Mac Linehan -> RE: Question on the price (6/27/2011 4:57:42 AM)
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ORIGINAL: wdolson Most game companies release their games with an inflated price, support it for a short time, then relegate them to the bargain bin while the game maker goes on to something else. Matrix supports their games longer, basically until interest begins to wane. This is also a different market niche from the mass market game releases. Back when Hasbro bought Avalon Hill, I read an article about why the wargame industry was different from the mass market game industry. The wargame industry is more of a hobby industry. Mass market games are a failure if someone of average intelligence can't learn the basics in a few minutes. A board wargame could take days just to read the rulebook. With a computer wargame, you might spend less time with the rulebook, but it could still take weeks to figure out all the controls and develop something resembling a moderately successful strategy. This is a limiting factor on the market. Most gamers aren't willing to spend the time to figure out the rules. When one of the big game companies like Microsoft or Hasbro releases a game, it's a pretty much a failure if the sales don't get up in the millions within weeks of launch. A game that sells 100,000 is considered barely breaking even. For a wargame, an all time best seller nets about 10,000 sales over a period of years on the market. The high price pays for a game that you'll just begin to feel like you're beginning to master about the time you would delete another game from your hard drive and never play again because you've played every variation and there are no secrets left. Once you feel like you have some mastery of the game, you will still find new things all the time. There are people who have been playing this game every day since it's release who are still finding new things. The game also still has active support and development going on. There is an active beta release up on Matrix's support site right now. no other game company I know of continues to support any computer game like that 2 years after initial release. AE is a different kind of game from a different kind of game company. Bill wdolson - Very well and accurately said, AE stands head and shoulders above the rest. DarrenDF - you will not be disappointed; please take the time to go over the AE forums, that alone will be testimony enough. Hope that you will join us! Mac
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