Pricing Suggestion

[patroklus]

ORIGINAL: Alchenar

ORIGINAL: patroklus

for the amount of game in Command I think the price is well justified
my 2 cents
[:)]

Ooh, I think this is a nuance that's also maybe got lost in the noise of the thread. I think that Command probably is very good and probably justified at that price.

The problem is that at this price point 'probably' just isn't good enough.

I believe I may know what you are experiencing with the price of Command game.
My other PC hobby is iRacing. For the longest time I could not justify subscribing to a online-only motorsport simulator such as iRAcing. The idea of having to subscribe to a racing service when there were many motorsport games that offered online race for the price of the disc/DL was holding me back. Two years ago I finally joined iRacing with a trial subscription and I have been hooked ever since. I have spent way a lot of money on iRAcing, but the enjoyment from the game makes it worth every penny.
[:)]

[patroklus]

dp

[Vyshka]

ORIGINAL: patroklus

ORIGINAL: Alchenar

ORIGINAL: patroklus

for the amount of game in Command I think the price is well justified
my 2 cents
[:)]

Ooh, I think this is a nuance that's also maybe got lost in the noise of the thread. I think that Command probably is very good and probably justified at that price.

The problem is that at this price point 'probably' just isn't good enough.

I believe I may know what you are experiencing with the price of Command game.
My other PC hobby is iRacing. For the longest time I could not justify subscribing to a online-only motorsport simulator such as iRAcing. The idea of having to subscribe to a racing service when there were many motorsport games that offered online race for the price of the disc/DL was holding me back. Two years ago I finally joined iRacing with a trial subscription and I have been hooked ever since. I have spent way a lot of money on iRAcing, but the enjoyment from the game makes it worth every penny.
[:)]

Now that is spending some money. That is almost as bad as being a flight simmer.

Not that I have been one arguing, but it isn't an issue of affording it for me. Work pays more than enough to cover anything here, and as you can see from that earlier post it pretty much has. But at this point in life with a family, and a job that pays really well, but also requires a lot in return, the jump from $60 to $80 is enough where I don't feel the urge to drop the money on this right away. I have enough games that can take up what little time I do have to game already. I imagine at some point, when I have had a few blue moon pumpkin ales, I will finally break down and grab it. With Command Ops, that didn't occur until after the drop.

[bretg80]

Rockpapershotgun just previewed the game and their big first look was all about the pricing. I told you it would show up in the press.

[jjax]

ORIGINAL: bretg80

Rockpapershotgun just previewed the game and their big first look was all about the pricing. I told you it would show up in the press.

For those having trouble finding the blurb:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/09 ... ore-170535

[Aurelian]

ORIGINAL: bretg80

Rockpapershotgun just previewed the game and their big first look was all about the pricing. I told you it would show up in the press.

"I haven’t seen nearly enough of CMANO’s scrupulously simulated Harpoon-style engagements to judge whether the eye-watering tariff is justified."

Uh huh. Then who are they to judge then?

Surprised they're not complaining how SBP PE charges for demos with a time limit. A $125 game by the way.

[Alchenar]

ORIGINAL: Aurelian

ORIGINAL: bretg80

Rockpapershotgun just previewed the game and their big first look was all about the pricing. I told you it would show up in the press.

"I haven’t seen nearly enough of CMANO’s scrupulously simulated Harpoon-style engagements to judge whether the eye-watering tariff is justified."

Uh huh. Then who are they to judge then?

Surprised they're not complaining how SBP PE charges for demos with a time limit. A $125 game by the way.

"I haven’t seen nearly enough of CMANO’s scrupulously simulated Harpoon-style engagements to judge whether the eye-watering tariff is justified (look out for an assessment next week). "

You dishonest shit. Don't deliberately misquote people. It's not a review, and it doesn't claim to judge anything. But true to form you didn't bother to read whatever it was you were responding to.

[RoryAndersonCDT]

You guys are taking videogames pretty seriously.

[wodin]

I correspond with Tim and our opinion on Slitherine is the same. He isn't an advocate of Slitherine and their business model. He also states as I have done that the future updates and things that have been left out to get the game out sooner should be released for free..that will then justify the cost and I'm sure then no one will have any issues about the price.

[gradenko2k]

ORIGINAL: dutchman55555
But we saw several years ago that Matrix contracted, yanking all their games from any site they could. And saw sales decease, I'm sure. Aw well, what do you expect from a niche hobby?

I did speak about self-fulfilling prophecies a few days ago, didn't I?

Well that's kind of entirely the point, right? Matrix seems to think that wargaming is a niche hobby as a justification for gouging the "true believers" out of every cent, without making the connection that perhaps 80 bucks to buy a game sight unseen is probably a bad way to get newbies interested into the subject matter.

