|
Alchenar -> RE: Pricing Suggestion (9/27/2013 11:30:17 PM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Banquet
I'm interested in Astronomy and bought some planetarium software to display the night sky on my computer. It's very detailed and cost me £250 (Starry Night Pro Plus)
I also like photography, and purchased Photoshop CS5 for about £600
I like making videos and Sony Vegas editing software costs me about £500
I like wargaming, including modern air/naval combat, and bought Command for £65
Does any of the software above have more 'data' or 'programming' or 'code' than normal priced games such as GTA V, EUIV, or HOI3? Probably not. It seems to me they are more expensive because there is a relatively small pool of people who can provide the knowledge to create the software, and because there is a relatively small potential number of buyers. I wish there were more people interested in software like this because then I would have to pay less for it, but I am mostly just grateful that there are people making the software at all.
I think there's another problem here, which is that wargamers (especially the ones here) have a bad habit of fetishising the 'one big wargame' that tries to be and do everything. You see it right here in this thread with people just declaring that COMMAND is better than Combat Mission because it is 'bigger', without any real appreciation of how that translates into depth in gameplay (I'd say they're probably about equal. It's just that the 'board' your units are playing on has a different colour base). It's the kind of attitude that results in ridiculous situations whereby WitE will roll attacks for every single rifle squad in a Corps v Corps battle, but all that actually matters is whether you hit 2:1 strength because most of the effects of combat kick in the retreat phase.
It's an attitude that results in developers spending 4-5 years and all their money trying to build that 'one big game' and then if it turns out to be junk it doesn't even matter because they can't change it and they still need to charge $100 to squeeze every little penny out of the early adopters who would buy the game at any price because otherwise they'll go bust.
The fact that Unity of Command, basically the successful modern indy wargame is what it is, is because the developers were smart: they kept their focus tight, their game small, their UI 21st century, and their costs and therefore price low and they got themselves onto Steam and made a decent pile of money for themselves. It'd probably be healthier for the hobby as a whole if developers made more Unity of Commands and got themselves some financial stability before embarking on their War of the Universe monster projects.
PS. Despite everyone, and I mean Paradox fans, Matrix fans, everyone agreeing that HOI3 is a terrible, terrible game, Paradox people have repeatedly said that it's their most financially successful game/franchise. There's a lot of people out there looking to spend money on a complicated looking WW2 grand strategy game, even one that gets panned by all the internet reviewers that Matrix are so scared of.
|
|
|
|
