Price?

[herbertzhao]

ORIGINAL: Joe 98

ORIGINAL: Fulton
They have not done a good job justifying such pricing to me.

It is an Australian company.

For Australians the price is the same as for most other wargames and mainstream games. The AUD$ price is normal. Its neither higher or lower

Why should Australian developers have to pay for Wall Street excesses ??????

-

Ok, then why should the gamers pay? Say that the game is good so the price high. Say that you can play it over and over again so it worth it. Say that this is simply the business decision made/pricing model chosen by the developer/publisher...

Just don't say that , hey, pay me more money and blame someone else!!!

[Fred98]

ORIGINAL: herbertzhao

Ok, then why should the gamers pay?

Why should the gamers pay what ??

To this gamer, the price is much the same as all other games. Neither expensive or cheap.

I ask again, why should the gamers pay what?

-

[herbertzhao]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

Re Price

I appreciate your feedback on the price. No one ever likes paying more for a product. I also appreciate that for many cash is tight at the moment. Trust me I am in the same boat. Developing professional grade software for a niche entertainment market is not a path to wealth that I would recommend.
We contemplated this issue at length. On the one hand we would love to sell mega copies of BFTB. But we have to face the reality that this is a niche market and we will never be able to sell the volumes like AAA general market titles. Products like your First Person Shooters take dozens of man years to make, cost millions and need to sell hundreds of thousands of copies to succeed. The wargame market is unlikely to hit the tens of thousands of sales. So we have very small volumes and virtually no prospects of increasing those volumes, especially for a serious realistic simulation such as BFTB. Anyone who thinks that we are somehow going to be able to expand our sales volume significantly is deluding themselves.

We have committed about 50 man years of development on our series. That is a huge investment and given the cost of further development cannot be sustained with the current income stream. Since we cannot increase the volume of sales, significantly, we have two choices. We can increase the price or we can stop further development.

We are well aware of the potential impact of raising the price on sales volume. The laws of price elasticity affect all markets. However, niche markets in general are less affected primarily because there is limited offerings and hence limited competition and also because the customers in general appreciate that the unit price has to be higher than for a general market product because the cost of development has to be absorbed over a much smaller volume of sales.

Is this a good situation for our customers? No, it is not. Is it a good situation for us? Definitely not. But the choices for us are clear and stark. Sell at the old price and abandon further development or increase price and hope that we can stay in the commercial wargames business. Even at the higher price we may still be forced to abandon development because not enough people buy it. Yes it’s a big risk, but it’s the only option that may keep us designing for the commercial wargames market. I cannot put it any more bluntly.

Each one of you will have to make your own decision as to whether you think the price is worth it. I would like to think that when you consider the benefits you will answer yes. Please consider that there are 27 scenarios. Playing through each one once would provide over a hundred hours of entertainment. If you swap sides, you get another hundred hours. But with the way we have designed the scenarios and the use of generic objectives, you can play the same scenario many times and get a different experience. That is one of the beauties of the engine. I would estimate that on average most players will get over 400 hours of entertainment out of BFTB. Many will get thousands of hours.

By providing a full construction set, with the inclusion of all the editors needed to create any battle, we envisage considerable content being developed by the community. This should translate into a stream of third party scenarios that will further extend the life of this product and provide even more entertainment value.

Even at 400 hours the cost of entertainment for BFTB is just 20 cents per hour. Think about that.
Also let’s put it in relative terms to other games that you have purchased. Estimate the number of hours you have played them, then divide this into their purchase price and I bet there will be very few that are as cheap per hour as BFTB.

But also consider the quality of the experience you will get with BFTB. I am not aware of any other product ( commercially or for that matter within the military simulation market ) that better simulates the role of an operational commander. Certainly when it comes to artificial intelligence, BFTB is without peer. We have added so many features to the engine since COTA, features designed to enrich your experience and make it easier for you to assess, plan and order your forces. Go to the BFTB product page and read the long list of new features and enhancements and check out the New Stuff thread on the BFTB forum.

So it all boils down to value and priorities. Only you can make that call for yourself. I do believe that BFTB is very good value for money. We will be putting out a demo in about a month or so. So you can always wait and see. In the meantime check out the Game Concepts movie. The first of the tutorial movies will soon be available for public release. We will progressively release more of these over the coming weeks.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask here on the forum.

