Price

mustang23 · Post by **mustang23** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:10 pm

With all due respect to the Matrix/Slitherine business model, $50 for a download is too expensive for me.

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 6:19 pm

I agree that its not cheap, at least the game is good! I remember paying too much for bad games

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:18 am

The price is less than £30, and thats the standard price for a new game over here. I know it doesn't convert well to other currencies but we cant do anything about the exchange rate. I'm not sure what to suggest. If you think about the nuber of hours you get out of it - could be anythign from 20 upwards I assume, then it works out very good value for money.

firepowerjohan · Post by **firepowerjohan** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 7:49 am

If the game is a "shaky buggy game, play for 2 weeks and then throw it in the garbage bin" type of game then $50 is expensive for a short time of enjoyment.

If the game is a stable, easy to learn and hard to master and with replayability that makes you pick the game up on several occasions for months or perhaps years to come then $50 is just a bargain!

Which one of these 2 CEaW is you have to decide for yourself by reading and watching information on the forums

JudgeDredd · Post by **JudgeDredd** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 8:31 am

Definitely the latter for me...great game and well done

Looking forward to finishing work and going back to see how my eastern front is looking.

Most of my units have orange and red strength values signifying low effectiveness I think...I wish I had bought more commanders!

The "Effectiveness" rating for these units is definitely on the low side! Making them pretty usless...the only benefit is alot of the Russian units have orange Strength values too!

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 9:50 am

You might want to try resting them Judge. Even moving drops their effectivness down. A few turns R&R and they'll be back in top form!

JudgeDredd · Post by **JudgeDredd** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:08 am

Thx for the advice...but I don't see how I can.

The Red Army approches! If I do rest them, they will be attacked...if I move them away, they will be tired and, eventually, attacked. The only way to rest them is to move them by rail...but then I have to move new troops up....

Trouble is I need to try and tame the giant that is the USSR before the Allies decide to launch in the West!

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 11:11 am

Hmm... ok. Nobody said it would be easy being Germany

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:07 pm

Yeah, its not easy but a lot of fun! My barbarossa attack failed to take Moscow before winter, the Caucasus is still too far away and I am out of oil!!

About oil, I was checking the ressources board in the stats and noticed that there is only the USSR that have oil fields in the Allies. Does that mean that the UK gets all its oil from the convoys?

vypuero · Post by **vypuero** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:10 pm

There is an off-map oil value. So the Western Allies get their Oil from off-map which is essentially the vast amounts of oil the USA has available. In the future it may be linked to convoys but currently this is not the case.

Try to conserve oil by only moving oil units by rail and moving and attacking only when necessary. Don't over-buy oil consuming units, and look to capture the middle east oil - which gives the added benefit of a sounthern attack into Russia, though it will take a long time to get that far.

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Thu Jun 21, 2007 1:15 pm

Good advices, thanks. I have Italian troops in Cairo and Suez canal, I will use them to get the Middle-East oil.

mustang23 · Post by **mustang23** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 3:46 am

The most I've ever paid for a game (w/CD and manual) was $45 for Civ IV. When you have received the acclaim earned by the Civ series, I will consider paying a similar amount for your product.

Post by **IainMcNeil** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 7:27 am

Civ cost £39.99 when it came out here. Prices of games do not vary much based on their perceived quality - the best and worst games will have almost the same price tag and games are always releaased at £29.99 unless they are budget titles. Having said that I think Commander is one of the best games in itrs genre.

The exchange rate is the problem. Not much we can do about that

Redpossum · Post by **Redpossum** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 9:06 pm

Having been one of the first 6 beta testers, I can say that CEAW is a classic which I will play for a long, long time.

You can buy in confidence.

You will not be disappointed.

This game bears the Possum Paw Print of Approval

lesthesarge · Post by **lesthesarge** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 5:04 am

Before I had the pleasure of Ian's generosity I had intended to buy this game.

I was that confident in my wanting it.

Some say digital download should be cheaper. I think most likely don't realise, that a physical copy is likely the actual realistic full price, and that the DD price actually IS discounted.

In recent times (last 3 years at most), I have bought several wargames ranging from 40 bucks up to 70 bucks (Canadian eh). The 40 dollar games have been re releases like TOAW3 though, while the new creations like Battles in Italy are usually the 70 dollar items. So the price of Commander isn't an oddity of course. And it's certainly no War in the Pacific price either

If you want cheap schlock, you're simply going to have to restrict yourself to buying cheap schlock. We've all seen them, the games in the bargain bin or sold at a general type store off a rack of whatever schlock software.

The market for our wargames is what it is. Might as well get used to it. DD is becoming the norm because it works. The prices you are seeing are what are the norm too. They ain't schlock though which is nice.

