Pricing Suggestion

[wodin]

Blighty a "hoe" certainly wont help mate.

damn you fixed the spelling..the joke is now lost;(

[smudge56]

Crickey you were quick yet mate. Yep 'hoe' not a good word for my wife. Damn tablet lol.

ORIGINAL: wodin

Blighty a "hoe" certainly wont help mate.

damn you fixed the spelling..the joke is now lost;(

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Tomn

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Tomn
This is a pretty good example of what I'm talking about, really. The argument goes in circles because the insistence is that "You've already been answered, and answered in such a way that you can't argue back, so why don't you just shut up now?"

Then perhaps you should bring something new to the table instead of rehashing the same old arguments.

Now, see, this doesn't help at all.

If you have nothing new to bring to the table, then it isn't *going* to move forward.

You have market research to prove them wrong?

You have evidence that they are losing money with the price as is?

Can you name a competitor that puts out a game that covers the same thing in the same detail with the same features at a much lower price?

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

[smudge56]

Lol yep but she's no jewellery fan[:(]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

[JRyan]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

A friend of mine tried it. Made the mistake of saying Owww. So I said "C'mon, Russian women fired that thing,"

Now that is funny stuff I don't care who you are!! BTW Russian women made really really good snipers. The Germans hated them..

Of course a sniper version will run you > $500 now...

[JRyan]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

Not mine, I just pestered her to death. Actually she was excited for me when it released. Not as much a big deal as when I got to play the Beta and check it out. She KNEW what was coming.

[smudge56]

Lucky you. Anyhow I've made the jump and just purchased it. I'm downloading it as i type. I'll deal with the repercussions later...[:D]

ORIGINAL: JRyan

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

Not mine, I just pestered her to death. Actually she was excited for me when it released. Not as much a big deal as when I got to play the Beta and check it out. She KNEW what was coming.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: JRyan

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

A friend of mine tried it. Made the mistake of saying Owww. So I said "C'mon, Russian women fired that thing,"

Now that is funny stuff I don't care who you are!! BTW Russian women made really really good snipers. The Germans hated them..

Of course a sniper version will run you > $500 now...

Yeah. You could convert it I suppose. But I like mine the way they are

Yep, they were really good at it.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Lol yep but she's no jewellery fan[:(]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

Jewelry worked for mine. Throwing money at her worked too

[gexmex]

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Lol yep but she's no jewellery fan[:(]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

This is getting serious I'm just trying to figure how to placate my wife lol.

Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

No Jewelry? No handbags? How do you appease her????????????????????????? haha

[juanchopancho]

Hell $80 is a bargain for the amount of time I will end up playing this game.

[Tomn]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Tomn

ORIGINAL: Aurelian




Then perhaps you should bring something new to the table instead of rehashing the same old arguments.

Now, see, this doesn't help at all.

If you have nothing new to bring to the table, then it isn't *going* to move forward.

You have market research to prove them wrong?

You have evidence that they are losing money with the price as is?

Can you name a competitor that puts out a game that covers the same thing in the same detail with the same features at a much lower price?

Well, I HAVE bought forth points in relation to everything you've said (seriously, I've written a lot of stuff here, and I do think at least part of it is worth reading), but as it happens I DO have some hard numbers and I DO have a competitor running pretty much the same deal and getting much better results.

Before I begin, a reminder - my stance is that Matrix will do considerably better if they lowered their prices AND partnered with major distributors such as Steam or Gamersgate or whatnot as a combination of a lowered price and major distribution will allow them to reach a large, previously untapped group of hidden grognards (potential grognards as yet unaware of their true loves). I do accept that there are certainly some games in the Matrix stable which would benefit less from such a course, being by their nature entirely incapable of being made more accessible to anyone but the groggiest of grognards, yet even these would likely benefit to some extent from wider distribution and lowered prices. As for anything that CAN be made more accessible, Matrix is quite likely to be shocked at the improvement - and from what I've heard, Command is, though complex, a relatively much more accessible game. Remember: It isn't just the reduction of price, but large-scale distribution that matters. The one would not matter without the other.

Now, my proof? The prosecution would like to call Matrix Games to the stand.

In the "Good Health of the Wargaming Niche" thread, Matrix Games released some interesting figures, quoted here:

Some other interesting stats I didn't have time to put together yesterday. These stats are related to iOS

* Volume sales of our strategy/wargames on iOS increased 502% in 2012 compared to 2011.
* The growth in volume sales in the first quarter of 2013 compared to 1st quarter of 2012 is 352%. This growth is continuing and we expect it to be higher when major releases like Panzer Corp and Space Program Manager hit the app store.
* In value terms the increase is higher. In 2012 the value of all sales increased 3033% compared 2011. Yes I did say 3033%, or an increase of 30 times.

