Pricing Suggestion

[thewood1]

I think you can figure it out.

[Alejo1968]

And I thought most were those who didnt buy it.

But you must have the right numbers.

[Pii]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I think you can figure it out.

You don't know me well do you? lol
Yes after adding "first impressions" to my search I have found it! And I will be reading it completely.
Thanks

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: Pii
Well I've been looking and I can't find a single forum post from someone that bought the game saying they like it either. Can you point me to a forum where buyers are posting? Matrix's forum seems completely empty except for the tech support problem postings. I'd really be interested in what actual buyers are saying but, as noted, can't seem to find any.

I encourage everyone to step out of the pricing thread once in a while too. [8D]

tm.asp?m=3416080

[Pii]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

There is also an entire first impressions thread here...you must have missed it.

In fact, you must not be very good at looking...that thread has a lot of people saying they like it...I just checked.

thanks for the edited dig I really appreciate it!

[sfbaytf]

The price is shocking, but don't expect any change. Matrix falls under the boutique developers who cater to a specific market More than likely has a low enough overhead to allow flexibility. This also is the type of simulation that obviously appeals to government agencies and militaries and everyone knows how easy they are to milk.

For all we know the first 10,000 boxed copies were shipped to the PRC. $80 is a lot for many people, but chump change for governments.

Just going to have to bite the bullet and throw down the $$$ if you want to play.

[delenda]

Can I suggest that if you're going to remove parts of posts, you do it universally rather than for posts that you don't happen to agree with? You've removed mentions of piracy from my posts and from aluminumx's posts but not coffeemug's.

Aside from moaning about the price, I'm generally happy with the purchase but I'm feeling quite alienated with regards to the community.

[Pii]

Thanks for the link. I would have "stepped out" earlier but I didn't see that thread yesterday and unfortunately for you this was the most active I found.

[thewood1]

ORIGINAL: Pii

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I think you can figure it out.

You don't know me well do you? lol
Yes after adding "first impressions" to my search I have found it! And I will be reading it completely.
Thanks

You're welcome. I looked in the main forum and it was only 7-8 threads down. So my conclusion is you didn't really look very hard. I can't beleiev you actually had to go to google for it.

[Alejo1968]

ORIGINAL: delenda

Can I suggest that if you're going to remove parts of posts, you do it universally rather than for posts that you don't happen to agree with? You've removed mentions of piracy from my posts and from aluminumx's posts but not coffeemug's.

Aside from moaning about the price, I'm generally happy with the purchase but I'm feeling quite alienated with regards to the community.

I would suggest an apologize for the expression in which Iain ultimately meant "guys you are wasting time here". In the end, we are customers.

[Pii]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

ORIGINAL: Pii

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I think you can figure it out.

You don't know me well do you? lol
Yes after adding "first impressions" to my search I have found it! And I will be reading it completely.
Thanks

You're welcome. I looked in the main forum and it was only 7-8 threads down. So my conclusion is you didn't really look very hard. I can't beleiev you actually had to go to google for it.

And I can't believe you're still trying to insult me.
Geezzzz

[thewood1]

I have taken the heavy burden on myself.

[Erik Rutins]

Guys, please keep things civil. No personal insults or attacks, let's keep this a constructive discussion if at all possible, or it will have to be locked.

[fuf]

Some of the arguments being thrown around in here are utterly delusional.

ORIGINAL: Rob322
I doubt that even if they sold Command for $10 that it would make that much of a difference. The game will scare many before they think to ask about money.

This thread is full of people saying they would buy the game at a lower price. For each of those there are countless others who didn't bother to post. Of course it would make a difference, and probably a big one.

More sales means:
a) more money for everyone involved
b) more people getting involved in wargames, and some of those people will make the jump to development

More money and more developers means more good wargames, and isn't that what we should all want ultimately?

ORIGINAL: thewood1
The documentation and online support would be expensive. In fact, pricing at $80 keeps a lot of the needy new players out. There is sometimes something to be said for pricing at the high end of a market. That is under the assumption you can make your profit of the hardcores.

Are you really trying to imply that Matrix might lose money by selling more copies, because they'll have to provide "documentation and online support"? What planet are you living on?

[Pii]

Well I've read all the "first impressions" post (didn't take long only two pages.) A few liked, a few had some small complaints but the game is deep so it will probably take a week or so to know for sure how good or bad it is, especially with so few playing it. But those few are probably die hard fans that should and will give it a good work out. I'll keep my eye on it and start saving if it looks ok after a week or two.

[Pii]

I think Matrix is determined to keep their niche market a niche market.

[thewood1]

I have been in the software business a long time. You can always lose money by not charging enough. That is where oppcosts come in.