Stryder · Post by **Stryder** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 12:38 am

if the price was $40 or so purchasing this would be a no brainer and I'd be playing it already but the decision to price it will at $50 will make me wait until the first couple of patches are done and I look at the forum postings then.. $10 is not a big deal, i can afford it, but it made me pause in my eager purchase of the game since it us an expensive price for a PC game.. I wonder how many other people are hovering out here, reading the boards but have not committed because of the price tag..

lesthesarge · Post by **lesthesarge** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 5:54 am

mustang23 wrote:The most I've ever paid for a game (w/CD and manual) was $45 for Civ IV. When you have received the acclaim earned by the Civ series, I will consider paying a similar amount for your product.

I need to add Mustang, that when Slitherine is as big a company as they that made Civ IV, and when they have Civ IV's customer volume, they too likely can charge a lot less per title too.

If they that made Civ IV were to have the same potential client power in numbers, they likely would have charged more as well.

You can usually charge less, when you can generally move a lot more titles.

Day 1 and Civ IV had some of the most screwed up gaffes possible for a supposedly finished product too it should be noted.
To their credit they fixed them pronto.

The actually number of the price isn't meaningless of course, but, the actual value of the purchase is what decides if I buy something or not.

Hey, let's be blunt, you CAN get any game for free if that's the sort of person you are and that's the route that counts hehe.

Some games are worth buying, and some games are not.

syagrius · Post by **syagrius** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:03 pm

When I bought CEaW I used for the first time the DD\CD physical shipment combo. I usually only buy CD's.I am happy I did because I can play the game since last week while the CD copy is backorder

Stryder · Post by **Stryder** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:04 am

my comments had nothing to do with quality of the product or theft, my point was that they may have higher sales if they price the product where people will make the "emotional" purchase rather than charge that little bit extra and dissuade a certain percentage of buyers... classic sales/marketing, if the price was $42.99 and they sold 30,000 copies they would be better off than selling it at $50 and selling 25,000 copies. Even a well established brand with a superior product can mis-price a product...

lesthesarge · Post by **lesthesarge** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:59 am

Guderian wrote:my comments had nothing to do with quality of the product or theft, my point was that they may have higher sales if they price the product where people will make the "emotional" purchase rather than charge that little bit extra and dissuade a certain percentage of buyers... classic sales/marketing, if the price was $42.99 and they sold 30,000 copies they would be better off than selling it at $50 and selling 25,000 copies. Even a well established brand with a superior product can mis-price a product...

I occasionally think along these lines as well. What I have found in the past, is some people simply don't know how to sell as well as others

Not saying Slitherine does or doesn't know how to sell, I AM saying though, I have experienced people and companies in the past that obviously didn't.

One of my fav examples, movies. Ok a movie rental is X dollars, normally 5-6 Canadian dollars around there parts at least.
A rental is not a purchase of course. You would naturally think a purchase is better if they get more out of the process too understandably. But, dvds for sale, are not just a small margin more than the cost of a rental, they are several times the cost of a rental. If dvds for sale were commonly perhaps 6-12 bucks (twice a rental) instead of 25-35 bucks (several times a rental), would sales surge ahead as a result?
Add another detail, if the double rental priced item was sold electronically as a digital download, the source incurs totally different overhead costs. They are now not required to even sell a physical item. They merely need to pay bandwidth.

But no, the movie makers say " we reserve the right to price our product as we see fit".
The market though, clearly has reserved the right to say get bent, I'll download your film free off the net, and you won't make a damn cent.
I have no idea how many take this route, but, I do know it is a VERY active process, and it is not a small number of cheap miscreants either.

Hell, I'd be having a field day buying digital downloads of proper dvd sales if they were 10 bucks instead of 20 and 30 bucks. But as it stands, I can't buy films for 10 bucks as digital downloads, so, I use other methods at my own discretion.

In the end, I think the movie industry is controlled by idiots that can't see the forest for the trees.

Wargaming though, is a much harder target to get a grasp on. In wargaming selling a title that moves 100,000 units is likely a time to open the champagne moment. 100,000 units of a mainstream game is likely a disaster though.
Pricing a wargame probably doesn't follow normal processes and methods.
I think fussing over whether a wargame is 40 50 or 60 bucks is probably pointless. The creater decided they needed that much, and you either like their game or not. If it's worth 40 bucks to you, it's likely worth 70 bucks as well.

When I think of all the things people routinely spend money on, 70 bucks is just 70 bucks. You just have to decide, do you want the damn game? I've known people that will blow 70 bucks at a Casino with zero regret. I know people that will drop 70 bucks on dinner out (even I have done this). 70 bucks at the movies. 70 bucks at the sports game of choice. I spend about 70 bucks on family groceries in a week too.
Thing is, we all seem able to find 70 bucks when we want it. So again, ask yourself, do you want the game?

I still can't wrap my head around how sooooo many people have dropped 800 bucks on a PS3 with almost no regret.
But, people will buy what they want.