AE's price

[jjax]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: bobogoboom

I nominate this thread for one of the most idiotic ever on the matrix forums. most have wasted more that $70 worth of their time arguing about the price.

Yeah but it's pretty tame compared to this:

http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys ... d619ce91f1#

Jim

Who is that Squid guy? I have never seen someone so angry about something so stupid. I'm glad he is not buying anymore matrix games. He really needs to use that money to invest in a life.

[viberpol]

After reading that I can only salut Mr Erik for his cold blood. [&o]

[RevRick]

ORIGINAL: DivePac88

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

free bonus with each download [:'(]

Or a free bonus for flogging a dead horse [:D]

This GIF is probably the best thing to come out of this thread..

[Andy Mac]

Wow that was interesting been a long time since i went to usenet.

[Jim D Burns]

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Wow that was interesting been a long time since i went to usenet.

It does have a unique - charm - all its own. [;)]

Jim

[Nomad]

ORIGINAL: RevRick

ORIGINAL: DivePac88

ORIGINAL: Nikademus

free bonus with each download [:'(]

Or a free bonus for flogging a dead horse [:D]

This GIF is probably the best thing to come out of this thread..

I like mine better. [:D]

[AttuWatcher]

All this dead horse stuff is funny but c'mon...let's not beat a dead horse here. [:-]

[:D]

[treespider]

-

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: viberpol

After reading that I can only salut Mr Erik for his cold blood. [&o]

Actually, I think it is very unfortunate that Erik or anyone from Henderson is bearing the brunt of this. This is a great product. I have no doubt that around 90% of the people who buy it already have WitP. Its a great value for an add-on to a great game.

Again, kudos to Erik and the collective Henderson group for trying to calm them down. You all have a lot more patience than me for people like that . . .

[Tophat1815]

Why the "backlash" now though? Erik has been saying this for how long? WiTp is required for AE because we feel that AE is too much for the gaming newcomer. There is nothing new here folks. Now I'd of made AE more expensive,given WiTp owners a discount and said buyer beware not for the faint of heat and let everyone at it. I'm certain the 10+ hour Japanese turn Ones would have had many screaming for their $ back but such is life.

I did enjoy reading the science fiction about AE being a patch.[;)]

[AttuWatcher]

One man's junk is another man's treasure. As a new player about to drop $130+ for the set I feel it's more than worth it.
Why? Because to me there is maybe 2 games a year that are even worth playing. As someone playing computer games of every type since the late 80s WITP/AE is one of those special few products that looks to offer a unique, challenging, and rewarding gaming experience and one of those games that keeps me playing games at all. For me there is no going back to mainstream garbage. I will quit gaming alltogether if these kind of unique, hardcore, and unconventional games completely dry up. I love gaming but I have plenty of other ways I can spend my time and money. Thanks for keeping the faith WITP/AE team!

[sterckxe]

ORIGINAL: Jim D Burns

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Wow that was interesting been a long time since i went to usenet.

It does have a unique - charm - all its own. [;)]

"This newsgroup is where the junkyard-dog grognards hang out, and it can be one tough neighborhood when the flame-wars ignite. But you'll also find great eloquence, penetrating analyses, and lots of breaking news that shows up here before it does anywhere else."

William R. Trotter on comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.war-historical in the October 2003 issue of PCGamer (US)

It hasn't changed one bit since then. And that's just the way we like it.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

[m10bob]

While I respect Erik for his comments, (and tolerance), I cannot see how anybody can view that "forum" without feeling it was infected by a couple of fellas with an axe to grind, a true agenda, that was nothing more than fanning flames.

Facts (given by Eric) made no dent, as those firebrands minds were already decided.



The axiom is still true, that "The most powerful man in the world, is the loudest voice at a lynch mob".

[Chad Harrison]

ORIGINAL: m10bob

While I respect Erik for his comments, (and tolerance), I cannot see how anybody can view that "forum" without feeling it was infected by a couple of fellas with an axe to grind, a true agenda, that was nothing more than fanning flames.

I couldnt agree more. After seeing the posters and posts there, I will never visit that forum again.

[Erik Rutins]

To be frank, while there are some posters on Usenet that I enjoy talking to, there are also posters who are simply IMHO useless. There are several there who are actually professional "trolls" in disguise, this comes with the usenet territory. They will flame anyone and anything. There are others who simply have an axe to grind and no matter what, will always find a problem. Then you have the fact that the people there often like to go off on long threads about politics rather than discussing wargames...