Thanks for letting us know what's behind the pricing decision.

With experience in the market and data that unavailable to us consumers, I imaged that you wouldn't make a stupid pricing decision. Looks like I was right.

It is a gamble of some sort. While from experience this market is pretty inelastic, you should know, being the team providing top quality games, no one can be sure how elasticity will be for one particular game. It's about confidence. It will be great if you have more confidence that your work can make some real changes (in expanding the market itself, not only taking market shares from your competitors, since you define your game to be the best one).

I myself have very limited time in gaming, as well as a very tight budget, so I'll skip this one. But sentimentally, yes, it is indeed very sad. This is just the reality for professional-level simulation games, be it war-games, flight simulation, ATC simmulation, economic/business management games or else.

Hang in there, don't give up the market. Good luck to you, your team and your revenue from this title.

----------------------------------------------------
Life is ...
What you can afford supporting does not worth the support,
What you want to support you are unable to support...
Envy those who can happily play a not-so-good game... They are the ones getting the same entertainment at a much lower cost.

[McBearCat]

OK..I"ll briefly step out of the closet too. I've played war boardgames since the mid-70's and computer games now since the mid 80's. Many, many Matrix games in my collections! I've saved $75 for Compass Games Silent War (boardgame) but am gonna spend it on this instead. Honestly, from the many games I have bought, good boardgames are GREAT but are generally more expensive than this. So I'll bite and make the jump. It may be the last bite of anything that I take once the better half finds out, but at least I'll be here in the closet enjoying a game and not down at the pub knocking off a pint of whatever... I wish you all well...

[herbertzhao]

Why should Australian developers have to pay for Wall Street excesses ??????

This is what you said. What I said was why should the gamers pay for Wall Street “excessess”???

What I meant in my post was that there are good reasons for setting the price as it is, but "Why should Australian developers have to pay for Wall Street excesses ??????" certainly is not one of them, in my opinion.

[Banquet]

After giving the matter a lot of thought I've decided to buy BftB, although I must say the price has very nearly put me off. In the end the fact that Dave is just about the only dev doing serious work on AI and, of course, that the quality of the games are always 2nd to none, swayed the decision.

To be honest, for this money I would like to have seen some kind of battle generator where we can use the provided maps and spend a certain amount of 'credits' to buy units and deploy them on the map. Something similar to Steel Panthers. I know a lot of grogs will baulk at the idea of random battles but lots of other 'serious' wargames provide this facility and it does extend the life of the game considerably. I don't usually buy games that are limited to just scenerio's any more. Of course I realise there are lots of scenerio's in BftB, and they are highly replayable, but I think for this kind of money there should be more flexability allowing the player to set up his own battles. I tried designing a scenario in CotA and spent a LOT of time doing it, but in the end didn't finish it - so those tools provided are for serious modders, not for setting up a quick battle on a Saturday evening.

Anyway, good luck to Dave, and everyone at Panther. It would be very upsetting if this series were to stop being produced. I know I'm buying one of the best wargames ever made, but unfortunately it is coming at a substantial cost...

[MajFrankBurns]

I don't know what it is that makes any of us decide that something is or is not too expensive.

I think it's called fair market value vs price. But, something else that turned my head from it is that NWSonline.com has the HPS game Bulge 44 for $29.95 which offers up :

Bulge '44 features:

-1 km hexes, 2 hour turns, with a master map measuring approximately 170 by 100 kilometers. Over 2,700 units represent the German 5th Panzer, 6th Panzer, and 7th Armies and the Allied forces, mainly at battalion and company level.

-Players control tank, reconnaissance, artillery, infantry, parachute, engineer, antitank, flak, rocket, headquarters, and a wide variety of other specialized units.

-Over 20 historically based scenarios are included, with several "what-if" scenarios as well. The grand historical scenarios last 162 turns (to 2 January 1945).

That $29.95 price tag and all that is a much prettier site and light on the pocketbook gaming bonanza imho.

