GrogHeads Forum

I've never been one to bitch about pricing at Matrix, since their business model is obviously working for them. Until now.

As part of the new distribution deal with Ageod, today they announced the release of Pride of Nations - for $24.99 digital, and $34.99 hard copy. Forgetting for a moment that this is a 3 year old game that can be had just about everywhere for $10, the game was only $20 at release 3 years ago.

Could this be a belated April Fools joke?

I've never understood how they price some of their games. Pride of Nations is $9.99 at Gamersgate. The whole Pride of Nations collection can be had their for $19.99.

I have bought almost every Matrix product...but some I just don't need to get there.

Quote from: tgb on April 10, 2013, 02:58:41 PM
I've never been one to bitch about pricing at Matrix, since their business model is obviously working for them. Until now.

As part of the new distribution deal with Ageod, today they announced the release of Pride of Nations - for $24.99 digital, and $34.99 hard copy. Forgetting for a moment that this is a 3 year old game that can be had just about everywhere for $10, the game was only $20 at release 3 years ago.

Could this be a belated April Fools joke?

Yep. And the game is still available elsewhere for $9.99. Hell, you can buy the complete version with all the DLC for $19.99 on Gamersgate.

Meanwhile, Alea Iacta Est has the same higher price point everywhere to avoid bizarre price discrepancies.

Oh, and they've completely pulled out of Steam at the same time. Because they don't like their games being priced down on sales, even though most other devs find they make MORE money at those times.

Higher prices, more restricted distribution...remind me again why this merger was so fantastic?

I often scratch my head, but I can see where they are coming from. Their customers have patience and will wait out more standard pricing models. At the same time, keeping the price of their premium games at the $80 level for years doesn't make sense to me. I would really like to own WitP, but I am not going to pay $80, ever. I would pay 35-40 for it, but they want $80 or nothing. They really do need to update their pricing model, it would likely produce a large number of sales for certain products.

They do need to keep an eye out for a game available at other outlets for much cheaper prices. If thats true, that is very tone deaf of the Matrix marketing person.

Quote from: Swatter on April 10, 2013, 03:13:08 PM
I often scratch my head, but I can see where they are coming from. Their customers have patience and will wait out more standard pricing models. At the same time, keeping the price of their premium games at the $80 level for years doesn't make sense to me. I would really like to own WitP, but I am not going to pay $80, ever. I would pay 35-40 for it, but they want $80 or nothing. They really do need to update their pricing model, it would likely produce a large number of sales for certain products.

They do need to keep an eye out for a game available at other outlets for much cheaper prices. If thats true, that is very tone deaf of the Matrix marketing person.

Yeah, the price of the back catalog is rather insane. I don't think anyone is saying they should just give games away, but when 7+ year old titles are still $50 and up...really? Is anyone still buying in at that rate? In the case of a series especially, offering the older stuff for a much lower cost gives a nice entry point for a new gamer to try out an older version of the system. Some of them are probably going to like it enough that they're willing to pony up for the newer stuff.

I resolved a while ago never to buy from Matrix again.  I hope they enjoy their little corner of the market.

This stinks, does this mean that AGEOD's ACW 2 will be 80 bucks!!.. Actually it seems like Slitherine is more reasonable.. most of their new titles are usually around 39.. not bad for starting prices.

But yes PON was priced cheap and it was a mess when it first came out, but I don't think a lot of people minded because it was AGEOD, and they keep patching and trying to fix their games, in fact I think they just did one for ACW 1 pretty recently..

Matrix on the other side has SPWAW for around 70, and it ain't even gonna run on Windows 7 unless you do some research for the fix, which is kind of unfair to someone who is computer illiterate paying top price for such and old game with no support!

WITP (original) is still at premium price, if your gonna charge 50 dollars for a game then you need to 'support' it.. like give it the same Graphics fix that WITP AE got.. that way people who haven't bought or don't like the detail level of AE, could play WITP, but also enjoy the higher resolution.

Quote from: bbmike on April 10, 2013, 03:07:46 PM
I've never understood how they price some of their games. Pride of Nations is $9.99 at Gamersgate. The whole Pride of Nations collection can be had their for $19.99.

I am mostly OK with their pricing...but sometimes you do have to wonder....

Maximum Football is still listed for $39 download version.  Heck, it was built for XP. 

I have often questioned their pricing as well, but they stay in business, so they must be doing something right.  But kind of strange they would make it a higher price than is available in other places.  Don't get me wrong, I like Matrix, but if I can find the same product cheaper elsewhere, I have no loyalties from that perspective:)

What really irritates me about the Matrix pricing is that they continually rip off us UK customers.

Using PoN as an example the US price is $24.99 (I only know this because of the OP, $ prices are not shown on the Matrix site accessed from here in the UK) the UK price is £21.59 which equates to $33.08. However if I go over to the AGEOD site (which is now the same company) I can buy it for £15.99.

The argument that the older Matrix games are over priced is a good one, even more so when you are being charged an additional 30% for no other apparent reason than being this side of the Atlantic.

I generrally wait for their November-January sale, where most games are 30-33% off. Even then, would not pay $60 or more for a game. In the 1990s, all new games in Australia were 80-90 each, now this is unnacceptable. Slitherine has slightly lower prices.

Wouild really like the decisive campaign games, but will not pay $40 for DD. Come Chrsitmas, should get them for $25 each.

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on April 10, 2013, 05:27:25 PM
I have often questioned their pricing as well, but they stay in business, so they must be doing something right.  But kind of strange they would make it a higher price than is available in other places.  Don't get me wrong, I like Matrix, but if I can find the same product cheaper elsewhere, I have no loyalties from that perspective:)

I was once a staunch Matrix loyalist. And would often spend a few more quid, just to know I had Matrix's level of support behind my wargames collection. But nowadays, they take on titles to fill their stock list, but they don't really provide the same level of support in terms of updates and competitive pricing, and platform diversity.

Take Unity of Command as an example, it's best to source this off the devs direct, they provide instant support, updates that happen as they are released, and not two months later, plus they'll even hand out Steam keys if you want to attach the product to Steam - and go Linux.

Matrix has a place, I have more or less their entire collection up to a about a year ago. But now, I'm reluctant to shell for titles, especially when they seem to be collection fillers, that they want to charge high prices for. Most of the stuff that lands in Matrix's bucket recently has been available elsewhere long before, and is often not as expensive, nor limited to Matrix's serial coded exe install files mechanism.

I'm always strapped for cash to pay expensive for loyalty, and life's too short to wait for Matrix to release updates/patches/DLC expansions when developers are releasing them two months earlier (yes, Unity of Command: Red Turn again).

Quote from: Wolfe1759 on April 10, 2013, 05:57:31 PM
What really irritates me about the Matrix pricing is that they continually rip off us UK customers.

Using PoN as an example the US price is $24.99 (I only know this because of the OP, $ prices are not shown on the Matrix site accessed from here in the UK) the UK price is £21.59 which equates to $33.08. However if I go over to the AGEOD site (which is now the same company) I can buy it for £15.99.

The argument that the older Matrix games are over priced is a good one, even more so when you are being charged an additional 30% for no other apparent reason than being this side of the Atlantic.

Well - the interesting thing is also the fact that at gamers gate the game is £7.99 for a uk buyer. Gamersgate also dont seem to feel the need to add the 20% tax that matrix do. I have always wondered about this as its not something that steam do. Of course it could be that they are not adding it explicitly - but then that just makes it 20 % cheaper again. It seems an oddly inconsistent way of charging when apparently sellers seem to make up their own mind as to whether they need to charge it.

In any case this is the answer to what seems to be at play here...

Hi guys,

nobody has the right to sell the games any more except us. We own them exclusively now. We are the only place it can be legitimately bought. All other sellers have been contacted and asked to remove the games from sale. If we allow others to sell it will be at the same price as us. However it takes time for the hundreds of stores that Paradox licensed it to to be contacted, respond and remove the games. Going forwards you wont be able to get Ageod games anywhere except direct from us so there will be no price discrepancy, but it is not something that we can fix overnight.

It is true that Paradox sold these games at ridiculous prices on Steam and Gamer's gate but that's a thing of the past that will never happen again. These are massive games and justify a sensible price point. We can;t fix the mistakes from the past but we can make sure going forwards it all works.

I pretty much agree with the logic of that and it seems to me that was essentially the cause of the break up. Seems to me paradox's business model seems to consist soley of a flog em cheap and they will buy whether they want them or not mentalilty. Which may work for them on a larger scale but not for the developers concerned. Second niche wargame company to get burned by a collaboration with paradox.

I simply think a lot of people are unrealistic about the price that can be charged for games like these and make it actually possible to continue to produce them. I doubt Matrix ever sell more than 10,000 total for any of their games - when you look at something like PON which takes at least a year to produce even if they hit that peak sales number at 15 $ a go that only nets them 150,000 $ for the game - take away production costs and the need to support three guys doing it (think thats correct) and they are on the line as to whether its worthwile going do something completely different. When you throw in that under paradox likely half those sales were made at a price a fraction of the original cost of even $15 then its even worse.

Quote from: spelk on April 11, 2013, 02:55:57 AM
Take Unity of Command as an example, it's best to source this off the devs direct, they provide instant support, updates that happen as they are released, and not two months later, plus they'll even hand out Steam keys if you want to attach the product to Steam - and go Linux.

What?  Let me get this straight - there is a Linux version available if you buy from the devs or Steam, but not if you buy from Matrix?

Quote from: Huw the Poo on April 11, 2013, 05:10:24 AM
What?  Let me get this straight - there is a Linux version available if you buy from the devs or Steam, but not if you buy from Matrix?

You'll have to not hold me to this, because I haven't tried the Linux version of Steam yet, but from what I gather, your Steam key for Unity of Command will transfer over to the Linux Steam client.

Over at the UoC forums (http://unityofcommand.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=1651), Tomislav responded to a users problem with Steam/Linux demo version with:

Quote
I think your best bet is to buy the game from our site. Download the windows version and you can use it with Wine immediately.

You also get a Steam key for whenever linux is sorted out.

I will be fixing the issues with 64-bit linux distros as soon as I get the DLC out to testers. Just a few people reported issues, but of course our goal is to get everybody sorted out   

I sort of inferred that this would mean your PC/Steam key would work on the Linux/Steam client. I'm not sure though. I might be reading it wrong. I think if you buy direct from the UoC devs, then they'll probably see you right, whatever platform you want to install it on.

I don't know whether Matrix supply an install for Linux systems, but I'd doubt it. I transferred my Matrix bought Unity of Command over to a Steam version so I could get at the Red Turn DLC before Christmas. The Unity of Command devs, Tomislav in particular was very helpful in making the transition happen for me.

Well I just looked for myself, and it's true: Unity of Command is available for Linux on Steam, but not from Matrix, who are only selling Windows and Mac versions.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 03:38:58 AM
Hi guys,

nobody has the right to sell the games any more except us. We own them exclusively now. We are the only place it can be legitimately bought. All other sellers have been contacted and asked to remove the games from sale. If we allow others to sell it will be at the same price as us. However it takes time for the hundreds of stores that Paradox licensed it to to be contacted, respond and remove the games. Going forwards you wont be able to get Ageod games anywhere except direct from us so there will be no price discrepancy, but it is not something that we can fix overnight.

It is true that Paradox sold these games at ridiculous prices on Steam and Gamer's gate but that's a thing of the past that will never happen again. These are massive games and justify a sensible price point. We can;t fix the mistakes from the past but we can make sure going forwards it all works.

Do you have a link to that?

Quote from: Greybriar on April 11, 2013, 07:34:15 AM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 03:38:58 AM
Hi guys,

nobody has the right to sell the games any more except us. We own them exclusively now. We are the only place it can be legitimately bought. All other sellers have been contacted and asked to remove the games from sale. If we allow others to sell it will be at the same price as us. However it takes time for the hundreds of stores that Paradox licensed it to to be contacted, respond and remove the games. Going forwards you wont be able to get Ageod games anywhere except direct from us so there will be no price discrepancy, but it is not something that we can fix overnight.

It is true that Paradox sold these games at ridiculous prices on Steam and Gamer's gate but that's a thing of the past that will never happen again. These are massive games and justify a sensible price point. We can;t fix the mistakes from the past but we can make sure going forwards it all works.

Do you have a link to that?

about 7 or 8 down

Quote from: Greybriar on April 11, 2013, 07:34:15 AM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 03:38:58 AM
Hi guys,

nobody has the right to sell the games any more except us. We own them exclusively now. We are the only place it can be legitimately bought. All other sellers have been contacted and asked to remove the games from sale. If we allow others to sell it will be at the same price as us. However it takes time for the hundreds of stores that Paradox licensed it to to be contacted, respond and remove the games. Going forwards you wont be able to get Ageod games anywhere except direct from us so there will be no price discrepancy, but it is not something that we can fix overnight.

It is true that Paradox sold these games at ridiculous prices on Steam and Gamer's gate but that's a thing of the past that will never happen again. These are massive games and justify a sensible price point. We can;t fix the mistakes from the past but we can make sure going forwards it all works.

Do you have a link to that?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3303077
As was said - about 8 down.

This whole "bargain shopping" mentality that many of us in the Wargaming niche possess, has the potential to kill off the wargame development that we so love.

Do I agree that paying $50-80 for a five year old game is a bit excessive? Yes.

Do I think paying $19.99 for a new wargame is a good thing for the industry as a whole? No.


It takes serious financial investment to produce wargames, and an acceptable profit in order to want to continue to make them. Personally, I'm surprised that the cost of computer wargames hasn't gone up instead of down in the past twenty years. I can't see that many new wargamers are coming into the fold, but maybe there are?

