Slitherine

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan
Now, those guesses are mere pricing, not what the game is worth to dedicated players! Your term "reasonable person," while simple enough is rather hard to define. It is quite clear a number of dedicated players would (gladly) trade-in their spouse and/or mortgage the house for a new expansion pack!

Regards,
Feltan

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan
Now, those guesses are mere pricing, not what the game is worth to dedicated players! Your term "reasonable person," while simple enough is rather hard to define. It is quite clear a number of dedicated players would (gladly) trade-in their spouse and/or mortgage the house for a new expansion pack!

Regards,
Feltan

I'd have to say that my definition of "a reasonable person" does not include those who would morgage their wives and sell their houses for AE. If WITP has sold 7500 copies, we've really only heard from about 500 "owners" on this forum..., what about the rest? How much those 7,000 would be willing to pay is a really big question for Matrix in their pricing decision..., and they don't seem to be saying much. If I was guessing, I'd say about $35 bucks..., about half the cost of the game itself. But I'm just pulling that number "out of the air" based on my own thinking. Maybe someone should post a poll...

quote:

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan
Now, those guesses are mere pricing, not what the game is worth to dedicated players! Your term "reasonable person," while simple enough is rather hard to define. It is quite clear a number of dedicated players would (gladly) trade-in their spouse and/or mortgage the house for a new expansion pack!

Regards,
Feltan

I'd have to say that my definition of "a reasonable person" does not include those who would morgage their wives and sell their houses for AE. If WITP has sold 7500 copies, we've really only heard from about 500 "owners" on this forum..., what about the rest? How much those 7,000 would be willing to pay is a really big question for Matrix in their pricing decision..., and they don't seem to be saying much. If I was guessing, I'd say about $35 bucks..., about half the cost of the game itself. But I'm just pulling that number "out of the air" based on my own thinking. Maybe someone should post a poll...

Nah, I don't think the price will be determined by voting.

In fact, the AE design/dev team will also have little to no input on the price (we gave some input almost 2 years ago, and that input has not changed since).

quote:

If WITP has sold 7500 copies, we've really only heard from about 500 "owners" on this forum...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Terminus

And how many times have we said this, without effect? Quite a few...

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl
I was just hoping to get some of them to come "out of the woodwork" and express an opinion.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Feltan
Also, and I simply don't know this because I haven't been reading a lot of these threads, will the expansion be stand alone or require WiTP original to play?

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

They've said it will require the original to play. While the original price of WITP was about $70, I believe I saw the download price offered for $50+ dollars currently. Maybe that's a sale price, I don't know.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

For me personally...anything over $400 and I would have to do a serious cost benefit analysis. Either that or postpone my next computer upgrade for another year. Under $400 I think my demand is pretty inflexible enough that I would have to buy it. I'd just have to cut back on a few other luxuries. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

So you would pay five times as much for an "upgrade package" as you did for the original game? That certainly shows a lot of faith in the new design team. Maybe I should re-phrase the question...

quote:

How much would a "reasonable person" consider "within reason" for the AE expansion package?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
I know of no government regulations which say a company is only allowed to sell its product for a marginal profit (but who knows in our society). If a company creates something good then it should be rewarded for it. It should be able to sell it for whatever price it thinks it can get for its product. I know of no regulations which say that everyone should be able to afford a product. Of course that doesn't mean that there is not more profit to be made in making a product affordable by a larger number of people. Also it doesn't mean that a company may decide on its own that it wants to make the product available to more people by marking the price for less than what it could otherwise expect to get for the product.

This was the area I was trying to explore...., how much should they "think" they can get? Very few people have responded with a "price they'd be willing to pay"..., and most of them (like you and I and and "witpqs") have a full row of stars beneath our names. What about the other 7-8000 WITP owners? The ones that rarely/never post on the forum? They bought the game, so they would seem to be "reasonable people" (they know a good thing when they see it). I was hoping a few of them might respond and give Matrix an idea of what "the silent majority" were thinking.

As for having "faith" in the design team, my faith is that if there are any bugs, the design team will stay true to its record and try to quash whatever bugs appear in further fixes. WITP has an excellent record of support as far as I am concerned.

Which "design team"? The guys from 2by3 who "bailed out" several years ago (but still get a royalty)..., or the "volunteers" who've provided the last several patches (and comprise some of the AE Team)? Hopefully you mean the second group, as AE certainly seems to qualify as "excellent support".

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ORIGINAL: witpqs

Hey Mike, I'm curious. Where do those sales figures for WITP come from?