An increase of 44% on PC/Mac is very healthy but these growth figures are amazing to us. So while we do have some new blood on PC and Mac the main source of newcomers to the hobby looks very much like it will be on tablets.

502% growth! Not too shabby, and apparently entirely unexpected. This at least does provide some proof that Matrix Game's prediction models are on shaky ground in areas they haven't yet worked in, throwing doubts upon the accuracy of their years of data and experience in a modern marketplace. But let's examine this in a little more depth - why should tablets provide such meteoric growth?

There is, of course, the fact that tablets are a relatively new market. Of COURSE growth is higher. Yet this wouldn't explain things in and of themselves, since presumably Matrix would have accounted for that, and yet remain amazed by the new figures rolling in. So what other explanations are in play?

There is then the refrain "They dumbed down the games! They're appealing to the mainstream! Of COURSE they're selling better!" Perhaps so...but Battle Academy, their biggest ticket iOS game doesn't really seem to have been dumbed down much at all in its conversion to iOS. In point of fact, the screenshots for Battle Academy PC look almost completely identical to the screenshots in Battle Academy iPad. Nor does their feature list differ in any particular save that the PC version has modding support - something which is hardly likely to scare away new gamers. Perhaps someone with both versions of the game could go into more detail, but it doesn't really seem as if there's been a great deal of dumbing down involved - yet sales of the iOS version are still much higher. Why?

We could theorize perhaps that slick, Apple-using yuppies are a previously unknown source of meglomaniacal warmongerers, but there does seem to be a much simpler explanation that hasn't been discussed: Price and availability.

After adjusting for conversion rates, the price of Battle Academy for the PC is about $31.98 USD - somewhat on the high end for the kind of game it seems to be. On the iPad, the price comes down to about $20.38 - still pretty high, especially on the App store, but in absolute terms much more within impulse-buy limits. Other titles available on the App Store tell a similar story - they were either very low in price already in absolute terms, or reduced significantly from their PC offerings. Telling, but not decisive, even to me - I wouldn't have thought that a ten dollar drop would provide such an enormous improvement. So what other explanations are there?

The other explanation is that the iOS games are, of necessity, sold on the iTunes App Store - a store that has access to pretty much everybody who owns an Apple product and which has much, much greater distribution than Matrix Game's own website, just as Steam, Gamersgate et. al have much, much greater distribution and almost equally good access to PC gamers. This is the second key to the puzzle that I am arguing for - reduced prices, AND access to much wider distribution. This is what has conclusively and decisively buoyed the success of countless other niche games, and is the reason why Steam is so often hailed as the savior and great hope of niche games. It is that access - that unparalleled access which doesn't even require enormous investments in advertising as access did in the past - that we are arguing would help boost Matrix Games and the wargaming niche to unheard of heights.

There are other possibilities and other potential reasons, of course - but the two I propose above have been the precise source already enumerated by countless others in other fields, and it seems to me implausible that wargaming should be so entirely different from other genres that even their success comes from entirely different reasons, when they share so many of the same characteristics with other success stories. If you have any other explanations, however, I would be happy to hear them out and discuss them to gauge whether those explanations are more or less plausible than what I have just described.

One final note: I think I can hear your complaint right now: "Battle Academy and all the other iOS games aren't TRUE wargames, they aren't TRUE grognard and they're not REALLY that complex! They don't count!" But why not? Not all Matrix Games are made the same, as Matrix itself acknowledges, and there seems to be no reason whatsoever why Matrix should not give their more accessible games the same treatment on the PC as they have on the iPad. Even if the groggiest of grognard games remain as they always were, why shouldn't Matrix look at the success they've had on the tablet and try using the same strategy for those games on the PC? Why shouldn't they allow the income from these more accessible wargames to help fund their support of the more "serious" wargames? Why shouldn't they spread the name of their more accessible games far and wide to draw in new wargaming fans who would then become more interested, even more tempted to try the more serious offerings? Where precisely in the downside in this strategy? And if indeed it turns out that accessibility is key to gaining highly impressive sales in a wider marketplace, would it really be so bad to see Matrix begin to make their grognard games easier to work with, that you can spend more time playing with the game than wrestling with the interface?

Such is my argument. Do you think it easily dismissed, or do you think it is worth further discussion?

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Vyshka

ORIGINAL: BadKarma1001

ORIGINAL: JDM

Hi Pii

I realisee that you are a brand new member of the forum, so I thought a quick note might be helpful here. Wik 33 and Aurelians posts are quite in order and if any moderating is needed we can cope. Just for the record, what is not permitted are personal insults or put downs.