Honestly, I find our forums to be a much better place for wargaming discussion, but I visit there primarily because I've been a Usenet poster from back before Matrix even existed and I've grown a very thick skin in that time. Honestly though, I think I might have stopped reading it a while ago if I didn't feel some responsibility to monitor things for Matrix Games. Once you know who the idiots are and who the trolls are, you can tune out all the noise and get to the "signal", where there are occasionally some good posts worth reading. Eddy, who posted above, is probably the guy who is most worth reading on Usenet and there are some other worthwhile posters, but a lot of the content is really not worth your time.

Regards,

- Erik

[Anthropoid]

I have no desire to fan any flames here, and I would send this in an email to Erik or one of the other guys, but I don't know if it would actually get seen, so . . .

ORIGINAL: RHoenig

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It surprises me too, folks. We've been clear from the start on two points:

1. AE will require WITP
2. AE will cost a bit less than WITP, but not much.

With a few of the reactions I'm seeing here, you'd think it was Pearl Harbor all over again. I'm getting the sense that for some folks it's not so much the price as it is the decision to make it require WITP.

People are free to disagree with us and free to make their own purchase decisions. The fact is that we have played AE and we feel that having WITP as a prerequisite to it makes sense both from a scenario content and complexity level. We don't want new customers to see AE as a replacement for WITP, we want them to see it as a more advanced level of WITP they may want to go to once they've mastered WITP.

WITP is one of the best games we've ever made and has given wargamers years of fun. It's also getting another update after AE's release and still has legs. We're not ready to retire it yet, especially when we feel it's a good stepping stone complexity-wise to AE. Yes, UV was a good stepping stone to WITP as well but that was also a different situation and a different time.

Regards,

- Erik

Hit the nail right on the head for me, here.

I own WITP, so bundeling it with AE isn´t the big deal for me
I was also well aware from the get go, that I would need WITP to play AE
I was (more like, my brain) making the connection "WITP needed" --> AE sharing files with WITP. Now this was ok with me. Sure, the expansion is a bit expensive, but sure worth it.
Requiring WITP for AE "just for the heck of it" doesn´t realy sit well with me. I´ll get AE nonetheless, mind you, but still....

You said a page or two earlier:

No, it's a way to make sure that we don't get folks jumping into AE and subsequently running for their lives. WITP is a stepping stone to AE, simple as that. It is also still a great game in its own right.

quote:

And even if you call it an expansion...70 bucks for an expansion...ouch. I can think of no other examples where a game company (and Im sure about 20 fanboys are about to prove me wrong ) releases an expansion that requires the original game and it costs as much. Given that you didn't pay the people who developed this for you...sounds like a money grab. Whatever, the price has pushed me on the fence. I am fairly certain one night in a frenzy of AAR readings I will purchase it, but I am squarely on the fence right now.

It's not an expansion. It's its own game. It installs as a stand-alone, but requires ownership of WITP. I realize this is not a "typical" arrangement and that may be causing some of this confusion. You're trying to find an analog in the normal mainstream marketing of games. WITP is not a mainstream game, this is not a typical situation and there is not an exact analog.

Wargaming is a niche, "monster" wargaming is an extreme niche and this is what it basically costs to continue development on these kinds of games, once every five years. That doesn't seem particularly steep to me when I look at how much development and research is involved. Frankly, if we had made AE stand-alone, then the price on its own would have been high enough that I could see people balking and that also would have been called unfair by many. It is what it is. We've set the price, each person has to decide if it's right for them, given what we've announced we are delivering for that price.

For people who already own WITP, you are really getting a full new game in terms of development effort when you purchase AE, but it works like WITP so your learning curve should be a bit easier than it would be for someone starting out fresh. For those who don't have either, WITP is a step on the way to AE, some may get there, some may not.

Regards,

- Erik

This is reasoning I (as I have allready played WITP) can accept.
That being said, for the "New" player, who hasn´t played WITP allready, it doesn´t fly, IMO

Look at it this way (hypotetical scenario following):
Empire Earth III has just come out
Oh, I am somewhat interrested in that kind of game
Ok, let´see. It´s 49.98, well, ok, I´ll give it a go
Oh, I have to first purchase and install EE II?? What the f***, I don´t want EE II, I want EE III!

Even if Empire Earth II would be in the bargain bin for 9.99, this potential customer would probably be lost at that point.
As you suspected above, it isn´t about the price, it´s about why people are forced to buy WITP when all they want to play is AE

Personally, I would have prefered to have a higher price for AE as a stand alone with a discount for those allready owning WITP.
With a big, bright, red, flashing sign on the buy-page "WITP EXPERIENCE HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!!!"