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

Yes, I mostly mean the current design team. However, by turning over code and such to the current design team Matrix and 2by3 have not "bailed out" on the game in my book. "Bailing out" would be completely leaving the game where it is, not giving a @#$%& and not giving gamers access to the source code to improve it. Some companies are very stingy about giving access to game code. And 2by3 Games is pretty much just 3 guys who are currently working on other projects.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress
I know of no government regulations which say a company is only allowed to sell its product for a marginal profit (but who knows in our society). If a company creates something good then it should be rewarded for it. It should be able to sell it for whatever price it thinks it can get for its product. I know of no regulations which say that everyone should be able to afford a product. Of course that doesn't mean that there is not more profit to be made in making a product affordable by a larger number of people. Also it doesn't mean that a company may decide on its own that it wants to make the product available to more people by marking the price for less than what it could otherwise expect to get for the product.

This was the area I was trying to explore...., how much should they "think" they can get? Very few people have responded with a "price they'd be willing to pay"..., and most of them (like you and I and and "witpqs") have a full row of stars beneath our names. What about the other 7-8000 WITP owners? The ones that rarely/never post on the forum? They bought the game, so they would seem to be "reasonable people" (they know a good thing when they see it). I was hoping a few of them might respond and give Matrix an idea of what "the silent majority" were thinking.

As for having "faith" in the design team, my faith is that if there are any bugs, the design team will stay true to its record and try to quash whatever bugs appear in further fixes. WITP has an excellent record of support as far as I am concerned.

Which "design team"? The guys from 2by3 who "bailed out" several years ago (but still get a royalty)..., or the "volunteers" who've provided the last several patches (and comprise some of the AE Team)? Hopefully you mean the second group, as AE certainly seems to qualify as "excellent support".

*

quote:

ORIGINAL: bradfordkay

Naw, beer is healthy. The biofuels are not. You're still being "green" playing WITP and drinking the beer, as long as the beer was brewed locally.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

quote:

ORIGINAL: Mike Scholl

quote:

ORIGINAL: Gary Childress

For me personally...anything over $400 and I would have to do a serious cost benefit analysis. Either that or postpone my next computer upgrade for another year. Under $400 I think my demand is pretty inflexible enough that I would have to buy it. I'd just have to cut back on a few other luxuries. What can I say, I'm a glutton for punishment.

So you would pay five times as much for an "upgrade package" as you did for the original game? That certainly shows a lot of faith in the new design team. Maybe I should re-phrase the question...

I would indeed if that were the price Matrix asked for. Of course I would hope that it would be cheaper. I thought the question had moved to how much Matrix would be able to get for the game. My apologies for misreading it.

quote:

How much would a "reasonable person" consider "within reason" for the AE expansion package?

If you put it that way, I'm not a mind reader (and assume no one else is either) and don't know what others would consider "reasonable". I only know how much is reasonable in my book and I consider myself a "reasonable" person. I assume "reasonable" would, likewise, factor in such things as how much would people be willing to pay for it. If a for profit organization manages to sell something it produces for an incredible profit then I would say more power to them. It simply means that they have found something that others truly value. Maybe other gaming companies will take note and say, "wow, maybe we ought to try to produce something like that too." Then the cost will certainly come down when competitors enter the market. Maybe more companies will focus on turn based strategy games and less of their resources on role playing and personal shooter games. I've been through the gaming isle of more than a few retail stores and have to say that TBS games seem to be pretty few and far between when compared to other games.

I know of no government regulations which say a company is only allowed to sell its product for a marginal profit (but who knows in our society). If a company creates something good then it should be rewarded for it. It should be able to sell it for whatever price it thinks it can get for its product. I know of no regulations which say that everyone should be able to afford a product. Of course that doesn't mean that there is not more profit to be made in making a product affordable by a larger number of people. Also it doesn't mean that a company may decide on its own that it wants to make the product available to more people by marking the price for less than what it could otherwise expect to get for the product.

I can only hope that the proceeds of AE will go in two basic directions:

1. Some of it will go toward further development of a profitable game (ie. WITP II).

2. Some of it will go into the pockets of all those involved in improving the game as a reward for their dedication and commitment.

As for having "faith" in the design team, my faith is that if there are any bugs, the design team will stay true to its record and try to quash whatever bugs appear in further fixes. WITP has an excellent record of support as far as I am concerned.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Theopolis

I have enjoyed many hours of WITP, but I am not sure I am willing to pay a full game price for and expansion unless they bother to improve the terrible looking fonts in the information pop-up panels.  Sure, the improvements are great, but the game looks dated.  I am wondering why it is such a technical hurdle for them to modernize the graphics.  Year 2008 is upon us, and this game looks ten years old. 

quote:

ORIGINAL: William Amos

If we need the original game and if we are only charged the eqivalent of an add on rather than a full price. (Id go as high was $50 but more than that would be a bit much) I can see getting Admiral's edition.

 

If they plan to charge as much as the original I dont think I would get it. A completely revamped game yes and upgraded game no.