BTW, as you are so new to the forum, which of our games do you actually play/own. I am sure posters would be interested.

Imho this is totally uncalled for!

Something new in the forum rules it seems.

How many games do you own? :p

Here is my permission slip (doesn't look like everything):

Products Registered Downloads
Armada 2526 8 FEB 2011 [ Registered ]
Battles in Italy 11 OCT 2005 [ Registered ]
Battles In Normandy 29 MAR 2005 No Downloads Available
Campaigns On The Danube 11 OCT 2005 [ Members ] [ Registered ]
Carriers at War 27 MAY 2013 [ Registered ]
Close Combat - Cross of Iron 8 FEB 2011 [ Registered ]
Command Ops: Battles for Greece 7 JUL 2013 No Downloads Available
Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge 2 JAN 2011 [ Registered ]
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich 17 APR 2012 [ Registered ]
Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear! 8 MAY 2012 [ Registered ]
Conquest of the Aegean 15 JUL 2006 No Downloads Available
Crown of Glory: Emperors Edition 23 JAN 2011 [ Members ] [ Registered ]
Crown of Glory: Europe in the Age of Napoleon 11 OCT 2005 [ Members ] [ Registered ]
Distant Worlds 16 JUN 2010 No Downloads Available
Distant Worlds - Legends 12 DEC 2011 [ Registered ]
Distant Worlds - Return of the Shakturi 2 JAN 2011 [ Registered ]
Distant Worlds- Shadows 23 MAY 2013 [ Registered ]
Flashpoint Germany 29 MAR 2005 [ Registered ]
Gary Grigsby's Eagle Day to Bombing the Reich 8 FEB 2011 No Downloads Available
Gary Grigsby's War Between The States 5 MAY 2009 [ Registered ]
Gary Grigsby's War in the East: Don to the Danube 14 APR 2012 No Downloads Available
Gary Grigsby's War in the East: Lost Battles 17 MAY 2013 No Downloads Available
Gary Grigsby's War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 2 JAN 2011 [ Registered ]
Gary Grigsby's World At War 29 MAR 2005 [ Members ] [ Registered ]
Harpoon 3 - Advanced Naval Warfare 15 JUL 2006 [ Registered ]
Highway to the Reich 2 JAN 2011 [ Registered ]
John Tiller's Campaign Series 8 FEB 2011 [ Registered ]
Larry Bond's Harpoon - Ultimate Edition 14 OCT 2011 [ Registered ]
Norm Koger's The Operational Art of War III 15 JUL 2006 No Downloads Available
Panzer Command: Ostfront 20 MAY 2013 [ Registered ]
War In The Pacific 29 MAR 2005 [ Members ] [ Registered ]
War in the Pacific - Admiral's Edition 2 JAN 2011 [ Registered ]
War Plan Orange: Dreadnoughts in the Pacific 1922 - 1930 15 JUL 2006 No Downloads Available


Hello, my name is Jerry and I have a wargaming problem.

What I want to know is how you got into my house and steal my games [:D]

[jalefkowit]

Since one of the recurring themes from defenders of Matrix's pricing structure in this thread has been that the complaints about it are all coming from the same people over and over again, I decided to re-activate my long dormant forum account to add my two cents:

Matrix's pricing is nuts. So nuts that it drove me away as a customer.

The reason is that the pricing scheme takes no account of the concept of price discrimination. In other words, even in "niche" markets, not every customer is alike. You have fanatics who will pay anything to get the product the moment it leaves the gate, enthusiathatsts who are interested but wait for reviews and demos, and casually-interested people who aren't following the product closely but could be convinced to give it a look if appealed to properly.

A price structure that's sensitive to this often has the cost of a product set high on first release, to squeeze the most out of those "price is no object, gotta have it now" customers. And that's fine! They get something for their money -- first crack at a product they are especially interested in. But normally over time the price would gradually come down, to make it attractive to the people in those other market segments who are more price-sensitive. The problem with Matrix is that their prices stay high, forever. So once the early adopter market has been fully tapped, nothing is done to reel in those who need more persuading to get out their credit cards.

The result is kind of hilarious. Look at the Matrix online store and you see some real head-spinners. Steel Panthers World at War: Generals Edition, a title that is coming up on fourteen years old and doesn't even work properly in modern versions of Windows (!), is on offer for US$70 -- exactly what I paid for it back when it first came out. Uncommon Valor (released in 2002) and Korsun Pocket (2003) are still US$30. The original 2004 version of War in the Pacific (not even the 2009 Admiral's Edition!) is still US$60. And on and on.

