Price?

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: jomni

ORIGINAL: Arjuna
I would estimate that on average most players will get over 400 hours of entertainment out of BFTB. Many will get thousands of hours.

Provided that the people appreciates the game. I have only clocked a few hours on HTTR (less than 5).

Then hwat's the point of buying the game? Is it some kind of compulsive collecting of every wargame that comes out?

[Count Sessine]

My two cents.

The price doesn't strike me as a problem - I think it's worth the money for this kind of product. 

[Greup]

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Pay the money or not, but don't whine about it.

I couldn't agree more.

It's a lot of money and probably more so for those who see BFTB as just another PC game. I suggest people compare the cost of BFTB to the cost of other similar priced things in life (one shoe of top brand sneakers, two premium Tequila or Scotch shots, one new tire for your car) , consider how serious you are about historical war simulations, check your budget and make your decision. If it's not worth it to you - fine. It's your choice just as much as the pricing is Panther/Matrix choice.

The world probably don't need to know that you consider a game's worth more if the scope is semi-global than if the scope is "just one battle". Be happy - go play Risk. It's a tremendous value!

In my case the last war game I bought was COTA back in 2006. Call me a Panther fanboy if you want, but since Panther started issuing games again during the last decade I have found no other war sims to been worthy of my *precious* time and my money. Given the fact that I still play COTA after 4 years and I expect BFTB to last at least as long I don't have a big problem with investing in BFTB. Certainly I would rather have an east front game (Fire Brigade revisited, Arjuna?) but until then (if ever) BFTB will most likely fill a big part of my simulation needs.

Peace to the world! There are enough historical wars to be re-played.

[Krasny]

£65 for a download only computer game?!?

Wannsinn!

£30 would tempt me.

[Seydlitz69]

ORIGINAL: Greup

ORIGINAL: Terminus

Pay the money or not, but don't whine about it.

I couldn't agree more.
consider how serious you are about historical war simulations, check your budget and make your decision. If it's not worth it to you - fine. It's your choice just as much as the pricing is Panther/Matrix choice.

Exactly!!! I cant understand ppl who are saying "Well, I even couldnt get into HTTR or CotA" If this isnt your kind of game than why even bother thinking of buying it. I have HTTR and CotA and I just bought BftB and I know that a high qualitity product awaits me.

[axisandallies]

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.

If logic dictates reason, you will not sell very many copies of this game. You say the cost is so high b/c of amount of hours that PG put into the series. Is it safe to say that we are paying for past research? When you have to explain your actions in mass, and the reason why you did something then there is a problem. I have always thought that including a game editor is a way the company says "here we have done our part, now you can do your part and make more scn, post them, keep the game alive so we can sale more copies and make more money." I will be honest, this game is overpriced.

[Nihil]

The only thing I can compare a wargame price is with another one, not with a car tire, with a cofee or whatever.

Wargames are a niche, well... probably they are, but they ALL are, not just PG's. There are many wargames out there which have given me a lot of enjoyment as well so I can´t see the reason to pay 75 € for something I have been paying 40-45 € until now, and if we do so and pay that for this game why shouldnt other delelopers do exactly the same and raise their prices?

And of course I am going to whine, I am the client after all, and if I didn´t care for the game I wouldnt bother.

[Arjuna]

ORIGINAL: jomni
What time frame and theater? Can we create maps or are we stuck with what's available?

As I said in a recent interview, there is really no restrictions at all on the data you cna create. You can generate whatever maps, forces and scenarios you like. The only constraint is the doctrine that is supported by the engine. AT the moment it designed to model WW2 west front. It doesn't, for instance specifically model Soviet Cav doctrine, though you could readily create an east front game with Soviet Cav forces and they would conduct assaults, defend, move etc.

If you are so confident about your product, why not develop software for the military as well. This will give you some money to go on operating as a company without being so dependent on commercial sales. That way, you can lower the price for the masses.

I have been trying to do that since 2003. But what you need to realise is that the military are very conservative and slow to uptake new simulation technology. Having said that we are hopeful that one day we can secure a contract for developing wargames for the military. Time will tell.

[thewood1]

I have purchased a lot of games from Matrix that I played for a few hours and then put back on the shelf.  Lack of demos, lack of self restraint, too much free capital; these are all reasons I take chances on $40-$50 games and don't sweat it if I set them aside.  I have played around with a friend's copy of COTA, but held off buying it because I figured I would wait for the bulge.  But at $80, I don't make that casual purchase that I would at $50.  That is the market Matrix is losing.  I had the same issue with Steel Beasts.  I would love to get it, but at $120, it is well past the "casual purchase and dick around with it for a few weeks" activity.  Same with $80.  Matrix will always get the people obsessed with a series to fork out whatever.  But the casual buyer where this type of wargame falls out by their typical interest zone will be lost.