[Vincenzo_Beretta]

ORIGINAL: ETF
Amazing board wargamers still pay these rates for cardboard and simplistic rule sets. Quality Computer wargaming is the way to go. Hands down. Well since the 90's anyways

While I agree that this has been a civilized thread, it is interesting how it managed to offend Ferrari-owners, "non-Ferrari" games, hamburger-flippers, those who aren't able to do even that for a living, and, now, tabletop wargamers.

If you want to win sympathy it is better to talk about the issue at hand and not compare apple with oranges with predictable results. These are my 2 cents anyway.

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: axisandallies

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

ORIGINAL: Vincenzo Beretta




Dunno in your "real world", but in mine there are students, elders, veterans with disabilities and living off a pension, people who are struggling or have just lost their job, and, yes, people for which burger-flipping (or coal mining) is hazardous for their health - but still it is their best option to make a living. And I don't find anything to laugh about this.

Really? You don't find it amusing that people moan despite that something in which 50 man-years of work were put into costs just 11 hours of work in a least paid job?

ORIGINAL: vonRocko

Who are these "western people" that you hold in such low regard? What "eastern" armpit did you crawl out of?

Butthurt detected.

Sounds like Perturdo has never worked a day in his life....

Worked a day! Oh God! How horrible! To... *gasp* work over a day to buy something that other people were working on for years to deliver it to a small group of gamers that wants specific things that almost no other game offers?
Unthinkable!

Also, no. I have already worked for years. Including a month as a cleaner in a factory for 5,5PLN a hour where I had to work 6 hours to buy a paperback novel. Actually, I have spent 23 hours of work on a Rogue Trader manual bought on ebay. Of course, I have quit after that month because I came to conclusion that hard work in bad conditions, high noise level, etc. is worth to me much more than a minimal wage. Especially that I had to work with retired miners which are very efficient workers and aren't discouraged from working hard by low wages because they get their retirement pension which means that they can spend whatever they earn on whatever they want and they work for sport.
Horrible co-workers, I avoid them whenever I can.

Now I'm working intellectually and I geting paid more for doing less work and easier work. Of course, I don't earn as much as a burger flipper in the west, so I won't buy this game, but only because when work is cheaper prices of software get astronomical. Actually, I have considered buying it when I thought the price is going to be 50$, thus breaking my rule of not buying new games for more than 60PLN.

But if it would be a price increase from 50-60PLN to 80PLN, then I wouldn't hesitate to pay more for higher quality, which is why I find this baseless sense of entitlement to specific game prices amusing.

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns

I don't know what it is that makes any of us decide that something is or is not too expensive.

I think it's called fair market value vs price. But, something else that turned my head from it is that NWSonline.com has the HPS game Bulge 44 for $29.95 which offers up :

Bulge '44 features:

-1 km hexes, 2 hour turns, with a master map measuring approximately 170 by 100 kilometers. Over 2,700 units represent the German 5th Panzer, 6th Panzer, and 7th Armies and the Allied forces, mainly at battalion and company level.

-Players control tank, reconnaissance, artillery, infantry, parachute, engineer, antitank, flak, rocket, headquarters, and a wide variety of other specialized units.

-Over 20 historically based scenarios are included, with several "what-if" scenarios as well. The grand historical scenarios last 162 turns (to 2 January 1945).

That $29.95 price tag and all that is a much prettier site and light on the pocketbook gaming bonanza imho.

But what is its value? Does it feature a good AI, does it feature a good Command & Control? Also, $29,95 isn't the publisher's price. It's $49.95.
I don't have much experience with strategic wargames but a lot of full-priced tactical ones that I have played has dumb AI which makes them almost unplayable in single-player after some time and a lot of micromanagement which makes playing them a chore.

If it has a good AI and semi-realistic Command & Control, I may consider buying it, though.

ORIGINAL: nim8or

Exactly. As I mentioned in this post, a group of innovative independent developers sold well over $1.2 Million dollars in new sales in just over one week simply by letting the consumer determine the price they were willing to pay - whether it be $0.01 to $100.00 or more - whatever the consumer felt the games were worth to them. Matrix and Panther however, by cranking the price to an atypical higher level out of the gate, has vastly reduced the potential market for Command Ops: Bulge and have opened the door for criticism and negative reviews based on price alone. It's a shame; bad advice and plumb crazy if you ask me. I'll take free marketing, goodwill and a virtually limitless market anytime if I'm trying to market my goods. Let the market demand determine the price, especially when your distribution costs are negligible via electronic download.