To put it bluntly, these prices are insane for titles of this vintage. Computer games are depreciating assets; they are valued less by the marketplace as time goes on, because in general people value presentation that takes advantage of modern hardware and runs properly on modern systems. Games that were US$50 AAA titles a decade ago depreciate over time into $4.99 Good Old Games. It's just the nature of the product. Ignoring that is like trying to sell movies on VHS for US$120 in 2013 because you could get that for them in 1993.

Even a cursory review of the marketplace will show that Matrix is alone in not understanding this. Nobody else tries to sell games a decade or more old for the same price as their new-release titles. Go look on any other online marketplace today and try to find somebody selling a game released in 2000 for US$50+. You won't. But you'll find plenty of games of similar vintage on offer in the less-than-US$10 range, because they can still be sold to more casually interested people, if the price is right.

There are lots of titles in the Matrix back catalog that I'm casually interested in. But since the prices never come down, I'll never play them. Matrix's argument is that this is OK because they're selling into a niche; but anyone in that niche who was super-interested in those titles would have bought them long, long ago. The only potential customers left are the casually interested. But if those folks didn't find those titles appealing in 2003 at USD$60, they're not likely to find them any more appealing at the same price ten years later. Matrix argues that it has secret data showing that its games don't follow the dynamics that other games from other publishers do. But that's a bit like an auto manufacturer saying that it has secret data showing that its cars aren't bound by the laws of physics like other cars are; unless you can show me those data, I'm going to be highly skeptical of the claim.

So Matrix loses me as a customer. From this thread, I gather that is supposed to mean I'm not a sufficiently hardcore grognard to see past the up-is-down prices. But to me it feels more like I'm just economically rational.

(And before you ask, no, I don't expect this post to change anything. I just wanted to demonstrate that this was not a complaint that's limited to the Usual Suspects.)

[Numdydar]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Lol yep but she's no jewellery fan[:(]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian




Jewelry always, or almost always, works.

Jewelry worked for mine. Throwing money at her worked too

So the game cost you a LOT more than $80 [:)]

[Rob322]

ORIGINAL: Numdydar

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: Blighty56

Lol yep but she's no jewellery fan[:(]

Jewelry worked for mine. Throwing money at her worked too

So the game cost you a LOT more than $80 [:)]

For me, I don't complain when she racks up charges on a "Freemeium" game and she doesn't complain about this

[Alchenar]

In the twenty pages of this thread I have not seen Aurelian make a single post that wasn't a one or two line thin ad-hominem or a demand that people 'go away'.

I would be interested to see if this trend can change, or whether the people writing out long and well thought out responses to his lazy and bad-faith challenges are just wasting their time.

PS.
Close Combat - Cross of Iron
Close Combat: Panthers in the Fog
Command Ops: Battles from the Bulge
Command Ops: Highway to the Reich
Decisive Campaigns: Case Blue
Decisive Campaigns: The Blitzkrieg from Warsaw to Paris
Forge of Freedom: The American Civil War 1861-1865
Germany at War: Barbarossa 1941
Panzer Corps

And maybe one or two others that I never got round to registering (I got Rise of Prussia and Alea Jacta Est from gamersgate and Unity of Command on Steam). I consider myself thoroughly burned by the terribleness of Panthers in the Fog, and Germany at War is probably good but has issues with my graphics card so it's sitting on the metaphorical shelf for the time being.

I bought a very similar game to Modern Air/Naval Operations at a very similar price (Command Ops) so I'm very much in 'potential sale' territory, but the fact is my last two purchases have raised my perception of the opportunity cost of buying from Matrix significantly. I'm in a position now where I'm just not going to buy again from Matrix unless I either have a very good demo experience or the price is good.

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: Alchenar

In the twenty pages of this thread I have not seen Aurelian make a single post that wasn't a one or two line thin ad-hominem or a demand that people 'go away'.
his lazy and bad-faith challenges

Adhom much? Hypocrite, haven't seen a single post where I said go away. Or any that cross a line.



But many, in 20 pages, where the same crowd thinks that they know better than the company that develops and sells these game games. Oh the arrogance of those.

Haven't seen an post in 20 pages that shows any verifiable evidence that they know better either.

Instead of being a lazy lad and listing a list of games in this ill thought way to avoid making a well thought out post, why not add something new instead of whining about me.

[JRyan]

ORIGINAL: juancho

Hell $80 is a bargain for the amount of time I will end up playing this game.

And that is one of the very reasons that should be considered when purchasing the sim.