An FPS fan can jump from Duke Nukem 3D to Call of Duty to Rainbow Six to ARMA at about 10-15 USD per iteration.

A flight sim fan can go from free-to-play War Thunder to IL-2 Sturmovik to the hardcore DCS sims/Rise of Flight for about the same price range (and granting that IL-2 Sturmovik itself already covers a wide swath of the casual-to-realism spectrum)

A submarine fan only really has Silent Hunter, but that again transitions from laser-guided torps to full "plot everything by hand" for the price of a couple of coffees, and Dangerous Waters is even cheaper.

And then you get to the guy who likes to strap on riding breeches and ivory-handled pistols and pretend he's Patton for a day: He starts off with free Panzer General Forever, maybe goes up Unity of Command ... and then what? Panzer Corps is like still less than half the price of WITE/WITP even if this potential customer has gotten comfortable enough with the genre to want to go deeper into it.

[Talon_XBMCX]

Come on guys ... this is hardly that much more expensive than a current AAA console titles. And how much play time do you get from your average AAA title? It's no more expensive than the other Matrix premium titles and has the potential to create a lot of additional FREE content by the community that the others don't provide.

The flight sim analogy isn't quite correct as you have X-Plane currently selling for $69.99 USD. Have you looked at some of the premium aircraft there? Payware addons go anywhere from $10 USD all they way up to $85.00 USD and that isn't even including your flight controls. Sure, you can get FSX for a lot less ... if you want to purchase a dead end product ... and people are still paying premium prices for FSX aircraft.

The market will dictate what they can charge. I've yet to see this kind of whining about premium flight sim aircraft and they don't offer a demo either. In fact, you will the script kiddies talking about saving their allowance to purchase the plane.

[Xornox]

ORIGINAL: Panman
Payware addons go anywhere from $10 USD all they way up to $85.00 USD and that isn't even including your flight controls.

I think that nobody buys those 85$ planes without excellent 10/10 reviews. At least I do not.

[sfbaytf]

If you look at Rockpapershotgun it illustrates the problem I have with CMNO. I'm being asked to pay a tier 1 price and get a 1990's presentation. I have Steel Beasts Pro. DCS A-10, Combat Mission Beyond Normandy, Italy and Gustav Line as well As Rise of Flight. Tier 1 games that are deep and complex with top notch production and presentation.

With CMNO I feel like I'm walking into a store with $1000 to buy a new TV and I have a choice of thin, light HDTVs or the old Matrix 1990 standard definition TV-that costs the same as the newer HDTV's.

CMNO was never meant to be presented in HDTV, but the asking price is in HDTV range.

[Talon_XBMCX]

ORIGINAL: Xornox

ORIGINAL: Panman
Payware addons go anywhere from $10 USD all they way up to $85.00 USD and that isn't even including your flight controls.

I think that nobody buys those 85$ planes without excellent 10/10 reviews. At least I do not.

Apparently you don't watch the boards on release day ...

[Talon_XBMCX]

ORIGINAL: sfbaytf

If you look at Rockpapershotgun it illustrates the problem I have with CMNO. I'm being asked to pay a tier 1 price and get a 1990's presentation. I have Steel Beasts Pro. DCS A-10, Combat Mission Beyond Normandy, Italy and Gustav Line as well As Rise of Flight. Tier 1 games that are deep and complex with top notch production and presentation.

With CMNO I feel like I'm walking into a store with $1000 to buy a new TV and I have a choice of thin, light HDTVs or the old Matrix 1990 standard definition TV-that costs the same as the newer HDTV's.

CMNO was never meant to be presented in HDTV, but the asking price is in HDTV range.

And WitP AE and WitE (and I assume WitW) are presented differently than other similar titles 10-15 years old?

No one is making you purchase anything. You can turn around and just walk out of the store ... or do you prefer to stand in the middle of the store and shout about it?

[sfbaytf]

Nobody is making anyone buy anything, but those like myself who've bought a lot of Matrix products in the past are speaking up. There comes a point where people start talking and word of mouth gets around faster that what the marketing folks can spew out.

[bretg80]

I feel sorry for the guys the built this great piece of software and now are watching the game get trashed because of the cost. You should have gone with a different publisher. Oh and by the way, Train Simulator 2014 just jacked their price up and are getting thrashed by the Steam community because of a high priced bug ridden game. When will you publishers learn. If you're going to charge a premium for software it had better be good.

Enough said on pricing for me. I went through this with Command Ops and watched the price fall on that game because of poor sales. I also watched the developer rethink how to sell the game to make it more attractive and he will be more successful in the future. I wish the rest of the wargaming community would wake up and smell the coffee.