The end-effect would have been the same without the "devious scheemer" syndrome


You probably know this, but I will say it anyway:
I (we) want Matrix to do well, otherwise I would be off lurking somewhere else and playing some other games and I fear, this pricing model will hurt your sales which, again, I don´t want to see!

Ralph Hoenig, Germany

Not having played AE, I'm not sure, but it seems like there are some good points being made here that are pretty clearly expressed in RHoenig's response. Requiring WiTP to be able to buy/play AE will probably alienate a certain fraction of prospective newcomers. Now I realize that the game is beng 'targetted' at the pre-existing WiTP crowd, so maybe alienating some newcomers is irrelevant in the decisions being made.

My gut sense is taht Matrix has become a recognized presence in the broader gamer world, even if it does still does remain a _niche_, and even if we are in a recession. I got referred to as "one of those Matrix fanboys" over on a Civ site a while back. Matrix has been around for a long time now, and has had a string of successes and WiTP has historically been the 'crown-jewel.' It would make sense that you guys are getting more and more glimpses from people outside the "Grog" hardcore (let alone War in the Pacific) niche crowd. Add to this that AE has been talked about a LOT over the last year . . . I suspect that the game is getting more and more attention from the outside world, i.e., there _may_ (maybe a very big 'may') be a window of opportunity to breath new life into the hobby by making AE appealing to prospective newcomers.

Depending on how important/worthwhile you Matrix dudes deem it to be to expand the community, offering some sort of purchase scheme that does not require newcomers to own WiTP first might really be worth considering

Having not played AE yet, but seeing some guys say "AE is more complex than WiTP" maybe the whole idea that AE could be appealing to newcomers is nonsensical. I know the WiTP learning curve was a cliff for me, and if it really is much easier to learn AE with at least proficiency in WiTP, then yeah, all these points about "alienating newcomer" are fundamentally wrong. BUT, if prospective newcomers don't understand when they read the sales blurb on the website that you really MUST proceed sequentially through learning WiTP first then on to AE in order to have much hope to really learn AE, then it still could constitute the same 'missed opportunity' vis a vis drawing in newcomers to the niche.

For me as a pre-existing WiTP owner, I'll pay up to $80-ish for AE (DL + mail) though obviously $60 would be preferable

[TheOx]

I just want them to release it[:D] Debit card is in hand! [8D]

[m10bob]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

I have no desire to fan any flames here, and I would send this in an email to Erik or one of the other guys, but I don't know if it would actually get seen, so . . .

ORIGINAL: RHoenig

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

It surprises me too, folks. We've been clear from the start on two points:

1. AE will require WITP
2. AE will cost a bit less than WITP, but not much.

With a few of the reactions I'm seeing here, you'd think it was Pearl Harbor all over again. I'm getting the sense that for some folks it's not so much the price as it is the decision to make it require WITP.

People are free to disagree with us and free to make their own purchase decisions. The fact is that we have played AE and we feel that having WITP as a prerequisite to it makes sense both from a scenario content and complexity level. We don't want new customers to see AE as a replacement for WITP, we want them to see it as a more advanced level of WITP they may want to go to once they've mastered WITP.

WITP is one of the best games we've ever made and has given wargamers years of fun. It's also getting another update after AE's release and still has legs. We're not ready to retire it yet, especially when we feel it's a good stepping stone complexity-wise to AE. Yes, UV was a good stepping stone to WITP as well but that was also a different situation and a different time.

Regards,

- Erik

Hit the nail right on the head for me, here.

I own WITP, so bundeling it with AE isn´t the big deal for me
I was also well aware from the get go, that I would need WITP to play AE
I was (more like, my brain) making the connection "WITP needed" --> AE sharing files with WITP. Now this was ok with me. Sure, the expansion is a bit expensive, but sure worth it.
Requiring WITP for AE "just for the heck of it" doesn´t realy sit well with me. I´ll get AE nonetheless, mind you, but still....

You said a page or two earlier:

No, it's a way to make sure that we don't get folks jumping into AE and subsequently running for their lives. WITP is a stepping stone to AE, simple as that. It is also still a great game in its own right.

quote:

And even if you call it an expansion...70 bucks for an expansion...ouch. I can think of no other examples where a game company (and Im sure about 20 fanboys are about to prove me wrong ) releases an expansion that requires the original game and it costs as much. Given that you didn't pay the people who developed this for you...sounds like a money grab. Whatever, the price has pushed me on the fence. I am fairly certain one night in a frenzy of AAR readings I will purchase it, but I am squarely on the fence right now.