[MajFrankBurns]

ORIGINAL: sharper

Some might say its "reassuringly expensive"

PS. We sold many many copies of War In Russia on Apple II and Atari 800 way back in the dark ages at my old store in the UK Strategic Plus for £79.99. big game, big price. Save up! and have fun, will last for years! Cheep as chips in real terms.

One thing I'd like to bring up here is back then there weren't 1000's of computer strategy/ wargames out there and our budgets allowed us to pick up and buy just about anything released. Today there are 1000's of pc strategy and wargames and we can be a lot more selective and thrifty about our purchases. So, you used a bad analagy for this one this time.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: RayWolfe

C'mon guys. You know how many hours went into this game and by god you know how many hours you will get out of it!

I'm still reading through this whole thread but you know, this sentiment (without the religiousity) really sums it up well.

I'm just so sick of the money I've wasted on gaming crap both here and at other companies that I think its time to look at what's good and what will last the test of time. I think that this is one such title. I just wish that development houses would stop pushing crap onto the market as this just soaks up valuable money that could better be spent on games like this.

Now, the issue of there being no printed rulebook is a proverbial spanner for me. It's the only reason why I was able to get into HTTR. And I just don't want to spend another $40 getting it printed at Kinkos or Snap, which is the price for a spiral bound b&w version locally.

I also really need to know that there are no game breaking bugs that will pop up as in Uncommon Valor and the first War in the Pacific. It's the problem that overly complex games that thrive on minutiae threaten imo.

[axisandallies]

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I have purchased a lot of games from Matrix that I played for a few hours and then put back on the shelf.  Lack of demos, lack of self restraint, too much free capital; these are all reasons I take chances on $40-$50 games and don't sweat it if I set them aside.  I have played around with a friend's copy of COTA, but held off buying it because I figured I would wait for the bulge.  But at $80, I don't make that casual purchase that I would at $50.  That is the market Matrix is losing.  I had the same issue with Steel Beasts.  I would love to get it, but at $120, it is well past the "casual purchase and dick around with it for a few weeks" activity.  Same with $80.  Matrix will always get the people obsessed with a series to fork out whatever.  But the casual buyer where this type of wargame falls out by their typical interest zone will be lost.

Right on point. For some unkown reason, Matrix and Panther Games can't understand this.

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: elmo3

I just spent more than half the price on dinner for the family...

Now that's perspective! [:D]

[ElchDivision]

Hello,

I have been an avid reader of the forums for ages and have been playing COTA and other Matrix Games for years. I just wanted to express my opinion regarding the price.
It is expensive and I was (and still am) a little bit shocked when I noticed the price. Nevertheless I will buy it. I will buy it grudingly and my wife will most probably gut me with a blunt spoon when she realizes that i have just spent this much on a "game". But anyway, I loved COTA and the possibility of building my own scenarios now makes spending this much a little less painful.

Looking forward to the game when I come back home from work tonight.

Best regards from Germany!!

Rob

[MajFrankBurns]

I just spent $20 on a bag for my Netbook so what's your point elmo? We spend money on things most of the time. I bought $80 worth of groceries oh my I could have bought BftB instead. lol It's that comparison of value for the price that comes to the forefront not how much you just spent on your family or how much you spent on groceries or whatever. This is not a because I spent this on this I should spend $80 on this argument it's how much value is a "game" worth? For me it's certainly not $80. I'm more of a $40-$50 price range gamer and that is what I will shell out for most retail games. Though lately it's even more thrifty to just wait on the bargain bin prices of Steam, Gamersgate, Impulse, Direct 2 Drive and GoG. Those $5-$10 priced games sure make it a lot harder to shell out $80 for just one game now.

[htuna]

ORIGINAL: axisandallies

ORIGINAL: thewood1

I have purchased a lot of games from Matrix that I played for a few hours and then put back on the shelf.  Lack of demos, lack of self restraint, too much free capital; these are all reasons I take chances on $40-$50 games and don't sweat it if I set them aside.  I have played around with a friend's copy of COTA, but held off buying it because I figured I would wait for the bulge.  But at $80, I don't make that casual purchase that I would at $50.  That is the market Matrix is losing.  I had the same issue with Steel Beasts.  I would love to get it, but at $120, it is well past the "casual purchase and dick around with it for a few weeks" activity.  Same with $80.  Matrix will always get the people obsessed with a series to fork out whatever.  But the casual buyer where this type of wargame falls out by their typical interest zone will be lost.