Last words on this subject for this game. I'm sure I'll have more for the next game I want that is overpriced at release.

WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING PREMIUM PRICES FOR SOFTWARE THAT IS PRE-RELEASE QUALITY. IF YOU WANT US TO TEST YOUR SOFTWARE THEN RELEASE IT AS A BETA AT A MUCH LOWER PRICE POINT. YOU DON'T HAVE TO SELL IT TO EVERYONE AT THAT PRICE. LIMIT THE DISTRIBUTION, GET YOUR FEEDBACK AND THEN SELL A COMPLETED GAME FOR A HIGHER PRICE. ALSO, I DON'T BUY A CAR THAT I CAN'T TEST DRIVE. WHY DO YOU SELL SOFTWARE WITHOUT DEMOs?

There, I got it out and I feel better. Now I just have to wait for Command to go on sale so I can play this great game. Probably a year or two from now, but just think how much better the game will be by then.

Sorry Devs, you had me at hello, but then you asked for a Diamond and I lost interest.

[dutchman55555]

ORIGINAL: Panman

Come on guys ... this is hardly that much more expensive than a current AAA console titles. And how much play time do you get from your average AAA title? It's no more expensive than the other Matrix premium titles and has the potential to create a lot of additional FREE content by the community that the others don't provide.

It's 150% the price of a current AAA title (in Canada). Higher, if the title you're comparing it to is 6 months or older (outside of the AAA+ titles, which take about a year).

At $90 I'm not looking at the playtime from an average AAA title, I'm looking at AAA+ titles. My current daily game is Skyrim. Purchased for $20, all DLC added on for an additional $25 (God bless Gamer's Gate and Steam sales), 265 hours so far, 15 cents an hours. And I'm far from done, and I am far from the only person to have spent this much time.

For Command to give similar value at its current price it would have to deliver 530+ hours of gameplay. And I think outside of a 1-2% of diehards, no one else who purchases it will come close to that.

It is the most expensive title in the Matrix catalogue, so you're technically correct when you say it is no more expensive than any other.

God bless the community who will provide the free content. But I hardly think this is a reason to jack the price up. Plenty of other products out there have modding and extra scenarios (some even being "niche wargames"), and none of them are priced close to this.

ORIGINAL: Panman

No one is making you purchase anything. You can turn around and just walk out of the store ... or do you prefer to stand in the middle of the store and shout about it?

But what if I want to buy a decent TV? Or an inexpensive TV? Or (sharp intake of breath at my cheekiness) both?

And what if I like the look of the Matrix TV, but am still sane enough to realize that those who pay $1000 have money to burn, or a fervent loyalty that sways common sense? (I suspect Matrix relies on this for their business model.) 5 years ago I could go to stores where Matrix TVs were $800, $600, $500...but Matrix has withdrawn their products from those stores.

And what if we go beyond me, and look at the chap buying his first ever TV? He loves the look of the Matrix one, but think it's insane to pay the price being asked, especially when the salesman won't even turn it on so he can view it before purchasing.

So he walks out of the store, never to consider Matrix as a potential purchase ever again.

[dutchman55555]

ORIGINAL: bretg80

WE ARE TIRED OF PAYING PREMIUM PRICES FOR SOFTWARE THAT IS PRE-RELEASE QUALITY. IF YOU WANT US TO TEST YOUR SOFTWARE THEN RELEASE IT AS A BETA AT A MUCH LOWER PRICE POINT. YOU DON'T HAVE TO SELL IT TO EVERYONE AT THAT PRICE. LIMIT THE DISTRIBUTION, GET YOUR FEEDBACK AND THEN SELL A COMPLETED GAME FOR A HIGHER PRICE. ALSO, I DON'T BUY A CAR THAT I CAN'T TEST DRIVE. WHY DO YOU SELL SOFTWARE WITHOUT DEMOs?

Bought the alpha for The Few recently. No comparison in complexity, but the business model is one to raise eyebrows.

You get access to the current version of the game (quite playable, btw). Constant updates as the developers improve/change it. The ability to give feedback on what you like or don't like. A Steam code for the final product, should they be lucky enough to be successful in their Greenlight campaign (they're quite hopeful).

All for $8.

But I suppose no one in their right mind would like it for that price, no way to value or appreciate it unless it was $40 or $50.

ORIGINAL: bretg80

There, I got it out and I feel better. Now I just have to wait for Command to go on sale so I can play this great game. Probably a year or two from now, but just think how much better the game will be by then.

Personally I think you're being optimistic. I think it will follow the usual pattern and take at least 3-4 years to go on sale, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi guys,

This has really become a general discussion on pricing, like many we have had before. I'm moving it over to the General Discussion forum.

Regards,

- Erik