It's not an expansion. It's its own game. It installs as a stand-alone, but requires ownership of WITP. I realize this is not a "typical" arrangement and that may be causing some of this confusion. You're trying to find an analog in the normal mainstream marketing of games. WITP is not a mainstream game, this is not a typical situation and there is not an exact analog.

Wargaming is a niche, "monster" wargaming is an extreme niche and this is what it basically costs to continue development on these kinds of games, once every five years. That doesn't seem particularly steep to me when I look at how much development and research is involved. Frankly, if we had made AE stand-alone, then the price on its own would have been high enough that I could see people balking and that also would have been called unfair by many. It is what it is. We've set the price, each person has to decide if it's right for them, given what we've announced we are delivering for that price.

For people who already own WITP, you are really getting a full new game in terms of development effort when you purchase AE, but it works like WITP so your learning curve should be a bit easier than it would be for someone starting out fresh. For those who don't have either, WITP is a step on the way to AE, some may get there, some may not.

Regards,

- Erik

This is reasoning I (as I have allready played WITP) can accept.
That being said, for the "New" player, who hasn´t played WITP allready, it doesn´t fly, IMO

Look at it this way (hypotetical scenario following):
Empire Earth III has just come out
Oh, I am somewhat interrested in that kind of game
Ok, let´see. It´s 49.98, well, ok, I´ll give it a go
Oh, I have to first purchase and install EE II?? What the f***, I don´t want EE II, I want EE III!

Even if Empire Earth II would be in the bargain bin for 9.99, this potential customer would probably be lost at that point.
As you suspected above, it isn´t about the price, it´s about why people are forced to buy WITP when all they want to play is AE

Personally, I would have prefered to have a higher price for AE as a stand alone with a discount for those allready owning WITP.
With a big, bright, red, flashing sign on the buy-page "WITP EXPERIENCE HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!!!"

The end-effect would have been the same without the "devious scheemer" syndrome


You probably know this, but I will say it anyway:
I (we) want Matrix to do well, otherwise I would be off lurking somewhere else and playing some other games and I fear, this pricing model will hurt your sales which, again, I don´t want to see!

Ralph Hoenig, Germany

Not having played AE, I'm not sure, but it seems like there are some good points being made here that are pretty clearly expressed in RHoenig's response. Requiring WiTP to be able to buy/play AE will probably alienate a certain fraction of prospective newcomers. Now I realize that the game is beng 'targetted' at the pre-existing WiTP crowd, so maybe alienating some newcomers is irrelevant in the decisions being made.

My gut sense is taht Matrix has become a recognized presence in the broader gamer world, even if it does still does remain a _niche_, and even if we are in a recession. I got referred to as "one of those Matrix fanboys" over on a Civ site a while back. Matrix has been around for a long time now, and has had a string of successes and WiTP has historically been the 'crown-jewel.' It would make sense that you guys are getting more and more glimpses from people outside the "Grog" hardcore (let alone War in the Pacific) niche crowd. Add to this that AE has been talked about a LOT over the last year . . . I suspect that the game is getting more and more attention from the outside world, i.e., there _may_ (maybe a very big 'may') be a window of opportunity to breath new life into the hobby by making AE appealing to prospective newcomers.

Depending on how important/worthwhile you Matrix dudes deem it to be to expand the community, offering some sort of purchase scheme that does not require newcomers to own WiTP first might really be worth considering

Having not played AE yet, but seeing some guys say "AE is more complex than WiTP" maybe the whole idea that AE could be appealing to newcomers is nonsensical. I know the WiTP learning curve was a cliff for me, and if it really is much easier to learn AE with at least proficiency in WiTP, then yeah, all these points about "alienating newcomer" are fundamentally wrong. BUT, if prospective newcomers don't understand when they read the sales blurb on the website that you really MUST proceed sequentially through learning WiTP first then on to AE in order to have much hope to really learn AE, then it still could constitute the same 'missed opportunity' vis a vis drawing in newcomers to the niche.

For me as a pre-existing WiTP owner, I'll pay up to $80-ish for AE (DL + mail) though obviously $60 would be preferable

I cannot imagine how much greater the learning curve might have been for me, if I had not been given the opportunity to play UV before purchasing WITP..

[bobogoboom]

like T.s old avatar showed witp is not a learning curve it is a 90 degree angle.

[Anthropoid]

I have no desire to criticize decisions, but simply to provide a kind of additional perspective here. I've got work I should be doing, but I really love these games, and I want Matrix to thrive and or hobby to grow. I've got _no_ axe to grind, so I'm just trying to be helpful.
 