At any rate, I'm willing to pay at least $50 for a wargame these days. What matters to me is that the developers who create the games I love make a nice fat profit so that they want to continue making more. IMO, this whole "Wal-Mart" way of shopping for wargames will ultimately hurt us.

Hell, I already have more wargames than I'll ever be able to play before I die. but I keep buying them because I like to see what the developers are doing with the genre as time moves along.

QuoteIMO, this whole "Wal-Mart" way of shopping for wargames will ultimately hurt us.

+1

BUT...Matrix should make demos available if they want our money...Distant Worlds is certainly a great game but I'm not sure if it is my style...I won't shell out my hard earned money without knowing how this game plays...

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 11:09:09 AM

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3303077
As was said - about 8 down.

Thanks. I knew I'd read it before...somewhere.

Quote from: Slick Wilhelm on April 11, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
This whole "bargain shopping" mentality that many of us in the Wargaming niche possess, has the potential to kill off the wargame development that we so love....

....At any rate, I'm willing to pay at least $50 for a wargame these days. What matters to me is that the developers who create the games I love make a nice fat profit so that they want to continue making more. IMO, this whole "Wal-Mart" way of shopping for wargames will ultimately hurt us....

Wargames are a niche product--there just isn't much of a demand for them. If we don't support the companies that make them, we can look forward to playing the types of games that sell more copies. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer not to have a steady diet of First Person Shooters.

Quote from: Slick Wilhelm on April 11, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
This whole "bargain shopping" mentality that many of us in the Wargaming niche possess, has the potential to kill off the wargame development that we so love.

Do I agree that paying $50-80 for a five year old game is a bit excessive? Yes.

Do I think paying $19.99 for a new wargame is a good thing for the industry as a whole? No.


It takes serious financial investment to produce wargames, and an acceptable profit in order to want to continue to make them. Personally, I'm surprised that the cost of computer wargames hasn't gone up instead of down in the past twenty years. I can't see that many new wargamers are coming into the fold, but maybe there are?

At any rate, I'm willing to pay at least $50 for a wargame these days. What matters to me is that the developers who create the games I love make a nice fat profit so that they want to continue making more. IMO, this whole "Wal-Mart" way of shopping for wargames will ultimately hurt us.

Hell, I already have more wargames than I'll ever be able to play before I die. but I keep buying them because I like to see what the developers are doing with the genre as time moves along.

Well, yes and no. I agree that if you only buy games when they are deeply discounted you are probably doing more harm than good to the wargame industry. Games I really want to play I will buy on release day. Full price. Heck, even when I'm a beta tester for a game and get it for free at the end I STILL buy an extra copy to support the work.
That said, there are many games that I would never buy if they weren't deeply discounted. Sometimes these bargain purchases will lead me to buy newer versions of the game at full price. Sales can be a good thing.
One last thought - if you are going to charge premium prices for an old game you better have a good, updated demo of it for me to try.

Quote from: Slick Wilhelm on April 11, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
This whole "bargain shopping" mentality that many of us in the Wargaming niche possess, has the potential to kill off the wargame development that we so love.

Do I agree that paying $50-80 for a five year old game is a bit excessive? Yes.

Do I think paying $19.99 for a new wargame is a good thing for the industry as a whole? No.

Before Slitherine took control of Matrix there were precious few times games would be discounted. You could typically find a game for $5 less at NWS but other than the annual holiday sale the price was the price.

Slitherine has been able to boost volume by discounting the price, but I'm not sure they're doing themselves a favor in the long run. When gamers know that another sale is around the corner, most will wait it out. The shelf life of, say, Conquest of the Aegean is much longer than Battlefield 3. Six months after its release the shine is off BF3. Six months after CotA was released many gamers were just getting into the heart of it.

It's not my company and nobody has asked me what I thought, but I suspect the long term effect of this new marketing strategy will produce less revenue.

So, let's see...

Reducing the number of places where the games are available is apparently a good idea. We won't try to just harmonize prices across stores, we'll just have it removed from larger storefronts that have more customers coming to them...

...at the same time, we'll try to get Panzer Corps out there via Steam Greenlight, because we want a larger audience to see it.

Consistency, anyone? Are they making this up as they go?


Is pricing wrong on new games? Absolutely not. But the insane prices of their back catalog make absolutely no sense, and they don't offer a reasonable point of entry for anyone new to a series.
Does every game in the Slitherine catalog belong on every site? Again, absolutely not. But a decent chunk of the catalog could certainly benefit from wider availability.

This whole 'legend' that large scale strategy games just don't interest anyone beyond a small little core has been proven absolutely false by the success of a company like Paradox. Think about it : they have actually managed to not only interest a fairly wide spectrum of gamers in massive and complex titles like Hearts of Iron and EU, they've done well enough that they've really become a solid little mid-market publisher in their own right. Clearly, it CAN work as a business model.

But too many of these little companies cling to what increasingly looks like an outdated business model. Do that for too long and you run the risk of being the next Shrapnel. Their one golden goose (Dominions 3) walked out the door for a broader audience, and Shrapnel may as well be dead man walking. And a lot of these smaller developers are realizing they don't NEED a publisher any more. It's a new age. Games can be self published now, and more and more indie devs are flocking to that. You need to convince these guys why they need you. And debacles like taking nearly 2 months to patch up Unity of Command to the level it was at everywhere else certainly aren't very convincing.

Of course the biggest issue in discussing the issue of wargames sales is that no one has any idea what they are or the profit they make. We only know they work at some level due to the fact they keep producing them. The only indications I have ever seen is a couple of anecdotal slips of the tounge.

Steve at battlefront said it enables them to live reasonably comfortable middle class life styles and in a conversation with someone at matrix they told me that roughly 60 % of their developers are full time. So it works to produce the content on some level - what that level is no one exept the guys who do it have the faintest idea what it is.

I saw a figure from slitherine a couple of years back that there income for that year was around 13 million dollars. Now that didnt seem to bad for what is a cottage industry - even across their entire range. This has been their best year ever according to reports so presumably its up on that.

In any event - in 30 years time when we are all either dead or too blind to see the screen, and when pretty much all those who even know the second world war happened arent playing - wargames will likely not exist in the way they do now. I belie the majority of the base of customers are of a particular age and that aint going to last forever.

The fact is - the number of people under twenty five who could tell you the dates of even the best known war is achingly small.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 05:19:15 PM
I saw a figure from slitherine a couple of years back that there income for that year was around 13 million dollars. Now that didnt seem to bad for what is a cottage industry - even across their entire range. This has been their best year ever according to reports so presumably its up on that.

Slitherine produces some console games, which is probably where that number comes from.

I think the one area that Slitherine is exploring that is good for all concerned is what they did with Battle Academy.  They were able to make the same game play on PC, Mac, and iPads.  You can play multiplayer against anyone who owns the game regardless of platform and the game was not further scaled back to develop the iPad version.  I think it's the trend whether we like it or not.  And frankly many of the finest wargames of the past would play well on an iPad. 

Matrix is free to price their games as they wish, and I've certainly purchased my share. But there are a number of older titles from 2008, 2009 that I would buy today if they were in the $25-30 range instead of $60. I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

Quote from: Bison on April 11, 2013, 05:49:46 PM
I think the one area that Slitherine is exploring that is good for all concerned is what they did with Battle Academy.  They were able to make the same game play on PC, Mac, and iPads.  You can play multiplayer against anyone who owns the game regardless of platform and the game was not further scaled back to develop the iPad version.  I think it's the trend whether we like it or not.  And frankly many of the finest wargames of the past would play well on an iPad.

Couldn't agree more. Cross platform support is rapidly becoming a big, big deal.

It's also nice to see a game that doesn't feature a UI from about 1989.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 11, 2013, 05:19:15 PM
The fact is - the number of people under twenty five who could tell you the dates of even the best known war is achingly small.

There'll be plenty of them able to tell you the best perk loadout for a lone wolf p00ner in Call of Duty 3 though. ;)

Quote from: LongBlade on April 11, 2013, 05:45:59 PM
Slitherine produces some console games, which is probably where that number comes from.

Or their royalties from Deadliest Warrior TV show and beat-em up games ;)

Quote from: Bison on April 11, 2013, 05:49:46 PM
I think it's the trend whether we like it or not.  And frankly many of the finest wargames of the past would play well on an iPad.

Time to set up a petition to get Ron Dockal to dip into tablet development methinks..

(apologies for all the flippant one liners today, especially in this thread... I'm guessing it's the diabetic sugar rush from chocolate cake I've just wolfed down! Naughty spelk! )

Quote from: Steelgrave on April 11, 2013, 05:53:28 PM
I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

I've bought games from Matrix that are so old, or so unloved that even Matrix has abandoned them!! :)

As someone who has ploughed a lot of moolah into Matrix over the few years I've been an aspiring wargamer, you do feel like your being milked for the much older titles. Not in a way that Tiller does, by iterations of the same idea with different rulesets and dressings, but in a way that you're paying full price for games that if they were retail boxes would have hit the bins ages ago, and you'd probably see them on some Abandonia web site, or Gog.com.

If you have a loyal wargamer who wants to throw money at you, surely it would be better to invest more in the future, than just try to milk them of your aging creaking often unsupported back catalogue?

I'd love to give Matrix money for new wargame development. Lock n Load is already sold as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want to buy from them is a game that come out two years ago for full price (Pride of Nations). Rather than sucking existing titles into their range, and holding prices high, fund new development, bring the indies into your fold and support them. Vic Reijkersz being a good example. More of him. More games like his. etc.

Quote from: spelk on April 12, 2013, 06:25:30 AM

Quote from: Steelgrave on April 11, 2013, 05:53:28 PM
I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

I've bought games from Matrix that are so old, or so unloved that even Matrix has abandoned them!! :)

As someone who has ploughed a lot of moolah into Matrix over the few years I've been an aspiring wargamer, you do feel like your being milked for the much older titles. Not in a way that Tiller does, by iterations of the same idea with different rulesets and dressings, but in a way that you're paying full price for games that if they were retail boxes would have hit the bins ages ago, and you'd probably see them on some Abandonia web site, or Gog.com.

If you have a loyal wargamer who wants to throw money at you, surely it would be better to invest more in the future, than just try to milk them of your aging creaking often unsupported back catalogue?

I'd love to give Matrix money for new wargame development. Lock n Load is already sold as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want to buy from them is a game that come out two years ago for full price (Pride of Nations). Rather than sucking existing titles into their range, and holding prices high, fund new development, bring the indies into your fold and support them. Vic Reijkersz being a good example. More of him. More games like his. etc.

Ugly that they are, Tiller still patches all his older titles.

Your right on Vic and a lot of new titles, reasonable starting prices. Yet on the 'older' side of the catalog, many games with premium and above premium prices.

Quote from: Slick Wilhelm on April 11, 2013, 01:01:03 PM
This whole "bargain shopping" mentality that many of us in the Wargaming niche possess, has the potential to kill off the wargame development that we so love.

Do I agree that paying $50-80 for a five year old game is a bit excessive? Yes.

Do I think paying $19.99 for a new wargame is a good thing for the industry as a whole? No.

DOOM!!1

Quote from: spelk on April 12, 2013, 06:25:30 AM

Quote from: Steelgrave on April 11, 2013, 05:53:28 PM
I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

I've bought games from Matrix that are so old, or so unloved that even Matrix has abandoned them!! :)

As someone who has ploughed a lot of moolah into Matrix over the few years I've been an aspiring wargamer, you do feel like your being milked for the much older titles. Not in a way that Tiller does, by iterations of the same idea with different rulesets and dressings, but in a way that you're paying full price for games that if they were retail boxes would have hit the bins ages ago, and you'd probably see them on some Abandonia web site, or Gog.com.

If you have a loyal wargamer who wants to throw money at you, surely it would be better to invest more in the future, than just try to milk them of your aging creaking often unsupported back catalogue?

I'd love to give Matrix money for new wargame development. Lock n Load is already sold as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want to buy from them is a game that come out two years ago for full price (Pride of Nations). Rather than sucking existing titles into their range, and holding prices high, fund new development, bring the indies into your fold and support them. Vic Reijkersz being a good example. More of him. More games like his. etc.

Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM

Quote from: spelk on April 12, 2013, 06:25:30 AM

Quote from: Steelgrave on April 11, 2013, 05:53:28 PM
I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

I've bought games from Matrix that are so old, or so unloved that even Matrix has abandoned them!! :)

As someone who has ploughed a lot of moolah into Matrix over the few years I've been an aspiring wargamer, you do feel like your being milked for the much older titles. Not in a way that Tiller does, by iterations of the same idea with different rulesets and dressings, but in a way that you're paying full price for games that if they were retail boxes would have hit the bins ages ago, and you'd probably see them on some Abandonia web site, or Gog.com.

If you have a loyal wargamer who wants to throw money at you, surely it would be better to invest more in the future, than just try to milk them of your aging creaking often unsupported back catalogue?

I'd love to give Matrix money for new wargame development. Lock n Load is already sold as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want to buy from them is a game that come out two years ago for full price (Pride of Nations). Rather than sucking existing titles into their range, and holding prices high, fund new development, bring the indies into your fold and support them. Vic Reijkersz being a good example. More of him. More games like his. etc.

Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

Well i'm not to sure on your argument too, we will never know how it will effect matrix sales if they never try a major reduction.

Have you never thought that the reason it remains a "niche" market is because matrix price it out of a lot of peoples budgets. Games are seen by a lot of people as luxuries and that is probably why they will buy cheaper games from Steam than perhaps games they would like to own from Matrix.