Right on point. For some unkown reason, Matrix and Panther Games can't understand this.

Same here... I'm glad the high price of WITP AE kept me from buying it, because I bought WITP and have no interest in it (I saved 30 bucks)... I'm not saying it's not an outstanding game for the people who love it, I love the concept, and wish I could get into it, but have no interest.. maybe someday when I try again, I'll fall in love with it and end up getting AE, but for now, I'm glad my 50 dollar ceiling saved me money.

smaller niche we pay the higher price... but a lot of times we are 'taking a chance', on whether we will like the game or not... I think the market itself with PC gaming has a level of 50 dollars being the top. Listen to the people scream when one of the big games goes to 60!.. but they come down, and a lot quicker.. how many years has SP WAW been a ridiculous price... you say lot of work went into it.. well if you attract that many more sales by having a reasonable price, thus make more profit. Reminds me of a hobby store that I know went out of business because it kept it's Tamiya models at high price when all the new DRagon ones were coming out at a lower price with better quality. Because the guy didn't price his old stuff to move.. he ended up with shelves full of overprice inventory that no-one would buy.. he went out of business..

You say the price is high because the niche is smaller... well... small niche + higher price = even smaller niche..

[john688]

I don't post much but view these forums regularly, come on guys this is our hobby!
If you go to a football game you will pay £40 without travel and food,if you go to the pub with a group of friends £20, a meal £30...
I will buy this game knowing I will get hundreds of hour of enjoyment out of it, and think the reason we are all so shocked is that GREAT pc games have been so cheap, Falcon4 £30 combat mission £30

[JudgeDredd]

Just noticed something. Here we are (some long avid followers of the series, some not) saying it would be difficult nay impossible to entice new blood into the game when the old regulars aren't coughing up - something I've noticed is alot of the posts on this forum agreeing to pay the price are actually new posters. OK...not neccesarily new to matrix, but new posters (low post counts) - you'd think if they were die hard fans or even remotely interested fans in that they've bought the other games, they would have more posts because they'd have posted on CotA/HTTR forums.

My point? It seems "we" who think new blood won't be forthcoming at this price may well be wrong.

Still not buying though. It's pure principle for me. No one thing has enough in it to keep my attention long enough to justify > £50...nothing. I can afford it...I'd just have to stop impulse buying for a couple of months - but a) I won't stop impulse buying and b) I won't get the number of hours out this game that Dave suggests - purely because I have a low attention span.

[jomni]

ORIGINAL: Arjuna

ORIGINAL: jomni
What time frame and theater? Can we create maps or are we stuck with what's available?

As I said in a recent interview, there is really no restrictions at all on the data you cna create. You can generate whatever maps, forces and scenarios you like. The only constraint is the doctrine that is supported by the engine. AT the moment it designed to model WW2 west front. It doesn't, for instance specifically model Soviet Cav doctrine, though you could readily create an east front game with Soviet Cav forces and they would conduct assaults, defend, move etc.

If you are so confident about your product, why not develop software for the military as well. This will give you some money to go on operating as a company without being so dependent on commercial sales. That way, you can lower the price for the masses.

I have been trying to do that since 2003. But what you need to realise is that the military are very conservative and slow to uptake new simulation technology. Having said that we are hopeful that one day we can secure a contract for developing wargames for the military. Time will tell.

Nice to hear these comments.
Cheers!

[Adam Parker]

ORIGINAL: MajFrankBurns

I just spent $20 on a bag for my Netbook so what's your point elmo? We spend money on things most of the time. I bought $80 worth of groceries oh my I could have bought BftB instead. lol It's that comparison of value for the price that comes to the forefront not how much you just spent on your family or how much you spent on groceries or whatever. This is not a because I spent this on this I should spend $80 on this argument it's how much value is a "game" worth?...

Hey fella, first up ease up on the personal attacks.

Secondly, this debate is all about the fundamentals of economics which is choice.

Yes, whether a person buys Bulge will be an absolute factor of what he or she chooses to do with their scarce money. The person I quoted is an absolute genius in this debate - Wanna buy take-out or go to a club for a few drinks? Fine. However, don't spend that money in that way and lo and behold a person may be able to buy Bulge.

Then we have your perception which is all about price elasticity. How far can a seller stretch its prices before demand softens up? Petrol has been going up and up but the demand is still there. Why? People have limited choices as how to power their cars. So Panther's Games have been going up and but your demand has finally gone. Why? Because you do have lots of choices regarding what you can do with your money.

Both you and the poster I quoted are in fact agreeing economically! You are both choosing based on your perceptions of value.