Except that all of them are casual games with practically unlimited market for them.

[Andrew Williams]

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Aye.FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:They won't!

[ETF]

ORIGINAL: rosseau

ETF,

Just out of curiosity, has your poor opinion of CAW3 changed in its current state of development? I'm guessing you like the newer COGEE better?

Now...back to BftB

No Sir I have not. I did spend 20+ hours on the CAW3 and just shook my head. Very poor design IMHO. Is there a link for the new COGEE that shows a feature list or changes. Always interesed in any good produced wargame. PM me if you have the time. Thanks!

[Rotherman]

ORIGINAL: ETF

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

I don't mean this to be a personal comment on anyone here either but I have to ask - do the people here complaining about the price of this new game, play wargames? Here's some current day prices in our hobby:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $150 USD
Avalanche Press - Panzer Grenadier Cassino 44 - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $99 USD
Multiman Publishing - Beyond Valor (no rules) - Release 1985 - Price 2010 $105 USD

Now some prices at my local shop in Australia, when its current sale soon ends:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy $180 AUD
GMT - 1914 Twilight in the East - $110 AUD
GMT - Combat Commander Pacific - $99 AUD
GMT - Europe Engulfed - $130 AUD
GMT - Serpents of the Seas - $95AUD
Lock n' Load Publishing - Heroes of the Blitzkreig - $110 AUD
Multiman Publishing - ASL Rulebook - $120 AUD

Losing faith in Matrix? Never buying a Panther game again? If you're a wargamer, then paying just $79.99 USD for Battles From the Bulge, is a no brainer. A lot of years, research and art has gone into making this one. In the board gaming world, these prices for mere paper and cardboard (made in China by the way) are nothing new.

I once argued about a decade ago that a game disc must be cheaper than a board game because, well, it's just a disc huh? But I soon learned what goes into a game like this new Panther release. Now I still haven't given up the insistence for a printed rule book to sweeten the cost - but given that most board games undergo many rule changes after printing - giving way to Living Rules via PDF, this argument may now be moot too.

Amazing board wargamers still pay these rates for cardboard and simplistic rule sets. Quality Computer wargaming is the way to go. Hands down. Well since the 90's anyways

Thats assuming there is electricity. The lights are due to go out in the UK in 5 years time because of inept politicians. I will still be able to play Steel Wolves, Field Commander Napoleon, and The Fires of Midway by candlelight.

[ETF]

ORIGINAL: Vincenzo Beretta

ORIGINAL: ETF
Amazing board wargamers still pay these rates for cardboard and simplistic rule sets. Quality Computer wargaming is the way to go. Hands down. Well since the 90's anyways

While I agree that this has been a civilized thread, it is interesting how it managed to offend Ferrari-owners, "non-Ferrari" games, hamburger-flippers, those who aren't able to do even that for a living, and, now, tabletop wargamers.

If you want to win sympathy it is better to talk about the issue at hand and not compare apple with oranges with predictable results. These are my 2 cents anyway.

Hey just my opinion in relation to computer wargaming pricing. The correlation IMHO is very similar. Same hobby just different medium. I just can't see $150.00 for a board game anymore. God knows I have lots form the early 80s onward. No offence to those that purchase them all the power to them. We are after all interested in the same thing. Experiencing military history from the ages.

[ETF]

ORIGINAL: Rotherman

ORIGINAL: ETF

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

I don't mean this to be a personal comment on anyone here either but I have to ask - do the people here complaining about the price of this new game, play wargames? Here's some current day prices in our hobby:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $150 USD
Avalanche Press - Panzer Grenadier Cassino 44 - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $99 USD
Multiman Publishing - Beyond Valor (no rules) - Release 1985 - Price 2010 $105 USD

Now some prices at my local shop in Australia, when its current sale soon ends:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy $180 AUD
GMT - 1914 Twilight in the East - $110 AUD
GMT - Combat Commander Pacific - $99 AUD
GMT - Europe Engulfed - $130 AUD
GMT - Serpents of the Seas - $95AUD
Lock n' Load Publishing - Heroes of the Blitzkreig - $110 AUD
Multiman Publishing - ASL Rulebook - $120 AUD

Losing faith in Matrix? Never buying a Panther game again? If you're a wargamer, then paying just $79.99 USD for Battles From the Bulge, is a no brainer. A lot of years, research and art has gone into making this one. In the board gaming world, these prices for mere paper and cardboard (made in China by the way) are nothing new.