I'd like to know how many Panzer generals and their clones have been sold I would imagine it would be pretty high.

I'd say after 5 years a reasonable price reduction would be in order.  Instead of $50 maybe $30 or something like that.  The actual problem I'm starting to have with Matrix is that you are asked to pay a premium for older titles that no longer enjoy developer support.  And even Slitherine in house developed games tend to not have as long term support as other wargaming developers like John Tiller.  Say what you want about the Tiller line of games the reality is that games 10 years old still get updates and support.  That is worth more of a premium on price point then unsupported Matrix/Slitherine titles.

That, my friend Bison, is a very good point.  I am a very loyal Matrix customer and their customer service is the best I have encountered
(looking at you Steam) but something is starting to get out of whack.  I will pay extra for a "unique" product like BFTB any day
but when a girl is ugly and old she can't expect supermodel wages.

Quote from: FlickJax on April 12, 2013, 09:53:53 AM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM

Quote from: spelk on April 12, 2013, 06:25:30 AM

Quote from: Steelgrave on April 11, 2013, 05:53:28 PM
I'm happy to pay full freight for the shiny new game I've been waiting for, but the older stuff....I buy at a bargain or I don't buy.

I've bought games from Matrix that are so old, or so unloved that even Matrix has abandoned them!! :)

As someone who has ploughed a lot of moolah into Matrix over the few years I've been an aspiring wargamer, you do feel like your being milked for the much older titles. Not in a way that Tiller does, by iterations of the same idea with different rulesets and dressings, but in a way that you're paying full price for games that if they were retail boxes would have hit the bins ages ago, and you'd probably see them on some Abandonia web site, or Gog.com.

If you have a loyal wargamer who wants to throw money at you, surely it would be better to invest more in the future, than just try to milk them of your aging creaking often unsupported back catalogue?

I'd love to give Matrix money for new wargame development. Lock n Load is already sold as far as I'm concerned. What I don't want to buy from them is a game that come out two years ago for full price (Pride of Nations). Rather than sucking existing titles into their range, and holding prices high, fund new development, bring the indies into your fold and support them. Vic Reijkersz being a good example. More of him. More games like his. etc.

Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

Well i'm not to sure on your argument too, we will never know how it will effect matrix sales if they never try a major reduction.

Have you never thought that the reason it remains a "niche" market is because matrix price it out of a lot of peoples budgets. Games are seen by a lot of people as luxuries and that is probably why they will buy cheaper games from Steam than perhaps games they would like to own from Matrix.

I'd like to know how many Panzer generals and their clones have been sold I would imagine it would be pretty high.

Well no actually - I think they are niche because not a lot of people want to play them, price has nothing to do with it. Exposure on steam or any where else for that matter wont change it. That is the argument I disagree with. The argument for discounts is that you sell at a lower price but at a much greater volume. My argument is that for wargames the increase in any volume is not going to make much difference and would likely be less than selling fewer games at a higher price. Most wargame companys follow that model (unless they hook up with someone like paradox - which was obviously a mistake) - and I guess being at the sharp end they know what works.

I am not picking a fight I just disagree with your assuption that for wargaming discounts (large ones and permanent) mean significantly more sales - to the point they are worth it.

I really don't begrudge Matrix with regard to charging what they wish for an existing game.  Maybe that's what they need to provide the services and support they do and stay in business.  Or maybe they want to make a few bucks rather than just surviving.  In any case,  we have the best of both words with respect to Pride of Nations. You can purchase from Matrix if you want to support them or you just like their system or you can save a few bucks by purchasing elsewhere.  It's a free country. (Or it used to be a free country.)

Quote from: Johnnie on April 12, 2013, 12:25:31 PM
I really don't begrudge Matrix with regard to charging what they wish for an existing game.  Maybe that's what they need to provide the services and support they do and stay in business.  Or maybe they want to make a few bucks rather than just surviving.  In any case,  we have the best of both words with respect to Pride of Nations. You can purchase from Matrix if you want to support them or you just like their system or you can save a few bucks by purchasing elsewhere.  It's a free country. (Or it used to be a free country.)

Actually they claim to have exclusive distributorship, and will be shutting down other dealers.

I guess, it's the idea that as games age in the catalogue, and their development and playing communities dwindle, reducing their buy-in price, could extend their niche life, perhaps fuel a revival in community play. But charging full whack for really old games, sort of starts to price them out of further purchases. Even for existing wargamers, a more modern title stacked up against an oldie is always going to get more attention, more market share.

The buying window for these old niche titles is long gone. By reducing them a bit, you will attract a few more of your existing wargamer niche to pay for them. I'm not talking Steam sale silliness here, I'm just talking a price gradation of some sort dependant upon the age, developer support and playing community attached to these titles.

You might not pull in new gamers in droves, but you might extend the libraries of your already small but loyal audience.

Quote from: tgb on April 10, 2013, 02:58:41 PM
I've never been one to bitch about pricing at Matrix, since their business model is obviously working for them. Until now.

As part of the new distribution deal with Ageod, today they announced the release of Pride of Nations - for $24.99 digital, and $34.99 hard copy. Forgetting for a moment that this is a 3 year old game that can be had just about everywhere for $10, the game was only $20 at release 3 years ago.

Could this be a belated April Fools joke?

Hi!  Let me say that I have posted many times about this on the matrix forums.   Erik and Iain told me that they know what they are doing and as I consumer I shouldn't question more or less their " business model". So called.   They have no clue really.   I think this is the start of their downfall.

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 10, 2013, 03:37:38 PM

Quote from: Swatter on April 10, 2013, 03:13:08 PM
I often scratch my head, but I can see where they are coming from. Their customers have patience and will wait out more standard pricing models. At the same time, keeping the price of their premium games at the $80 level for years doesn't make sense to me. I would really like to own WitP, but I am not going to pay $80, ever. I would pay 35-40 for it, but they want $80 or nothing. They really do need to update their pricing model, it would likely produce a large number of sales for certain products.

They do need to keep an eye out for a game available at other outlets for much cheaper prices. If thats true, that is very tone deaf of the Matrix marketing person.

Yeah, the price of the back catalog is rather insane. I don't think anyone is saying they should just give games away, but when 7+ year old titles are still $50 and up...really? Is anyone still buying in at that rate? In the case of a series especially, offering the older stuff for a much lower cost gives a nice entry point for a new gamer to try out an older version of the system. Some of them are probably going to like it enough that they're willing to pony up for the newer stuff.

I paid 1.99 for this game.....

Quote from: spelk on April 11, 2013, 02:55:57 AM

Quote from: Grim.Reaper on April 10, 2013, 05:27:25 PM
I have often questioned their pricing as well, but they stay in business, so they must be doing something right.  But kind of strange they would make it a higher price than is available in other places.  Don't get me wrong, I like Matrix, but if I can find the same product cheaper elsewhere, I have no loyalties from that perspective:)

I was once a staunch Matrix loyalist. And would often spend a few more quid, just to know I had Matrix's level of support behind my wargames collection. But nowadays, they take on titles to fill their stock list, but they don't really provide the same level of support in terms of updates and competitive pricing, and platform diversity.

Take Unity of Command as an example, it's best to source this off the devs direct, they provide instant support, updates that happen as they are released, and not two months later, plus they'll even hand out Steam keys if you want to attach the product to Steam - and go Linux.

Matrix has a place, I have more or less their entire collection up to a about a year ago. But now, I'm reluctant to shell for titles, especially when they seem to be collection fillers, that they want to charge high prices for. Most of the stuff that lands in Matrix's bucket recently has been available elsewhere long before, and is often not as expensive, nor limited to Matrix's serial coded exe install files mechanism.

I'm always strapped for cash to pay expensive for loyalty, and life's too short to wait for Matrix to release updates/patches/DLC expansions when developers are releasing them two months earlier (yes, Unity of Command: Red Turn again).

Their Easter egg sale 30% off because we screwed up the dcl on BA but hey f&$k you people who already bought this game and now this is making me like them less and less.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM\
Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

But are they actually selling ANY copies of old catalog products at those high prices? Anyone who is buying them waits until the Christmas sale and buys them at a discount. So how are they ahead by keeping the price points ratcheted up to where they were when the game released 8 years back?

I'm not saying it makes sense to sell them for $5, but a drop from $50-$60 to something more like $30 might mean a few people jump in. And that beats nobody buying it at all.

A lot of the 'old' games are still too expensive during the Xmas sales!...

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 12, 2013, 05:25:08 PM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM\
Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

But are they actually selling ANY copies of old catalog products at those high prices? Anyone who is buying them waits until the Christmas sale and buys them at a discount. So how are they ahead by keeping the price points ratcheted up to where they were when the game released 8 years back?

I'm not saying it makes sense to sell them for $5, but a drop from $50-$60 to something more like $30 might mean a few people jump in. And that beats nobody buying it at all.

Well I know, but thats essentially my point really, ie you dont know if it works, its only a presumption, seemingly logical I agree, on your part. My belief is they sell 80% of the games they are going to sell within a couple of weeks of its release, the rest are just trickle sales and the difference between those trickle sales at one price or another is negligible. As far as I can tell with regard to matrix they do have sales at various points where reductions are given.

Essentially my point goes back to the  fact no one knows the sales figures for their games except them, and secondly that you are critisizing them for not doing things in the way you think it should work - when they are doing things in the way they know works as they are the ones actually running a business from it.

I saw a discussion about the SPWAW game they have on their back catalogue that goes for about 80 bucks I think - which to me, for a game that doesnt run natively under anything newer than XP and  has a max resolution of 800 x 600  is bizarre, but they still sell it at that price. My only presumption can be is thats because yes, they do still sell this stuff - though personally I agree I cant see how - but they obviously must do .

I think part of it is that the wargame market has a limited pool of content. Essentially we are all big kids to some extent so the majority, even if they dont buy on release, will get round to it at some point as we exhaust other content.

I have most matrix games and some of it I have to be honest I bought "just to take a look at it" - not necessarily because it was an auto buy like anything combat mission related would be. Essentially that is what battlefront say aswell, whereas most business models for games is one of a massive buy on release day then wait a while and start discounting - essentially wargames hold their price primarily because they are not subject to the "next big thing" sales situation like say a far cry 3 is. Its a different business model entirely.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 13, 2013, 04:44:34 AM

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 12, 2013, 05:25:08 PM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM\
Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

But are they actually selling ANY copies of old catalog products at those high prices? Anyone who is buying them waits until the Christmas sale and buys them at a discount. So how are they ahead by keeping the price points ratcheted up to where they were when the game released 8 years back?

I'm not saying it makes sense to sell them for $5, but a drop from $50-$60 to something more like $30 might mean a few people jump in. And that beats nobody buying it at all.

Well I know, but thats essentially my point really, ie you dont know if it works, its only a presumption, seemingly logical I agree, on your part. My belief is they sell 80% of the games they are going to sell within a couple of weeks of its release, the rest are just trickle sales and the difference between those trickle sales at one price or another is negligible. As far as I can tell with regard to matrix they do have sales at various points where reductions are given.

Essentially my point goes back to the  fact no one knows the sales figures for their games except them, and secondly that you are critisizing them for not doing things in the way you think it should work - when they are doing things in the way they know works as they are the ones actually running a business from it.

I saw a discussion about the SPWAW game they have on their back catalogue that goes for about 80 bucks I think - which to me, for a game that doesnt run natively under anything newer than XP and  has a max resolution of 800 x 600  is bizarre, but they still sell it at that price. My only presumption can be is thats because yes, they do still sell this stuff - though personally I agree I cant see how - but they obviously must do .

I think part of it is that the wargame market has a limited pool of content. Essentially we are all big kids to some extent so the majority, even if they dont buy on release, will get round to it at some point as we exhaust other content.

I have most matrix games and some of it I have to be honest I bought "just to take a look at it" - not necessarily because it was an auto buy like anything combat mission related would be. Essentially that is what battlefront say aswell, whereas most business models for games is one of a massive buy on release day then wait a while and start discounting - essentially wargames hold their price primarily because they are not subject to the "next big thing" sales situation like say a far cry 3 is. Its a different business model entirely.

Still don't agree I believe the wargame market could grow; it's not just us oldies I was buying wargames when I was 12. It is the wrong mindset to just say it's niche so we cannot sell to larger audiences.

Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 are doing better than ever, yes they are not traditional wargames but it is not a massive jump from this genre to wargames.

May be the Matrix model is damaging the community not preserving it? I do Matrix games but mainly in the xmas sales.

QuoteWarhammer and Warhammer 40000 are doing better than ever, yes they are not traditional wargames

Well, actually tabletop is traditional wargaming, hexgrid maps and counters came after playing with little soldiers on a terrain table :)

Quote from: FlickJax on April 13, 2013, 06:15:27 AM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 13, 2013, 04:44:34 AM

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 12, 2013, 05:25:08 PM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 12, 2013, 09:34:55 AM\
Not sure I get the logic of the age of the game thing in it being cheaper ? I am not sure I understand why it should be cheaper for you just because you didnt buy it at release ? Its still the same game it was when it released so I dont get that as the sole criterea for you expecting to see it cheaper ?.  Other games in other genres get sold cheaper not as some kind of atruistic reward from the publisher for the buyers patience but as attempt to sell to those who may pick it up on a whim or wouldnt have bought it in the first place. They only get sold cheaper because that model works for large volume sales operations. Its patently a model that will never work for niche wargame products as they operate with a ceiling of buyers to start with and then further limited by particular preferences in period or conflict for wargamers.