[Awac835]

Bought at 108 USD including tax thats for the download edition [:D]

[thewood1]

My rough count out of 59 responses in the impressions thread:

18 thumbs up
2 post not buying from the same guy
9-10 on issues or things they would like to see
the rest helping out of answering questions.

[Tomn]

You know, looking at this argument, it seems the key point is this: If there is a wider available market for wargames, then pricing too high loses sales. If there is not a wider available market for wargames, then pricing too low loses profits. So the question is basically this: Is the market large enough to support a lower price that returns greater profits?

Before we begin that discussion, though, I think it would be useful to define what, exactly, a wargame is, as I think this gets muddled fairly often in such discussions. So what is a wargame? I would suggest that a wargame can most usefully be defined as "a game that attempts to simulate warfare, with a greater emphasis on historical realities than on gameplay requirements." We understand, of course, that any game developer must at some point rely on abstractions unless it is their intent to simulate the entire world at once, yet this seems to me a functional definition that lays down a clear difference between wargames and more mainstream strategy games like, say, Command & Conquer or even Total War.

Is it a requirement, then, that wargames must possess an impenetrable interface, no real tutorial to speak of, lousy documentation and all the accessibility of a spreadsheet? Many modern wargames are like this, true, but if we are to say that a wargame can only be said to be a wargame if it included all these features, it appears that we would have to remove Panzer General and Close Combat and Unity of Command and any number of great hits past and present from the list of wargames. I propose that the above definition is enough to cover wargames in general, and that we might make a subgenre for games that go into such complex detail that it is quite impossible to spare any time or effort whatsoever to improving accessibility - call it "grognard" games, for now.

If we accept this as a definition of wargames, then, can we say that wargames are truly a small niche that would not benefit from a lower pricepoint? Can we say that the amount of those interested in a more realistic strategic depiction of war is too low to support a lower price?

This seems to me unlikely. Why? Well, right at this point in time, on the Steam 100 top-seller list, I can see a game about simulating life as an immigration officer in a dystopic Soviet country, a game simulating being a truck driver in Europe running a truck driving business (realistically enough I might add that it models driver fatigue, among other things), a great many adventure games (which until lately have been thought to be extinct as a genre), and a game simulating the space program in quite explicit detail, where orbital calculations are required to get off the ground and onto the Moon analogue or the Mars analogue or anything else in the solar system. That's just what's on the list RIGHT NOW. Previous top-sellers included train simulators and agricultural tractor simulators, among other oddities. Are we supposed to imagine, then, that games depicting war (one of the single most popular subjects in the world for all of humanity, let alone gamers!) in a realistic fashion are a SMALLER niche than realistic games about the space program or truck driving?

Then, too, let us consider the historical successes of wargames. It is common now to say that wargames are a tiny niche and ever will be a tiny niche, but what of such games as Panzer General or the early Close Combat games? These may not have sold as well as the Warcraft games or Command & Conquer, but neither were they tiny and insignificant - they made and left no small splash on the marketplace in their time. Indeed, was there not a time when wargames were the dominant genre in the games industry, long in a distant past? Was there not a time when companies such as Strategic Simulations Inc. were as well-known as any other?

It seems to me, then, that there almost certainly DOES exist a large market for wargames - for realistic depictions of war. There ARE people interested in games that simulate warfare with more depth than that which goes into common RTS games. If such a market exists, then, wargames CAN benefit from a lower price point, and CAN sell enough copies to recoup any loss of per-product profit. Not only would they make more money overall, they would find more fans and more people willing to enjoy the game, causing a snowballing effect as word of mouth brings in more and more people who earlier on would not have considered joining the hobby, or of paying the current high prices sight unseen. Should the market exist, and as we have seen the evidence point to its existence, high prices do more harm than good to a developer even if they aren't actually ruinous.

But I will concede that there does not, perhaps, exist as great a market for the aforementioned grognard games. In order to reach out to a niche which had previously been untapped, it would be necessary to make it accessible for these newcomers - they must be welcomed and eased into the game, so that they do not quit from frustration and complain to their friends. Games like Unity of Command or Panzer General 2 are proof positive that this can be done, and done successfully, and for games such as these (or even for games only moderately more complex than these!) I believe it can be seen that there should indeed be a market. But for games which are so immensely complex, that model such an incredible amount of detail that it is completely, utterly, and totally impossible to even contemplate trying to ease a new gamer in, that I could agree with as being too small a niche to accept new blood and new money, and which would probably only survive at the currently high prices.

From what I have heard, however, Command is not such a game - I've heard in fact that they've taken pains to improve the interface and try to allow a newcomer to understand it. I wonder, then, if the current pricing is really the best choice for it?