Lets say I'm a Civ player (I started with hex board games in high school, but then stopped playing them, and my first real 'computer gaming' was with Civ I and then Civ II, so in reality, my historical "roots" are as a Civ player) or as an Empire TW player, or Spore, or any of the host of other games that do not constitute true "monster" hard-core uber-detail "Grog" games like WiTP or AE (or TOAWIII, etc.). So I'm between the ages of 15 and 40, I play mostly "pretty graphics," reasonably high-detail, reasonably high-graphics-load, "strategy" games that are either military or military+social simulation focused. Lets say I'm getting a bit bored with my old regulars, and I've been noticing some of the other guys on my regular forums has mentioned Matrix a few times. Lets say I've got more interested in War in the Pac because of a scenario or a mod or something in my traditional game (e.g., Civ 4 Beyond the Sword has a "War in the Pacific" scenario, as did Civ 4, as did Civ 3), but having played it, it fell short. Wrong application of the engine; again this pretty much explains how I wound up coming over to Matrix and first tried WitP: the WiP scenario in Civ3 was fun but inadequate . . .
 
So I come snooping/shopping around Matrix forums. Lets say it is some point in the near future and AE is out and has been for a month or two. The game is selling like hotcakes among the WiTP-pre-owner crowd, and the AARs are churning like flotilla of PT boats. There is a definite positive buzz going on the AE forums, and given my background as a well-primed "newcomer" to the whole WiTP-AE thang, it sucks me right in. Within a couple days I am pretty firmly convinced that I WANT to try this game . . . maybe it would satisfy the interest that that inadequate Civ4 BTS War in Pac scenario prompted? So I check more and I learn that, to own this hot new advanced, top-of-the-line War in the Pacific game, I first must purchase the FIVE YEAR OLD precursor game. Huh? I check more, and learn that, despite the AI in AE being highly touted in the forums, there are a lot of threads indicating that playing the AI in WiTP is not worth the trouble "do PBEM, that's the way to go . . ." type stuff. Moreover, I keep bumping into threads about "leader bugs," and various other flaws.
 
Suddenly my enthusiasm for this largely unknown new prospective gaming company patron (Matrix) has had a bucket of cold water tossed on it. What exactly is going on here? is all I can wonder, and with this, the natural instinct of any gamer who has been burned before with a game that did not stay long on the HD is to become suspiscious and dilatory in purchase decision, if not to start asking questions, and provoking discussions that might clarify the underlying issues, or might simply lead to flame wars.
 
Maybe the end result is, I as a prospective newcomer do not balk at the first signs of something 'fishy,' maybe I don't get distracted by some other game and never come back to Matrix forums for months or years, maybe I hang around and endure all the uppity attitudes of some of the crusty old regulars on the forums, and eventually assuage any concerns initially raised and reach the conclusion that: it is worth it for me to go ahead and buy WiTP and "learn" the ropes with that system and then buy AE too. Maybe if there is some package deal that makes AE a bit cheaper when bought together I go ahead and decide to buy WiTP + AE all at once.
 
For most of us, who own WiTP already this scenario is totally irrelevant. We will buy AE. But IF AE had come out in say 2001 or 2003 (whenever it was that I first came over here to Matrix from being a Sid Meier's fanboy) the present sale structure might well have been highly relevant to me as a prospective newcomer. Indeed, having the hot-new version require the 'stale' old version (I'm not arguing against WiTP here, I'm just pointing out that it does not take long on these forums to encounter SOMEONE who makes some kinda of complaint about WiTP, and any newcomer may well encounter THAT, not to mention the simple fact that generally gamers prefer newer, 'more advanced' stuff) just to buy it might be so relevant to me as a newcomer that I just lose interest and go away.
 
Again, I realize newcomers are not the target, and I've seen Erik say "90% of sales are expected to be old regulars of WiTP." But what about that other 10%? What if that 10% could be, with minor changes to the sales/packaging scheme, transformed from 1000 units to 2000 units?
 
I think Matrix and this community are great; but maybe sometimes we get a bit parochial in our thinking and fail to recognize the significance of the larger gamer world? The more we swell our ranks the better off in the long-run.
 
Possible solution: Sell AE+WiTP as a package at a price that would seem slightly high but overall reasonable to a prospective newcomer coming from one of the other game communities (Civ, ETW, Paradox stuff, Ageod stuff, etc., I don't know what all would be relevant to consider) [$100? $110?). Sell AE to pre-existing WiTP owners at 70% of the package price? [$70 or $80].