Not bitching at you, honestly  - just dispute your reasoning about age being an automatic qualifier for a price reduction and the fact you are applying a business model that doesnt work in this market. Sure - they may pick up a few more sales if they halve the price but it is never going to be a steam sale type argument where they may sell a few hundred thousand more with one of their ridiculous price points. I remain to be convinced that model ever works in the wargaming market to the extent some people seem to beleive it would.

But are they actually selling ANY copies of old catalog products at those high prices? Anyone who is buying them waits until the Christmas sale and buys them at a discount. So how are they ahead by keeping the price points ratcheted up to where they were when the game released 8 years back?

I'm not saying it makes sense to sell them for $5, but a drop from $50-$60 to something more like $30 might mean a few people jump in. And that beats nobody buying it at all.

Well I know, but thats essentially my point really, ie you dont know if it works, its only a presumption, seemingly logical I agree, on your part. My belief is they sell 80% of the games they are going to sell within a couple of weeks of its release, the rest are just trickle sales and the difference between those trickle sales at one price or another is negligible. As far as I can tell with regard to matrix they do have sales at various points where reductions are given.

Essentially my point goes back to the  fact no one knows the sales figures for their games except them, and secondly that you are critisizing them for not doing things in the way you think it should work - when they are doing things in the way they know works as they are the ones actually running a business from it.

I saw a discussion about the SPWAW game they have on their back catalogue that goes for about 80 bucks I think - which to me, for a game that doesnt run natively under anything newer than XP and  has a max resolution of 800 x 600  is bizarre, but they still sell it at that price. My only presumption can be is thats because yes, they do still sell this stuff - though personally I agree I cant see how - but they obviously must do .

I think part of it is that the wargame market has a limited pool of content. Essentially we are all big kids to some extent so the majority, even if they dont buy on release, will get round to it at some point as we exhaust other content.

I have most matrix games and some of it I have to be honest I bought "just to take a look at it" - not necessarily because it was an auto buy like anything combat mission related would be. Essentially that is what battlefront say aswell, whereas most business models for games is one of a massive buy on release day then wait a while and start discounting - essentially wargames hold their price primarily because they are not subject to the "next big thing" sales situation like say a far cry 3 is. Its a different business model entirely.

Still don't agree I believe the wargame market could grow; it's not just us oldies I was buying wargames when I was 12. It is the wrong mindset to just say it's niche so we cannot sell to larger audiences.

Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 are doing better than ever, yes they are not traditional wargames but it is not a massive jump from this genre to wargames.

May be the Matrix model is damaging the community not preserving it? I do Matrix games but mainly in the xmas sales.

Fine, I hope it is me thats wrong not you. But I must say I think its also the case that Warhammer IS a massive jump to historical wargaming, there is a reason its a science fiction / fantasy hybrid series that supports games workshop and not one on the napoleonic wars or even WWII which has got to be our most "popular war".

My own TRUE personal story

I was never into wargames on the PC. Always preferring first person shooters or simulations.

Then I came across Red Devils Over Arnhem in Electronic Boutique for something daft like £3.99.

I picked it up and played it. Didn't really enjoy it initially because I didn't know about the genre. Then I found Matrix Games...and my wargaming experience took off.

So - from my perspective, that dirt cheap game created a wargamer.

And THAT is my problem when I hear about this "niche" market. I just get the sense they think there are no new wargamers out there and that they are selling to existing wargamers.

I agree totally with the post before (from whomever) that wargaming will remain niche when they keep their prices high. And I'm specifically talking about older games. THOSE are the games they can throw out on the basis that current wargamers are likely not going to buy them if they haven't already and the only way to get revenue...and NOT just from those older games...is to hook new gamers in. And you'll only really grab new gamers by providing them something that they can take a punt on without thinking they'll lose a lot from not enjoying that experience.

There's more than one reason why the wargaming market is niche - and ONE of those reasons is the publishers are so short sighted it stays niche.

If older games are reduced, they could bring in a very small amount of revenue from that game - but they may well, as in my case, bring in revenue for other games.

When I found RDOA as I said I was not interested in the genre. After finding it and getting help from the Matrix site on how to play and what I was doing, I bought a considerable amount of games from Matrix.

I haven't personally been to Matrix for quite some time, their business model (given my own experience) is non sensicle and their catalogue hasn't appealed to me for some time.

I'm not about to cut off my nose to spite my face - I'll buy LnL Heroes of Stalingrad on release...but I haven't been interested nor bought a game from them for quite some time now.

You can't encourage new people to a new genre of game by selling at full price or likely even half price - there needs to be a hook.

Sometimes I wonder if it's not self gratifying to keep the market niche?

Now I've been inspired to do the personal story thing...

I'm not from a wargamer background, I haven't played loads of board game chit shufflers, I have dabbled in wargames but found them more or less impenetrable for many years. Almost a guilty pleasure, picking up one or two titles (General Lee, Age of Rifles, Microprose stuff), trying to grok them and then failing and just admiring them from a distance. I slipped into RPG's and roleplaying and MMO's for a long time.

It wasn't until I began to lounge in the strategy world, that my fascination with history and wargaming started to twinkle again. Why spend your life, learning Lore from made up worlds, fighting heroic battles with elves, dwarves and orcs, when you can explore history and real peoples lives, real heroes in gaming. Suddenly my admiration for RPG heroes, turned into real life heroes in the past.

So, I went to wargamer.com, I fumbled around with a few Matrix titles, met many of you here, and started my journey, to stick my foot into the door of proper wargaming, and to try and shine the light from within out to many people for whom the genre is often an impenetrable hobby. And so sugarfreegamer.com was born. Turning my attention to AAR's, to explain not only the mechanics and history behind the games, but also the thought processes at play, and most importantly from a layman's perspective.

Wargaming is such a fascinating arena to explore, and we seem to have a devoted set of people who dedicate their lives to re-enacting, replaying historical events and TAKING PART IN IT! Touching History. Learning from play. The rest of the gaming world deserves to see the beauty within! It shouldn't be a locked club house, where you have to take years and years worth of exams to get in. There should be a way into it. The scene deserves new players and their funds and enthusiasm! It deserves new titles, new designers, evolution.

Look at how Unity of Command has lit up the strategy gaming world! This "simple" game, with an accessible interface and highly polished production values has made proper wargaming not only available to the masses, it's actually providing them with a challenge and a reason to delve deeper into the hobby. Opening the market, pricing titles competitively and making them accessible should be the way to grow the hobby, surely? Locking these games up, and hunkering down, maintaining their value over the years in the hope that some dedicated wargamers will fork out new prices for old titles seems a bit short sighted to me. But then I'm no salesman. I'm a dreamer. Looking for real world heroes.

Quote from: spelk on April 14, 2013, 04:13:01 PM
Now I've been inspired to do the personal story thing...

I'm not from a wargamer background, I haven't played loads of board game chit shufflers, I have dabbled in wargames but found them more or less impenetrable for many years. Almost a guilty pleasure, picking up one or two titles (General Lee, Age of Rifles, Microprose stuff), trying to grok them and then failing and just admiring them from a distance. I slipped into RPG's and roleplaying and MMO's for a long time.

It wasn't until I began to lounge in the strategy world, that my fascination with history and wargaming started to twinkle again. Why spend your life, learning Lore from made up worlds, fighting heroic battles with elves, dwarves and orcs, when you can explore history and real peoples lives, real heroes in gaming. Suddenly my admiration for RPG heroes, turned into real life heroes in the past.

So, I went to wargamer.com, I fumbled around with a few Matrix titles, met many of you here, and started my journey, to stick my foot into the door of proper wargaming, and to try and shine the light from within out to many people for whom the genre is often an impenetrable hobby. And so sugarfreegamer.com was born. Turning my attention to AAR's, to explain not only the mechanics and history behind the games, but also the thought processes at play, and most importantly from a layman's perspective.

Wargaming is such a fascinating arena to explore, and we seem to have a devoted set of people who dedicate their lives to re-enacting, replaying historical events and TAKING PART IN IT! Touching History. Learning from play. The rest of the gaming world deserves to see the beauty within! It shouldn't be a locked club house, where you have to take years and years worth of exams to get in. There should be a way into it. The scene deserves new players and their funds and enthusiasm! It deserves new titles, new designers, evolution.

Look at how Unity of Command has lit up the strategy gaming world! This "simple" game, with an accessible interface and highly polished production values has made proper wargaming not only available to the masses, it's actually providing them with a challenge and a reason to delve deeper into the hobby. Opening the market, pricing titles competitively and making them accessible should be the way to grow the hobby, surely? Locking these games up, and hunkering down, maintaining their value over the years in the hope that some dedicated wargamers will fork out new prices for old titles seems a bit short sighted to me. But then I'm no salesman. I'm a dreamer. Looking for real world heroes.

Which is good to hear - but I wonder how much you are the exception rather than the rule. As with Judges story above - its taking one or two personal experiences and extrapolating that across the whole gaming world. I would (I think) like to see wargaming as a much bigger genre. I am not sure how much pricing policy is a bar to this world or whether its merely a lack of coverage or lack of interest.

Unity of Command is a good example - but I make the point that you are again speaking from a position of ignorance (meant in a nice way) - in that you dont know what the sales figures for unity were. One of the few wargames to make it to steam (which I still am not sure how they did that as they didnt go via greenlight as far as  I know) sure - and they seem to be doing ok but I have no idea what kind of sales it racked up to be in a position to say its done wonders for the guys who made it or the genre as a whole.

One thing that is a bar to entry I think is the lack of info on sales - maybe if more devs had an idea of the return on what can be a heavy investment in time and resources then there would be a wider entry into the market and a wider variety in the quality and nature of the games - and maybe then the price.

I do get judges point - but I think the risks and mathematics are different. Discounting can be a valuable tool in a market of 500,000 sales. Doscounting in a market of 10,000 could be a disaster if you use up your sales base in one reduction. I agree some of the matrix stuff could see a reduction.

I fully agree with the reasons you give as to why wargaming is a fascinating hobby - its why I play the games myself - what I am not sure of is the size of the pool of people who would think the same way.

More specifically - something like XCOM or the CIV games. To me those are games that fit the "mindset " of a wargamer - what I dont know is what it takes for someone to cross over to a more detailed and historically accurate game.

Again - look at shenendoah studios who are hiring a couple of extra programmers and an artist. Presumably thats on the back of their bulge iPad game so that seemingly did well enough to prompt that for what could be said to be an outside the norm platform and by definition cheaper game because it was mobile - so may be the market even if just at the simpler end  does have some growth potential.

I really don't get it.

So the pricing thing is about "getting into it". Apparently when you buy something you invest more time into it...and the more you pay the more you are likely to invest time in it

That's a FAIL...I bought WitE and whilst I always want to play it, I just never get round to giving it the time.

So Matrix are asking newbies to the genre by asking them to pay a fair amount of money for a game they might not enjoy. Well...perhaps they'll do what perhaps alot of newbies to the genre do - walk away rather than take a punt on a game. But hold on...Ian is also saying that some games don't suit (PoN being one) a demo. So not only are they scaring away the guy who wants to try the genre by pricing old titles at not such a "take a punt" price, but they're also saying we're not giving you a demo to see if you like it. Even though the demo may entice them in.

Seems to me wargaming is niche because there are people out there that want it to stay niche.

Sorry. I don't get it. If you are going to charge full price for older titles, then give a bloody demo so someone thinking about giving you a ridiculous amount of money for a very old game can decide whether it fits the bill or not.

By the way - my statement isn't specifically about PoN or it's price. I have it and actually like the AGEoD games and was sad to hear of their joining up with Paradox. I hope Matrix do right by them

My "general" beef is with the policy...charge ridiculous price for old games but don't provide demo's ergo scaring away new customers. I've already given my own story and I've enjoyed wargaming ever since finding that bargain bucket item. I don't like this self gratifying view on a niche market. It doesn't have to stay niche - but it will if you don't entice new people to it and rely on your existing clientelle

They are OLD games. Use them to entice people to the genre and make money from your newer stuff. And for the love of god, put demo's out. I know they cost money and time...but what happened to speculating to accumulate?

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 15, 2013, 07:37:00 AM

Seems to me wargaming is niche because there are people out there that want it to stay niche.

Ahh ... maybe thats the crux of the matter. Seems to me sales figures are so closely guarded to avoid competition. As I say - if more knew what to expect going in then maybe there would be more going in. Demos are good tools but I sometimes think they CAN be counter productive - ie they have sometimes convinced me NOT to buy a game I might otherwise had taken a punt on if one werent available.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 15, 2013, 07:59:59 AM
ie they have sometimes convinced me NOT to buy a game I might otherwise had taken a punt on if one werent available.

No honest developer should want someone to buy a game they won't enjoy.

I totally agree they can be counter productive - but only if they are not done properly. If done right, they are a great tool for evaluation.

As for Pon - they are saying there wouldn't be a demo because demo's are counter producttive - and yet there IS a demo for PoN. So the developer thought it would be a good idea.

Regardless...you are absolutely right - if a demo is created in a way that doesn't help someone then it is counter productive. Oh - and it's also counter productive because what you are actually doing is trusting someone to try the demo and make up their mind to buy the product. God forbid they try the demo and decide it's not for them...then Matrix (or any other publishing company for that matter) wouldn't get the money the poor perzson laid out to buy it because they thought it sounded good from reviews, AAR's and yes men on the forums.

So

Provide a demo, there's a chance someone won't buy the game because a) they decide it's not their thing or b) they can't be arsed diving into it or c) the demo is poor and all those options mean 0 bucks for the publisher
OR
Don't provide a demo and let people just make a choice on whether they are likely to waste their money or not.

