show, among other things, how immature the board wargame simulation market is. For example, the very existence of Berg’s Paradoxes (games that are so rare as to be completely unknown by all but a few collectors, and thus available very inexpensively) on eBay suggests that most collectors and accumulators are still woefully unaware of the products of all but the most obvious gaming companies.

But perhaps we’re being a bit hasty in our judgement. eBay does not pretend to be anything other than a place where an individual with an item to sell can offer it to the widest audience possible with current technology and prices. In this regard, eBay has been fantastically successful, and a majority of the people who use its services are probably very satisfied with the results. A perquisite of being a grognard is that we can grouse and grumble about our own pet peeves. A responsibility of being a grognard is that we leave discussions of speculative matters to metaphysicians.