somewhere is like consimworld, it's now a subscription-based model and it have lost more than 80% of the member for 18$...
When your friend made a mistake it's better to tell him
And when your friend doesn't understand the problem, you tell him.
Do you thhink the cost of running consimworld grows on trees? What some seem not to understand is that it is not a matter of choice between "continuing to provide something for free" and "chargeing 18$ and having only 20% of the members continue.
Its a choice between 20% of the people get to enjoy the srvice for a cost they consider appropriate or NOBODY gets the service and the the site just goes away.
Similar to games. People who compare the cost of wargames to mass market games JUST DON'T GET IT!!!! Why do you think Monopoly costs about 20 bucks and the new Russian Campaign board game costs 80$?
THe size of teh wargame market is so small that you are not going to get vastly increased sales by lowering the price. Game quality determine wargame sales, NOT PRICE. WE GIVE AWAY three games and have a pretty good idea of what the market is. If you have to sell 5 -10 times more games to cut the price in half, the market is simply not big enough to support that.
Computer wargames have been between 30 and 80 bucks for THE LAST 10 YEARS. Content (by time put into them) has at least doubled and the price range has remained constant.
SO same price and more time put in means the guys making ames have had to workd much harder and for no appreciable increase in income per unit time spent working.
We are seeing a time of "testing the nature of" the wargames market. Big publishers said it was dead and gave up on it.
We and few others are giving it anopther chance.
Its up to you to decide if you want professionally designed wargames or not.
That is the choice and that is the issue. Not whether a particualr game should be 39.99 or 79.99.
And be prepared. The price points will not be the same 10 years from now. (Assuming the answer to the above is yes, and professional computer wargames are even available 10 years form now.)
The current "Its raining wargames" situation will not be able to continue if 2by3, SSG, Panther, etc can't make a living.
The next 3-5 years will tell the tale. Vote early and often. One way or another. but be aware of what you are voting on.
If too many of you vote by keeping your wallet in your pocket, teh result will not be "teh compianies attemtps to rip us off are exposed" and you will get 79.99$ games of 29.99$. You will just not be able to get professionally designed games anymore.