I know which one fits the business model. I mean - how could any company in their right mind EVER trust a gamer (wargamer or otherwise) to make a decision based on a free cut down version of the game? I mean - they haven't paid anything for it and therefore will not invest enough time to decide whether they like it or not - so they might not buy!

And besides - we can always use the "people invest time in something they have to pay more for" statement.

As I said - I paid what...£60/£70/£80 (can't remember after VAT) for WitE and it's sat on my hard drive begging me to play. That statement, whilst valid in some circumstances, is not valid in all. Who's to say to what proportion it's true or not. But it's certainly not true in my case and that makes me question it.

It would be nice if price tapered down once sales slacked off after a few years.  However it isn't just Matrix, I'd like to buy War Over Vietnam from HPS but it is still $50.

It wouldn't have to be $5 steam sale prices, just a 50% cut would be nice.  Or they could offer very old and low selling games as freebies to people who buy new games.  Buy New Game X and get Crown of Glory (or game 4+ years old) for free.

QuoteI'd like to buy War Over Vietnam from HPS but it is still $50.

+1

Quote from: republic on April 15, 2013, 09:52:37 AM
It would be nice if price tapered down once sales slacked off after a few years.  However it isn't just Matrix, I'd like to buy War Over Vietnam from HPS but it is still $50.

$29.99 at NWS

Thanks Al ! :D

Quote from: republic on April 15, 2013, 09:52:37 AM
It would be nice if price tapered down once sales slacked off after a few years.  However it isn't just Matrix, I'd like to buy War Over Vietnam from HPS but it is still $50.

It wouldn't have to be $5 steam sale prices, just a 50% cut would be nice.  Or they could offer very old and low selling games as freebies to people who buy new games.  Buy New Game X and get Crown of Glory (or game 4+ years old) for free.

It would be nice to see any new thinking like this at all.

Another example : I think it's great that a complete pack of Panzer Corps is being put together. But why on Earth did that idea apparently not occur to anyone for a game like Fields of Glory?

Or (using Fields of Glory as the example again) : Frozen Synapse is set up to primarily sell as a multiplayer title. So buying it gets you two copies of the game. Wouldn't something like THAT have made sense for Fields of Glory? Or go with something like a 4-pack model? Now you have 2 people playing it. Kinda figures that if they like it, and Player A buys a DLC pack, you're probably also going to sell said DLC pack to player B.

I agree completely with what JD said above : wargaming seems to be niche at least in part because everyone goes in to it thinking of it as a niche. New thinking and new ideas are not bad things, but you wouldn't know that if you were going by the moves (or lack thereof) made by wargaming companies. Hell, look at the state of board wargames vs. computer wargames. While the board segment keep coming up with new ideas, their computer brethren just keep stagnating in a pool of decrepit UI designs, horrendous visuals and no originality...all basically just because that's how it has always been.

I would point out that Legion Gold PC is now only $9.99 with a discount on Chariots of War. Of course the lower price is the equal of the iPad version.

As someone fairly new to pc wargaming, the prices of these old games simply stops me buying them. There are quite a few I'm interested in, but when I can go and buy a brand new boxed board wargame, that weighs a ton, and has been shipped halfway round the world for less money than a pc game that has been released for years, then I'll just go with a boardgame.

The few pc wargames I own, are ones I've picked up in Steam sales, and the like, or found cheap in shops. I might buy something new and full price when I have some cash, but those old games at full price will never tempt me to part with money.

Maybe some sort of group buying would work for the market. Take some old games, promise to sell them at X price if Y number of people sign up to buy? It's becoming a common way of purchasing things, and tends to gain momentum, and free advertising from those who want it to succeed.

Maybe even a preorder P500 type system for new games would work to ensure games got off to a good start.

I'll continue to hunt for bargains.

Quote from: weateallthepies on April 16, 2013, 03:39:46 AM
As someone fairly new to pc wargaming, the prices of these old games simply stops me buying them.

Yeah.  It even stops us old timers from doing so, too.

This reinforces whomever pointed out some people evidentally want the niche market to remain niche.   A discounted sale is still better than no sale at all.

Sorry - I rarely do this - but I thought this was worth repeating to prove my point - that some in the market seem fixated on the term "niche" and keeping wargaming there!

This was posted on a thread re pricing on Matrix about PoN (my bold)

Quote
...
These detailed games are never going to sell to a mass market, but they do make money. They have their niche and this is where they need to stay.
...

Iain also said

Quote...
The tail is much much longer on these games and 2-5 years on you can still get significant revenues if you keep faith, support them and don't heavily discount.
...

As long as games are still supported, he sort of has a point. With all the complaints I've seen about Matrix lack of support for older titles, I wonder how well they're following their own model?

I think unfortunately there is some discussion that can be had as to how much support for older titles that Slitherine/Matrix provide for the premium prices they ask for their games.  *I don't mind paying a premium to support developers whose games I enjoy and want to see continue to make games.  That is not the issue.*

John Tiller is the gold standard as far as I'm concerned.  There are games released 10 years ago that still receive patches/updates.

Could be true.

On the other hand - no-one "takes a punt" on a £20 game - especially and old game - with a "not so appealing" interface. People take punts on games at a couple of pounds or maybe a deep sea diver - possibly even a tenner.

Just sayin' - it's hard to entice new blood into the market when the current crop of gamers can get a nice new shiny FPS for the same price.

You and I know the longevity of such games pales in comparison...but I'm talking specifically about getting new blood into the genre - what ARE they doing to get new blood into the genre? By keeping the price of old games high - not enough

So like it or not - they and their mindset are keeping the market niche. By reducing the price of the games, they may not encourage a huge amount of people to the genre - but they are likely to reduce that chance with their current model.

I guess in a few years, over time, we'll find out if they relied too heavily on their current crop of gamers or not.

And I say again - I love AGEoD games - and would buy them at the drop of a hat - AND pay £25-£30 for them - but these publishers NEED to entice new gamers to the genre - and I can't see them doing that charging new dollar for old hat.

The arguments put across by Iain were TOTALLY false in my case.

He stated people invest more in a product they pay more for - and I proved that wrong with Command Ops:BftB (which I bought mainly because they were going to convert HTTR (which they did and I bought) and also because I love the style of game) which I've hardly touched and WitE - which I have hardly touched. Both of which cost me over £60.

He also said selling things cheap achieves nothing (the opposite of the above) and that also is false. As I stated above I bought Red Devils Over Arnhem for a snip in a store, played it, got help, played it some more and liked it. MORE THAN THAT - I found Matrix website and bought considerably more games from them.

He also stated demo's do more harm than good. That is false. BAD demos do more harm than good. Good demos allow choice. By removing a demo option, they are enticing the customer to buy something they might not like rather than show some "honesty" by allowing the customer to try it and see if it's what they're looking for. On one hand (no demo) they are likely to get gamers to buy - on the other (a demo) they are likely to get some of those gamers who might take a punt on it to try it and actually decide not to buy it. And it's disingenuous of him to suggest that gamers would drop something so quickly - especially when we're talking about his hard core customers.

So selling older games cheap DOES get new blood. I obviously can't prove the scale of that - but I am actual proof that it does.

QuoteHe also stated demo's do more harm than good. That is false.

Yes, it is false. I see that on XBL, all arcade games have a demo there and there are demos for most of the retail games as well...it works :)

Quote from: Grimnirsson on April 18, 2013, 02:09:11 PM

QuoteHe also stated demo's do more harm than good. That is false.

Yes, it is false. I see that on XBL, all arcade games have a demo there and there are demos for most of the retail games as well...it works :)

Yeah, I've spoken against demos in the past but companies have gotten the range. They are now quite good.

So now Johan from Paradox is weighing in, and he's being a real douche about it:

QuoteWe based the pricing on what we know usually nets a decent amount of sales, but the game had some problems which made it impossible to turn a profit.

a) It was enormously costly in development, even disregarding the costs AGEOD had before we bought them, we still had to fund another 18 months of development in total on the game.

b) The game had really bad reviews, 70 at metacritic is a kiss of death.

c) Bad word of mouth, due to awkward interfaces, and very slow game-turns.

And when a game can not even sell 10,000 copies in the first 3 months, it does not matter what you price it.

.....In hindsight, the game should have been cancelled when we knew how bad Rise of Prussia was doing, and we saw the risks.

Bitter, much?

PoN should have been my go-to game - Wars of Unification and all that - but I found it to be a Herculean effort to play. Most of you know I'm not afraid to work with a game but there are limits. I can't believe Slitherine, masters of the quick buck, carries this game.

I think most people are really upset because their price is 'higher' than their initial price... 24 bucks isn't bad if the game is in good condition at this time.. You know AGEOD always supports their games for years after release (look at ACW). Unlike other Old High Priced Matrix titles like SPWAW, WITP (non AE), there is no support on them, do not understand their high prices. Slitherine in general for 'new' games seems to be priced more reasonable, not like the Matrix size. I guess the telling point will be how much ACW 2 costs at the starting bell.

I bought this game when it came out for 20, because it was AGEOD.. I haven't really played yet, because at the time it had all those issues.. Again it was AGEOD, I figured some day they would fix it so I really wasn't upset. All this talk about it has gotten me interested in giving it a try.

Quote from: Tuna on April 18, 2013, 03:23:01 PM
All this talk about it has gotten me interested in giving it a try.

phew glad its not just me - im looking for something to fill the time between PBEM turns and the recent discussions here for a game that cost me £4.99 by the way have spaeked my interest. My only issue is its a massive game and theres just 1 half complete tutorial AAR to follow, its read that or just jump in and hope for the best

Let us know how it goes for you, Tuna.

My ONLY beef is the continual "niche market" statements and the seeming determination to keep it that way.

AGEoD's games are well worth the price (if of course you like the theme, scale and the engine) and I don't even mind about the price

WHat I do mind is being treated like an imbecile..."don't worry everyone - we'll stop it being sold everywhere else - reducing your choices - and you can only buy it from us" banged alongside the statement "you just have to trust us - we're the good guys"

meh

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 18, 2013, 03:40:43 PM
My ONLY beef is the continual "niche market" statements and the seeming determination to keep it that way.

AGEoD's games are well worth the price (if of course you like the theme, scale and the engine) and I don't even mind about the price

WHat I do mind is being treated like an imbecile..."don't worry everyone - we'll stop it being sold everywhere else - reducing your choices - and you can only buy it from us" banged alongside the statement "you just have to trust us - we're the good guys"

meh

Yeah, I think this is the second time that when someone mentioned a sale elsewhere Slitherine turned around and had it removed, forget if it was Gamers Gate or where ever, but seemed kind of rude.. Almost like people should keep their mouth shut about mentioning any sales with regards to anything on 'their' catalog.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 18, 2013, 03:40:43 PM
My ONLY beef is the continual "niche market" statements and the seeming determination to keep it that way.

AGEoD's games are well worth the price (if of course you like the theme, scale and the engine) and I don't even mind about the price

WHat I do mind is being treated like an imbecile..."don't worry everyone - we'll stop it being sold everywhere else - reducing your choices - and you can only buy it from us" banged alongside the statement "you just have to trust us - we're the good guys"

meh

yeah - this pissed me off

"These detailed games are never going to sell to a mass market, but they do make money. They have their niche and this is where they need to stay. In their niche they can command reasonable price that makes development sustainable and profitable. They do not need to sell 10,000 units in 3 months to break even. The tail is much much longer on these games and 2-5 years on you can still get significant revenues if you keep faith, support them and don't heavily discount."

Hello, you do know we can see this on the matrix forum yes? - you know you just typed in 'we can shaft them for years on the price if we say its niche' - he does know he typed that in doesnt he?

Quote from: Tuna on April 18, 2013, 03:43:16 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 18, 2013, 03:40:43 PM
My ONLY beef is the continual "niche market" statements and the seeming determination to keep it that way.

AGEoD's games are well worth the price (if of course you like the theme, scale and the engine) and I don't even mind about the price

WHat I do mind is being treated like an imbecile..."don't worry everyone - we'll stop it being sold everywhere else - reducing your choices - and you can only buy it from us" banged alongside the statement "you just have to trust us - we're the good guys"

meh

Yeah, I think this is the second time that when someone mentioned a sale elsewhere Slitherine turned around and had it removed, forget if it was Gamers Gate or where ever, but seemed kind of rude.. Almost like people should keep their mouth shut about mentioning any sales with regards to anything on 'their' catalog.

theres one locked on the PON forum now - a guy has posted quoting cheaper prices elsewhere - its been closed with a witty comment about it not been helpful - oh ****ing really?? then lower your price you twat - quick, quick delete all comments about buying the game cheaper elsewhere then noone will think to use this internet thing to look for cheaper prices theyll just give us money hand over fist

I just checked PoN prices. $25 isn't all that bad if you know what you're getting into.

25$ isn't expensive, even for an"older" game. Ageod said they would still work on it. Even a higher price would have been ok imho. The orginal price was ridiculously low for such a game. I prefer to see Ageod wih Matrix as they believ in their  games which is not was Paradox did it seems. Iain is. Right in the sense that a game like rise of Prusia is unlikely going to interest non-wargamers. Imho, games can be more expensive until a newer game comes out. For instance, i would drop the price of ACW when the new AACW2 comes out this year.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 18, 2013, 11:35:26 AM
Sorry - I rarely do this - but I thought this was worth repeating to prove my point - that some in the market seem fixated on the term "niche" and keeping wargaming there!