I once argued about a decade ago that a game disc must be cheaper than a board game because, well, it's just a disc huh? But I soon learned what goes into a game like this new Panther release. Now I still haven't given up the insistence for a printed rule book to sweeten the cost - but given that most board games undergo many rule changes after printing - giving way to Living Rules via PDF, this argument may now be moot too.

Amazing board wargamers still pay these rates for cardboard and simplistic rule sets. Quality Computer wargaming is the way to go. Hands down. Well since the 90's anyways

Thats assuming there is electricity. The lights are due to go out in the UK in 5 years time because of inept politicians. I will still be able to play Steel Wolves, Field Commander Napoleon, and The Fires of Midway by candlelight.

hehe.... ok yes you got their. I would be joining you. The next best thing to a good computer wargame like BFTB is a good beer and some friends rolling some die!

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: Adam Parker

I don't mean this to be a personal comment on anyone here either but I have to ask - do the people here complaining about the price of this new game, play wargames? Here's some current day prices in our hobby:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $150 USD
Avalanche Press - Panzer Grenadier Cassino 44 - Release 2009 - Price 2010 $99 USD
Multiman Publishing - Beyond Valor (no rules) - Release 1985 - Price 2010 $105 USD

Now some prices at my local shop in Australia, when its current sale soon ends:

GMT Games - The Battle for Normandy $180 AUD
GMT - 1914 Twilight in the East - $110 AUD
GMT - Combat Commander Pacific - $99 AUD
GMT - Europe Engulfed - $130 AUD
GMT - Serpents of the Seas - $95AUD
Lock n' Load Publishing - Heroes of the Blitzkreig - $110 AUD
Multiman Publishing - ASL Rulebook - $120 AUD

Losing faith in Matrix? Never buying a Panther game again? If you're a wargamer, then paying just $79.99 USD for Battles From the Bulge, is a no brainer. A lot of years, research and art has gone into making this one. In the board gaming world, these prices for mere paper and cardboard (made in China by the way) are nothing new.

Very true.

The same is with military history books. Often price is so high above printing costs that it's possible to sell translations in outside the west at prices that are 2-3 times less expensive there (roughly proportionally to work prices).
So, it's how much specialists are taking for their work.

In boardgames there is additional work of translating this into game mechanics (much less writing, though).

And then there there are computer wargames which have insane amounts of additional work with programming, animations, etc. which is also variable from game to game.

[wodin]

HPS games and especially my favourite Squad battles aren't garbage in my opinion.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

We have committed about 50 man years of development on our series.

Stop the presses! Sorry I missed this post kindly quoted by someone else above. But I've worked out the solution to this whole pricing dilemma. Doh, it was so clear!

Hire two Labradors next time. At 7 man years per year of Labrador, you'll get the programming and testing done in a quarter of the time and they're also very friendly - hardly any unionization heard of.

Retail $20 USD and 500,000 guaranteed sales going by the posts here.

Could even be more popular than Zumba.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns
That $29.95 price tag and all that is a much prettier site and light on the pocketbook gaming bonanza imho.

John Tiller's game engine is garbage. Brain-dead AI and no real command control limits being the two most glaring issues with the engine out of the many issues it has. I wouldn't pay $10.00 for a game using his game engine.

Jim

[Erik Rutins]

Please do not bash other developers here. You could have made your opinion known without the line "John Tiller's game engine is garbage", which is what caused this warning.

Regards,

- Erik

[tombom]

ORIGINAL: Apollo11
BTW, other Matrix releases that were more expensive (and that also took years to develop) were the ones that are loved the most and that are lasting the most - just look at WitP and WitP-AE (and upcoming WitE)! [;)]

OK, I've seen this a few times throughout the thread, but it's wrong: without taxes, WitP:AE is currently £50 for a digital download. BftB is currently £56. Not a huge amount, but it's a bigger difference when you include taxes. WitP:AE was already a hard sell for me, this is even worse.