This was posted on a thread re pricing on Matrix about PoN (my bold)

Quote
...
These detailed games are never going to sell to a mass market, but they do make money. They have their niche and this is where they need to stay.
...

This is the same sort of nonsense that pops up from time to time on Boardgamegeek in conversations about increasing the popularity of board games. And it's almost always tied in to an implied elitism that 'they' cannot be allowed in because 'they' simple aren't intelligent enough to understand these things as 'we' do. It's complete garbage. And ot just feeds further in to the never ending merry go round. 'We're niche because people outside of our little community aren't interested in what we do...but we don't do anything to possibly entice people from outside of our little community to check out what we're doing'.

I'm hoping that moves like actually releasing a complete bundle for Panzer Corps and expanding simpler games like Battle Academy out to tablets are a sign that MAYBE they're starting to figure things out. But then they shut out any outside sales and viewership of AGEOD stuff and keep spewing the same party line that has ensured they remain in a dark little corner of their own making. Who knows?

Quote from: tgb on April 18, 2013, 02:51:44 PM
So now Johan from Paradox is weighing in, and he's being a real douche about it:

Bitter, much?

You know what? Good for him. He's basically being smacked down by the AGEOD and Slitherine guys as essentially trying to screw AGEOD over. I'd be pissed off, too. Or is he just supposed to smile while being blamed entirely for things?

Yeah I didn't think it was bitter either.  It was an honest post about what he believes went wrong, which is a hell of a lot more than you get from most publishers.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 18, 2013, 03:40:43 PM
My ONLY beef is the continual "niche market" statements and the seeming determination to keep it that way.

AGEoD's games are well worth the price (if of course you like the theme, scale and the engine) and I don't even mind about the price

WHat I do mind is being treated like an imbecile..."don't worry everyone - we'll stop it being sold everywhere else - reducing your choices - and you can only buy it from us" banged alongside the statement "you just have to trust us - we're the good guys"

meh

I respect your opinion but a couple of questions - firstly I am really curious to know just why you think, for example,  a product that simulates the military struggles of 1700's prussia isnt "a niche" and wont remain that way ?

Secondly the guy from paradox mentioned not making 10,000 sales for PON - even at the price it was sold at ? So whilst some have supported him in his posting - essentially it just proves what the guys from matrix are saying. That to make the games worth producing - they have to hold their price for longer than other "throw away" games. Even when paradox sold it at the ridiculously cheap price they did, and it was a new game  it still didnt have a the kind of market you are saying could exist for this product.

Your post is specifically about PoN and mine is not.

I'm talking about wargaming in general

To answer your points specifically though

Wargaming IS a niche market...and it may well remain niche.
I've already gave my own example of how I stumbled into wargaming - so I'm suggesting that discounting older games (much older games?) could get new blood into the genre - and I am proof that it can happen. Sure - that's only one example - but that is exactly how it happened for me. A niche product I wouldn't have bought in a million years (I saw the graphics on the back of the box) sold for - I don't remember - £3.99 something like that. I reckon it's at least a couple of thousand pounds later (maybe more...maybe much more) I'm still buying wargames...all on the back of a £3.99 punt

Regarding your second point - that does not prove discounting the game doesn't work.

One of the reasons I suspect PoN didn't sell the volumes it did wasn't because of price - but because - as always - Paradox threw something out the door that wasn't ready for market. I understand they can't keep funding something forever - but if something isn't fit for market word will get out and it'll bomb. So specificallyabout PoN - I think that's why it didn't sell in vast volumes - even heavily discounted. Forgetting profit for a second - and again specifically about PoN - I would LOVE to see unit sales from release through to the huge discounts. I'd wager (and I'm fully aware it's a guess) that sales went up when the price dived. Because people would be willing to take a punt on a broken product from a good developer for a bargain price - as I did.

So specifically regarding PoN...we have no idea. We do know it was released a mess, word got out, reviews slated it and therefore sales suffered. Still there would've been die hard wargamers buying it on releae knowing what they know about AGEoD and hoping it wasn't as bad as being made out. But I suspect when the price plummeted alot of people who didn't buy would take a punt on it.

I did the very same thing with Sword of the Stars II I think it was. It was released a shambles. I picked it up for a ridiculous price on Steam - even though it was still broke - because I was aware it was going to be fixed and I wasn't losing much

I know companies are n't going to make their money from heavily discounting games - and I'm not suggesting they should - especially monster games (WitE, Command Ops). But they will never attract new wargamers at that price. They'll never turn someone into a wargamer at that price.

What I'm suggesting is some of these wargaming companies reduce the price of older titles to try and encourage people in. I can only give my own situation as I mentioned previously and as I also mentioned, I'm not saying that's the norm...what I'm saying is they said demos don't work - and they do. They also said charging more for something makes people put more in - and I'm saying I'm also proof that is not the case.

I'm not suggesting PoN or any other half decent product be heavily discounted - or even discounted at all. I'm saying there's more these companies can do to to bring new wargaming blood into the genre - and keeping old game prices artificially high because it's the only place you can get it doesn't encourage that.

Throw in no demos - and it's a double whammy. The more niche it is, the more they have to ask for these games and the longer they have to do so.

I don't work in marketing or retail. I never have done. I'm speaking as a customer who is the product of exactly what Matrix suggested doesn't work.

Big post - I know.

Actually - I'm not that into this. I didn't like the tone of Iain's or Erics post tbh - and that got my back up. And I am totally fed up with hearing about the niche market. To be fair, I expect they get fed up talking about it!

At the end of the day - their games are reasonably priced - for the most part. They're older titles? Not so.

Somone here mentioned if ACW2 comes out, reduce the price of ACW. That's kind of cool - and I'm pretty sure they do that - but not to the extent I think they should. There are still alot of people will hold off WitP because of the price. WitP - WHICH has a sequel out - is priced at £48.99 which turns into - including tax - turns into £64.74. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

They may have an argument about playing hours and cost. But still...£65 for a product which has a sequel out - a better game with more detail and support - for £85? Makes no sense - unless...perhaps they look at it another way??

Perhaps they keep them high so that people won't buy that unsupported older game - but instead buy the newer one - which is only a little bit more expensive? Keep old product A at a price which is close to new product B and most people would likely opt for new product B...right?

Who in their right mind is going to buy WitP at £65 when WitP:AE sits there for £20 more? Not many...but knock WitP down to £40, or £30 and watch what happens to sales of AE.

So that's why I'm rather cheesed off with the "trust us" and "we're the good guys" and "it's a niche market" statements floating. I'm sorry. I don't trust them.

I know and suspect what they are doing is good for their business and their profits (and I'm not a commie - I have no issue with a private company making money) - but it's not in keeping with "trust us". Especially when they are telling people they are closing down all other avenues to get a game so you have to buy it at their inflated price (and I would not argue against those that the price they are asking is fair for PoN).

^ oh - and to back that up I recall Conquest of the Aegean being at a price for some time....and guess what - when Command Ops was coming to release? The price of CotA went up...not down. Now it was a month or two that CotA had gone up - but it DID go up prior to the release of BftB...and it's right there I suspected what they did was make CotA less appealing so people would buy BftB - or make BftB not look quite so inflated in price.

Conquest of the Aegean is a fantastic game by the way and anyone who doesn't have it and is a wargamer should get it.

Matrix are not a bad company. Not at all and I'll always buy games from them. But I don't think they do alot for enticing new members to the market. I don't think they do enough to promote wargaming. And the statements that came out in the thread over there...well, they just left a bad taste in my mouth tbh. I don't need to be spoon fed.

There's also a very good post over there by Johan from Paradox - which makes total sense (partly because some of it relates to what I am talking about) ;P

thread title should be "Matrix Games, what is your strategy?"

Quote from: JudgeDredd
One of the reasons I suspect PoN didn't sell the volumes it did wasn't because of price - but because - as always - Paradox threw something out the door that wasn't ready for market.

Yes, indeed.  It's typical Paradox to kick something out the door early, at a bargain price, and drop support for it fairly quickly.  Not all of them but PON was surely a good example.  Zulu's mention of the cheap pricepoint as an example of failure to entice more sales isn't the reason that it floundered at release.  It was how buggy & unfinished the game was.  It doesn't matter how cheap you price something, if everyone finds out from the pre-orderers that the game is in an unfinished state then they will not buy it.  It had little to do with the price, other than those who blindly pre-ordered it.

Fortunately PON is still getting some work, and Phil has also mentioned the possibility of adding the use of an extra CPU core for turn calculations in the engine, in the future.  The real star of the AGE games has been Alea Jacta Est & Birth Of Rome and fortunately the guys at AGEOD seem to have kept Matrix from astronomically pricing them, although I hear that they raised it after getting publishing rights.   I am a bit wary of future releases steadily increasing, however. :-\

Rock Papre Shotgun gets in on the action.....

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/19/the-flare-path-indecent-proposal/#more-150192

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 19, 2013, 06:19:53 AM

Actually - I'm not that into this. I didn't like the tone of Iain's or Erics post tbh - and that got my back up. And I am totally fed up with hearing about the niche market. To be fair, I expect they get fed up talking about it!

Ian's posts have been absolutely bizarre. He starts talking about Paradox's pricing of AGEOD games as something that should be illegal. Then he seems surprised that PoN was available in so many places. Finally, in his exchange with Johan, it's like he doesn't know that Paradox have released games since Magicka. Really, really odd.

And here's another bit that I find baffling about Pride of Nations : they bring in the game as a 'priority', and yet the DLC content won't be available until sometime in MAY? What in the world is that about? Of course, once you remove every single alternative purchase location I suppose that it doesn't matter.  ::)

Quote from: Barthheart on April 19, 2013, 09:28:19 AM
Rock Papre Shotgun gets in on the action.....

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/04/19/the-flare-path-indecent-proposal/#more-150192

Yeah, I pretty much agree with every single word that he said.

Slightly Off Topic, but just to put the answer where the question was...

Quote from: spelk on April 11, 2013, 06:40:36 AM

Quote from: Huw the Poo on April 11, 2013, 05:10:24 AM
What?  Let me get this straight - there is a Linux version available if you buy from the devs or Steam, but not if you buy from Matrix?

You'll have to not hold me to this, because I haven't tried the Linux version of Steam yet, but from what I gather, your Steam key for Unity of Command will transfer over to the Linux Steam client.

Ok, I can CONFIRM that the Linux version of Steam can install Unity of Command, using the Key code you got for the PC version of Steam. And it works for the DLC too. So, effectively, you can just load up Steam on a Linux box, and register UoC to play there too.

Some games come across with the Steam login account, but I had to stick the Key code in for Unity of Command.

As I read over the RPS article (really good, though he missed the point that Close Combat: Modern Tactics is essential the game sold to the USMC) I look back at my close discussions from time to time with David Heath.

David used to *never* discount games except for one annual holiday sale.

Slitherine, by contrast, seems to slightly discount them from time to time. It's like they want to not discount them, but can't bring themselves to truly mark things down. It's the worst of both worlds.

Quote from: LongBlade on April 19, 2013, 06:17:29 PM
As I read over the RPS article (really good, though he missed the point that Close Combat: Modern Tactics is essential the game sold to the USMC) I look back at my close discussions from time to time with David Heath.

David used to *never* discount games except for one annual holiday sale.

Slitherine, by contrast, seems to slightly discount them from time to time. It's like they want to not discount them, but can't bring themselves to truly mark things down. It's the worst of both worlds.

It really seems to me like they're making this up as they go without a long term plan. One game they attempt to get wider distribution for while pulling other games off of other stores. No demos...except for when a game has one...but then others don't. Rush to bring in the game, but we won't bother with DLC importation for another month. It's all so weirdly random.

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 19, 2013, 07:19:07 PM
It really seems to me like they're making this up as they go without a long term plan. One game they attempt to get wider distribution for while pulling other games off of other stores. No demos...except for when a game has one...but then others don't. Rush to bring in the game, but we won't bother with DLC importation for another month. It's all so weirdly random.

It probably is random. Unless they've added someone with marketing expertise, they lack that. They have a good sales guy, good development and project managers, and a good accountant/finance guy. Marketing probably seems random because it probably is.

My two cents.......................................................

I've followed this thread, and I have to side with those not liking Matrix's pricing policies.

Having said that, they were once my favored gaming company because they were putting out games that I liked. Despite the cost, I indulged myself by buying many of their revamped versions of older games like TOAW_3. JT's Campaign Series, and Combat Command and have received much pleasure from them.

Now that they've acquired so many other developers, I no longer feel as comfortable with buying on a whim, as I don't know enough about many of these developers to risk the higher prices. Good demos could alleviate part of my reluctance, especially for the higher priced choices.

I admit part of my recent slowdown in game purchases from Matrix is because I feel that with their expansions of late, they have become the 800 lb. gorilla  and are beginning to act like it. Higher pricing and no longer permitting other merchants to carry their product and price it as they see fit, is just step one, folks. What comes next, invasive DRM and/or having to be online to play the games?

Now, I am clearly paranoid, the proof being that I posted a message that I was uncomfortable with the Slitherine-Matrix merger, in the thread that appeared on the subject on the old Wargamer forum. I had no specifics in my post, I just felt in my gut that it wasn't a good thing.

It appears the old saying, "Just 'cause you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.", may not be so far fetched after all.

We're too eclectic a group to ever be able to agree on something like a boycott of Matrix, so my personal action is merely to get around to playing all the games I've bought, but never really explored. It has been successful to a greater degree than I thought possible, my urge to buy the latest games has been greatly blunted.

Quote from: phredd1 on April 20, 2013, 01:51:08 AM

I admit part of my recent slowdown in game purchases from Matrix is because I feel that with their expansions of late, they have become the 800 lb. gorilla  and are beginning to act like it. Higher pricing and no longer permitting other merchants to carry their product and price it as they see fit, is just step one, folks. What comes next, invasive DRM and/or having to be online to play the games?

We're too eclectic a group to ever be able to agree on something like a boycott of Matrix, so my personal action is merely to get around to playing all the games I've bought, but never really explored. It has been successful to a greater degree than I thought possible, my urge to buy the latest games has been greatly blunted.

I suppose this is the bit of this argument I just dont get. Seems most of the people taking issue with Matrix are the very ones who jump all over them if they dont act like a proper business with regard to support / quality etc but seem the first to take issue when they actually act like a proper business . You see "No longer permitting other merchants to carry product and price it as they deem fit" is just sound business practice. Indeed - why would you buy the rights to something and then allow other people to sell it at a lower price. ?

The other half of the argument simply seems to be a lot of people on the matrix boards who dont run a computer strategy game company telling matrix they know best how to run a computer strategy game company. Thats without any numbers, sales data and yet the entire thrust of their argument is simply based on what they believe would happen rather than matrix who know what has happened.

there also seems to be a third camp who argue that pricing brings in new wargamers - again without evidence - but the point is maybe matrix as a business arent that interested in that. If they are running a business model that works why experiment with it based on the heresay of others and for reasons that lie outside of them making more money. Maybe Mcneil isnt that interested in what happens to wargaming as a whole - just what happens to his company - why is it a problem if thats the case ?

I suppose what I dont see is what peoples issue is. So if matrix dont want to reduce the price of their older games and the reason for that is primarily because of the data they have they dont see that as beneficial to them - and if people accept they are a business then what exactly is it that people are complaining about - beyond the fact they simply want something for less money. I'd like a ferrari - but I guess they arent going to reduce the price.

Maybe what wargaming needs is to be run as a business and not some garage industry yet whilst half the argument seems to be  about wargaming getting bigger the other half seems to be about people complaining matrix is acting like a big comapny.  Dont get it at all.

Well Mr Zulu, you certainly seem to be in the minority on this forum so perhaps we just don't get what your smoking?

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 05:46:54 AM
Well Mr Zulu, you certainly seem to be in the minority on this forum so perhaps we just don't get what your smoking?

Seven pages in ... I guess someone had to get personal ... disappointing in that this board seems relatively free of that kind of thing . Still - maybe time to retreat into the lurking shadows again.

That was not meant to be personal, sorry if you thought it was.

But if you look at the posts on this subject you do seem to be the main protagonist for the defence against a majority of similar minded responses.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 20, 2013, 05:25:02 AM
Indeed - why would you buy the rights to something and then allow other people to sell it at a lower price. ?

Because you'll still get a cut of sales whilst reaching a wider audience.  Overall, it's probably a net gain.

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 06:53:06 AM
That was not meant to be personal, sorry if you thought it was.

But if you look at the posts on this subject you do seem to be the main protagonist for the defence against a majority of similar minded responses.

Well - to play devils advocate - just because he's posting as a minority on this thread (against the grain of the thread) doesn't make his posts any less valid. He still has the right to air his views...whether they're for or against

I'll try and be concise. I guess I haven't been in my previous posts and just waffling on...so I'll try and answer your points specifically.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 20, 2013, 05:25:02 AM
I suppose this is the bit of this argument I just dont get. Seems most of the people taking issue with Matrix are the very ones who jump all over them if they dont act like a proper business with regard to support / quality etc but seem the first to take issue when they actually act like a proper business . You see "No longer permitting other merchants to carry product and price it as they deem fit" is just sound business practice. Indeed - why would you buy the rights to something and then allow other people to sell it at a lower price. ?

I think it's disingenuous of any company to do this and then try and make themselves out to be "for the boys". Specifically "trust us" and "we're the good guys" whilst simultaneously taking away peoples options to buy the game elsewhere. I hate monopolies. Sure - as a company they're MAGIC. But as a consumer - they're just wrong. It removes choice.

So - again - and I have said this on the thread - my beef is what they are doing and what they are saying - they are contradictory. I have also said PoN is worth the money they are asking and I've also said I don't have a problem with their pricing strategy per se - especially for new games. My particular issues with that company at this time are what they have done (closing consumer options) and spinning it as "we're the good guys" and "trust us" - and those are quotes

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 20, 2013, 05:25:02 AM
The other half of the argument simply seems to be a lot of people on the matrix boards who dont run a computer strategy game company telling matrix they know best how to run a computer strategy game company. Thats without any numbers, sales data and yet the entire thrust of their argument is simply based on what they believe would happen rather than matrix who know what has happened.

This is likely a result of people NOT being privy to such information. I'm not saying Matrix should provide it...but why can't they. Why can't they show sales of a product (no numbers - just a graph) on release and over the years. What would happen if they did drop the price. Look at their sales at Christmas...they are up I would guess, right? Meaning, surely, that reducing the price of their old catalogue DOES shift units out the door...the only difference is people wouldn't wait for Christmas...I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 20, 2013, 05:25:02 AM
there also seems to be a third camp who argue that pricing brings in new wargamers - again without evidence - but the point is maybe matrix as a business arent that interested in that. If they are running a business model that works why experiment with it based on the heresay of others and for reasons that lie outside of them making more money. Maybe Mcneil isnt that interested in what happens to wargaming as a whole - just what happens to his company - why is it a problem if thats the case ?

I am the evidence. I did post this earlier. I'm not saying that's it - cut and shut, change your business model because apparently Billy Riley says reducing the price of a game brought him into the genre...but I AM PROOF that that worked. To what scale, I have no idea...but to disregard it as nonsense is nonsense in itself.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 20, 2013, 05:25:02 AM
I suppose what I dont see is what peoples issue is. So if matrix dont want to reduce the price of their older games and the reason for that is primarily because of the data they have they dont see that as beneficial to them - and if people accept they are a business then what exactly is it that people are complaining about - beyond the fact they simply want something for less money. I'd like a ferrari - but I guess they arent going to reduce the price.

If Matrix (and their like) keep this niche with their pricing strategy - then games will always cost more for us than they need to. More than that - the likelihood is that the customer base could well drop. So I guess (and it's certainly my view) my worry is that if they have got this wrong - or if they are just being self indulging with the pricing (i.e. for their business and NOT for the genre) then we are likely to pay higher and higher prices over time as the customer base drops. That's my concern. That's what I'm worried about.

Let me finish by saying - again - that I really like Matrix Games and I do not disagree with their pricing strategy. But I do think they are working "for the company" and not "for the people" or "for the genre". So no...when Iain McNeil turns round and tells us all he's closing all outlets selling a game so they can sell it at their new inflated price, then ask us to trust them because they're the good guys - then I have a little bit of sick in my mouth.

I don't think the high prices are the issue..

It's when they buy a game that is already out (not owned by them) and then they raise the price when they grab the game and shut down all other low pricing. That is totally their right, but feels like a low blow to the consumer.

or

It's when they charge a high price (premium - what you would pay for a 'new' game elsewhere) and no longer support it...

WITP AE, they put out a resolution fix... WITP, why did they not do the same if they are going to charge over 50 bucks! (I own both these games)

SPWAW does not work out of the box in W7... If you're going to charge an above premium price for an 'expansion set' (because SPWAW is free), at least update your installer so that it will install the W7 fix a long with it..

Now they have many games that still get support either from a great developers (like Vic, and now AGEOD) or from the community itself.
That kins of support from those developers one of Matrix's strengths... They have many strengths, and they have a lot of fans.. Last thing you want to do is turn fans against you. I always buy from Matrix and not Slitherine, and that's not a lump against Slitherine, just a loyal gesture towards Matrix.

Now Slitherine on the other hand, usually has more reasonable starting prices on their games, so that is a plus for them. So maybe the old prices staying high is just a leftover from Matrix solo times.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:29:15 AM

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 06:53:06 AM
That was not meant to be personal, sorry if you thought it was.

But if you look at the posts on this subject you do seem to be the main protagonist for the defence against a majority of similar minded responses.

Well - to play devils advocate - just because he's posting as a minority on this thread (against the grain of the thread) doesn't make his posts any less valid. He still has the right to air his views...whether they're for or against

I do agree; had an op on my forehead in the weak and face all swollen and on lots of pain killers so probably bringing out my ruder self.

Maybe they look at their xmas sale and say.. jeez we really don't get that many purchase of our 'older' products during these sales, so lowering the prices doesn't work...

Well maybe that's because they're still over priced during the Xmas sale!  :P

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 08:21:22 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

If anyone else wants to give away WitP & WitP AE - I would be most grateful. Yes, please for me.

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 08:21:22 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

That's very generous UCG - though I think I should point out I'm likely to not invest any time in it because I got it for nothing...Matrix says so.

But...seriously, I don't have much time to invest in that beast at the moment...so perhaps you know a more deserving soul?

The scenarios are very 'involved' but do not take the time commitment of a grand campaign.. and it is very good!.. I'm like you with the gaming ADD, and not sure I would get into a grand campaign ever, but again, even the scenarios can be a blast, once you learn what's going on.. If you don't want to get into as much detail, vanilla is probably better, if you want the detail than AE (plus the higher screen resolution).

I bought WITP I think on a Xmas sale.. then boughtt AE from Ebay (Lost money to Matrix due to high price- have yet to play that, besides firing it up to admire the resolution)!

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 09:13:13 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 08:21:22 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

That's very generous UCG - though I think I should point out I'm likely to not invest any time in it because I got it for nothing...Matrix says so.

But...seriously, I don't have much time to invest in that beast at the moment...so perhaps you know a more deserving soul?

wow that was quick, top marks for the customer service at least - i have zip files for both games i can drop into a drop box - im not letting you degenerates near my member account and all the secrets therein

JD - offer is still open, if you dont think itll get the time it deserves say so and then ill let them go to the next 2 to ask

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 09:13:13 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 08:21:22 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

That's very generous UCG - though I think I should point out I'm likely to not invest any time in it because I got it for nothing...Matrix says so.

LOL!!

Nice one.

I'd like to give WiTP another go, did have uncommon valour could never afford its big brother.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 09:13:13 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 08:21:22 AM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 20, 2013, 07:50:43 AM
I'd buy WitP tomorrow if I could get it for £20.

i have just contacted matrix for my old serial numbers/download links for WitP & WitP AE - when and if i get them JD you can have it for free

That's very generous UCG - though I think I should point out I'm likely to not invest any time in it because I got it for nothing...Matrix says so.

But...seriously, I don't have much time to invest in that beast at the moment...so perhaps you know a more deserving soul?

I am a more deserving soul, send it to me please :)

And so humble to boot!  :D

Quote from: phredd1 on April 20, 2013, 01:51:08 AM
What comes next, invasive DRM and/or having to be online to play the games?

Well this already exists.  You have to use the PBEM++ servers to play most of the new releases.  You have to have a registered account and a registered serial code.             

Don't get me wrong.  I like the PBEM++ servers.  They are easy to use and make swapping turns easy.  But if for some unfortunate reason down the road and the PBEM++ servers are no longer availible, there is some question how or if multiplayer support would be supported.

Quote from: Staggerwing on April 20, 2013, 10:18:50 AM
And so humble to boot!  :D

can't afford to be humble - my currency is 7 to 1 for a dollar - so these games costs hundreds in my currency

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 09:47:15 AM
I'd like to give WiTP another go, did have uncommon valour could never afford its big brother.

From the number of posts I see regarding people not owning WitP:AE due to it's price, or asking for a one being given away, we could easily deduct that the high price point is keeping a sizable percentage of potential customers from buying, no?  :P

Quote from: Nefaro on April 20, 2013, 10:23:45 AM

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 09:47:15 AM
I'd like to give WiTP another go, did have uncommon valour could never afford its big brother.

From the number of posts I see regarding people not owning WitP:AE due to it's price, or asking for a one being given away, we could easily deduct that the high price point is keeping a sizable percentage of potential customers from buying, no?  :P

Yes, it would cost me between R500 to R800 each - that is very expensive and I have wanted to own them for a long time.

you know you only need 1 right?

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:40:20 AM
you know you only need 1 right?

True, the only reason I ever looked at WitP was because it was cheaper than WitP AE.

Quote from: Ashcloud on April 20, 2013, 10:41:45 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:40:20 AM
you know you only need 1 right?

True, the only reason I ever looked at WitP was because it was cheaper than WitP AE.

so far then -

JD - first refusal
Ashcloud - WITP AE, WITP is JD says no
Flickjax - you want WitP if jd says no and Ashcloud gets AE?

Quote from: Ashcloud on April 20, 2013, 10:33:46 AM
Yes, it would cost me between R500 to R800 each

R500/R800? Rand? S.A.?

Yup, South Africa Rand.

Cool! I'm always amazed by how diverse this crowd is.  :)

No- thank you very much UCG. But I really think it would be wasted on me. My point was I actually would buy it if it was £20 - and get round to playing it when I could. But I would drop the 20 on it. It's different if someone gives you soemthing - you feel compelled to play to make their generosity worth while and I just don't have the time at the moment.

Not the £60 being asked for it...and why not the £60? Because surely I would play it?

HEY!! Maybe that's why I'm not paying £60 for it...because I would feel compelled to play it against all other games....being as I sunk money into it. I mean....I did exactly that with WitE...NOT. £70 I spent on that (I can't remember how much I paid - it was about that...I did try and look in my receipts email folder but it's so full of STEAM purchases and boardgame purchases I just couldn't find them!) and I got more time out of Unity of Command. But that can't be right...that goes totally against wargame publishers research!

oh well. Done here. The donkey is well beaten...but they are talking shite.

That is incredibly generous UCG. Those games are priced very high. You could easily make some money out of them.

ive had 6 or 7 years out of them - on an hourly cost basis its fractions of a penny for the entertainment theyve provided - all thanks to les the sarge and jarhead some 7 years ago on the WG forum which is how i got started!

Anyway - i dont mind passing the torch on - id rather one of you guys had it than some randomer on ebay wholl probably sell it on anyway - i will check to make sure youre still playing it in 2020!!!!

Ashcloud PM me your dropbox email address and a gift shall soon appear

Probably OT but is WitP the one with the Win 7 problem?  I checked my WitP AE, UV and WPO after upgrading and no problem.

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:58:03 AM
ive had 6 or 7 years out of them - on an hourly cost basis its fractions of a penny for the entertainment theyve provided - all thanks to les the sarge and jarhead some 7 years ago on the WG forum which is how i got started!

Anyway - i dont mind passing the torch on - id rather one of you guys had it than some randomer on ebay wholl probably sell it on anyway - i will check to make sure youre still playing it in 2020!!!!

Ashcloud PM me your dropbox email address and a gift shall soon appear

actually ashcloud dont worry about drop box for AE i have a url which is a direct link to the download - its in your in box now

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 11:06:50 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:58:03 AM
ive had 6 or 7 years out of them - on an hourly cost basis its fractions of a penny for the entertainment theyve provided - all thanks to les the sarge and jarhead some 7 years ago on the WG forum which is how i got started!

Anyway - i dont mind passing the torch on - id rather one of you guys had it than some randomer on ebay wholl probably sell it on anyway - i will check to make sure youre still playing it in 2020!!!!

Ashcloud PM me your dropbox email address and a gift shall soon appear

actually ashcloud dont worry about drop box for AE i have a url which is a direct link to the download - its in your in box now

RUDE!  :D

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 11:06:50 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:58:03 AM
ive had 6 or 7 years out of them - on an hourly cost basis its fractions of a penny for the entertainment theyve provided - all thanks to les the sarge and jarhead some 7 years ago on the WG forum which is how i got started!

Anyway - i dont mind passing the torch on - id rather one of you guys had it than some randomer on ebay wholl probably sell it on anyway - i will check to make sure youre still playing it in 2020!!!!

Ashcloud PM me your dropbox email address and a gift shall soon appear

actually ashcloud dont worry about drop box for AE i have a url which is a direct link to the download - its in your in box now

UCG a huge thank you to you, I will long remember your generous gift - if you ever see me around here or on theblitz.org and you need anything just PM me and I will do all I can to help.

Quote from: Ashcloud on April 20, 2013, 11:15:02 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 11:06:50 AM

Quote from: undercovergeek on April 20, 2013, 10:58:03 AM
ive had 6 or 7 years out of them - on an hourly cost basis its fractions of a penny for the entertainment theyve provided - all thanks to les the sarge and jarhead some 7 years ago on the WG forum which is how i got started!

Anyway - i dont mind passing the torch on - id rather one of you guys had it than some randomer on ebay wholl probably sell it on anyway - i will check to make sure youre still playing it in 2020!!!!

Ashcloud PM me your dropbox email address and a gift shall soon appear

actually ashcloud dont worry about drop box for AE i have a url which is a direct link to the download - its in your in box now

UCG a huge thank you to you, I will long remember your generous gift - if you ever see me around here or on theblitz.org and you need anything just PM me and I will do all I can to help.

youre very welcome - may all your carriers sail safe

I would be happy with the standard one, but as before if JD wants it he should have first.

You are a gent , by the way :)

Quote from: Bismarck on April 20, 2013, 10:58:49 AM
Probably OT but is WitP the one with the Win 7 problem?  I checked my WitP AE, UV and WPO after upgrading and no problem.

Hi Jim,

I don't think I've ever had a problem with WITP and Win7.. are you thinking of SPWAW?

I had Uncommon Valor and played it quite extensively.  IT pulled me into buying WitP AE and this is sitting unopened never played since I just dont have time to give this beast its dues.

That being said all my largescale tactical games have been shelved for the last 18-months (and I think this will be the case for another year or two until my kids are a little older).

What I am gravitating to are smaller squad based games where I can get a turn or two in a night and can regrasp the tactical situation quickly if I have put it down for a couple of weeks due to real life commitments.

Con

Quote from: FlickJax on April 20, 2013, 12:28:48 PM
I would be happy with the standard one, but as before if JD wants it he should have first.

You are a gent , by the way :)

Standard it is - do you have dropbox?

In the above spirit, I have BOA2 uploaded to dropbox. I bought it and gave it a fair shake but Ageod games just don't grab me. Love the look of the maps and there is plenty of content but just couldn't get into it. If anyone wants to give it a go your welcome to it. Post if your interested. I believe i would just have to send you my dropbox link, which contains the setup release and serial# [first time dropbox user]

^ oh please stop! I'm going to hoik!

But seriously - nice one. BoA2 is a great game.

on another note - there are quite a few posts that say Matrix have the right to charge what they want and also posts that say consumers have the right to buy or not...but apprently the general consensus seems to be although those two statements are true, you apparently don't have the right to complain...that bit is either left out or is being argued that you should just shut up and buy it or not...letting Matrix know that way.

Trouble is I've always argued if you don't let them know the reason why you haven't bought it...then they don't know. It could be ANY reason. So they might not link it to price.

The difference is that Matrix if a for profit organization.  They really dont care what your opinion is as long as they are making their top line numbers.  Something that I haven't seen discussed here is the financial implications on their business model. 

The business I am in is all about inventory management, keeping SG&A (Sales General and Admin costs) costs down and reporting EBITDA to get good organic growth rates.  Since I dont see Matrix doing any M&A activity I would expect all their growth to be organic (not derived from the purchase or sale of other game companies).

I would speculate that since the games are electronic that there is little warehousing that they have to do, no shelf-life limitations and inventory management is minimal, I don't think they have a sales force since they do all their distribution through a single channel (the internet).  This means that their SG&A costs should be low as well.  Since they dont have factories and capital equipment their depreciation and amortization should be minimal as well.  I dont know how taxes are calculated on virtual products like software but I can bet that there are some smart accountants out there that try and keep their tax rates low as well.

If this is true then once a game has been developed their only ongoing costs are hosting it on servers and potential future support (which is based on their interpretation of what is needed and based on the size of the market purchasing it).  This means that the sunk costs are done upfront and once during development/validation and then it is simply an incremental revenue generator (or what we call a cash cow).  You dont have to feed it, sell it or really support it and it will still pick up good revenue.  The argument about dropping it in price to increase sales is offset by the data that they will have from their sales versus purchase ratios to their ROI financials. 

Without looking at their books I would speculate that they see a good ROI at current sales price without the need to increase their support levels.  The games are on the downward slope of the S curve in terms of sales cycles and as long as they have a big development funnel of new games that are bringing in more revenue and customers there is no business reason for them to drop their pricing on old games.  I think this is borne out by them cutting deals to distribute other developers games on their website.

I dont agree or disagree with this strategy but it is financially sound for them to do this.  Until their market reacts by not purchasing their products they have no incentive to change their strategy.

Con

Quote from: Tuna on April 20, 2013, 12:51:27 PM

Quote from: Bismarck on April 20, 2013, 10:58:49 AM
Probably OT but is WitP the one with the Win 7 problem?  I checked my WitP AE, UV and WPO after upgrading and no problem.

Hi Jim,

I don't think I've ever had a problem with WITP and Win7.. are you thinking of SPWAW?

Right. I got confessed with the.  I'm working on the SPWAW fix.

I don't know if any of you guys clicked on this link posted at the RPS article posted previously, but it's very good.  It's about how to set software pricing:  http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

Quote from: Toonces on April 21, 2013, 02:10:25 PM
I don't know if any of you guys clicked on this link posted at the RPS article posted previously, but it's very good.  It's about how to set software pricing:  http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/CamelsandRubberDuckies.html

That's a perfect example of how marking down titles over time garners more profit.  Obviously many of the software companies have caught on to this marketing strategy in recent years.  As I said before, it all boils down to making extra sales for some extra income, as opposed to none at all, after sales trends have tapered off.  It's not rocket science (and I find the study of Economics boring as all hell).

Well - a new post by Iain on Matrix forums about themselves as a publisher and what's involved...and true - they are not a distributor like Steam. They package, finalise, provide financial assistance - so they have a vested interest in whether a game does well or not.

However - having said that, he does go on (and in detail in a post further down on the main one) saying PC, tablet, iOS markets are all up - so - again the question needs to be asked - why the high price for not only older games, but older games that have a sequel?

They're a business. I get that. But I just don't want to be fed the good guys crap. Do your job, make money and encourage new games and devs into the market - that's what your good at. But don't tell me your the good guys. You're just a business trying to make money and stay afloat.

I also don't buy that if you don't like the price of an item you should keep your trap shut and move on - as many seem to advocate. The person selling the product needs to know the price is too high for you - otherwise they have stats that say "x people bought the product and x people did not" instead of stats that say "x people bought the product, x people didn't buy because of price, x people didn't buy because it's not their thing, x people didn't buy because there's an alternative, x people didn't buy because it's missing a feature".

As a company/publisher/whatever - you need that feedback to make the most of your market - so all those people who suggest everyone wants something for nothing and telling people to shut up should understand the point of informing a company why you aren't buying.

Here Iain his feedback and explanation to some of your questions and concerns:


We have been reading some comments in our own forum and others with a great deal of interest and it strikes us that there are some misconceptions about our business model and where we stand on a number of issues. So, we thought it might be informative and interesting for you if we shared some of our thoughts. First thing we will say is that our policies and practices are constantly evolving, so the health warning here is that our current thinking can change at any time dependant on circumstances. For example, will the initial success that we are experiencing on the new tablet platforms be sustained? This and many other factors are constantly under review, especially where they relate to our very specific market sector.

We accept that inevitably we are regarded as part of the video games industry; however we believe that our business is quite different. Our audience is entirely focused on a particular category and style of game, so we totally accept that we are a hybrid, or niche business. We don't mind the label, in fact in many ways we welcome this as we very much want to be linked or associated with our audience and the strategy wargaming world in all its varied categories, such as board gaming, miniatures, historical associations, re-enactors, fantasy, science fiction etc. etc. and significantly for us, keeping our games relevant to these diverse groups of gamers. What we have come to understand is that those who play these games generally look for a different, deeper, more realistic/accurate gaming experience; indeed as you are aware some of our games can take an entire evening to play a turn and some only 10 minutes. So we believe that both we and our audience are quite clearly different from the main stream video games industry and most certainly the mass market.

A factor that we think relevant to this debate is, do the rules that apply to sales of more mass market games, for example Call of Duty apply to us? Similarly do the rules that apply to hugely successful titles like Angry Birds apply? You might like us think we would have more chance of winning the lottery than building a business model on these particular examples. The sad truth is that middle sized and even larger Video Games Publishers that have not adapted to the new realities are now as rare as the Dodo. Think about it, other than major Publishers and the remaining few like us there are not many mid-sized Publishers left and certainly very few catering for our specific audience. A knock on effect of this is the closure of development studios. All of this is a direct consequence of the total melt down of video games sales at retail. It is now almost impossible to sell a stand-alone PC title at retail anywhere in the world, yes there are exceptions and in fact Germany is still a major retail territory for us, but unless you have a console sku, the PC market is now pretty well entirely digital. So drawing parallels or reference to past experience and what used to work in a retail environment may no longer be reliable or relevant. Fortunately, through Matrix we have been in the digital business for over 13 years and have accumulated a wealth of experience, data and records which certainly helps when building a business plan. In this brave new world many different business models are being tried, so it's not surprising that deep discounting seems to be the flavour of the month to attract market share. Whilst this might be relevant to the mass market sector we do not think that this is a one size fits all solution and only time will tell if this is sustainable and who has got it right.

So where does that leave us? The size of our "niche" is substantial and is growing year on year, so niche does not mean declining or dying as some sceptics would have you believe. In fact volume sales for digital downloads increased 44% last year and we are still trying to take on board our astonishing success on the tablets. Every indication is showing that these numbers will be exceeded in the current year. Our customers are becoming ever more discerning, but are divided into various special interest groups. Other factors in this complex mix are that subsequently dropping prices penalizes early adopters and encourages a 'wait for the sale' attitude. Again, possibly fine for the mass market, but we will never punish our loyal fans in this way. So we have been experimenting with an early adopters discount on iPad sales, and then reverting to full price after an initial sale period. The exact reverse of the received wisdom. We also believe that when you sell someone an enormous game like Pride of Nations for next to nothing, they may have purchased for the wrong reason, are less engaged, or willing to invest the time it takes to understand and enjoy the game. The result is negative feedback or a lost customer as they would have been better directed to one of our lighter games to get started.

Now for the technical bit, we don't accept that because an individual is not willing to pay a sustainable price for a game, it is necessarily a loss to revenue, we believe there is a flaw with that logic. In essence the number of units sold does not matter! What counts is the revenue achieved. For example selling 10,000 copies to our core audience will create a dedicated community, selling 100,000 copies to people who don't get this niche, but bought "cause it's cheap" will get us negative reviews and bad word of mouth. In this scenario real fans get shouted down as they are outnumbered. Our approach is different and aimed at growing our player base steadily. This approach is working and in fact sales of our back catalogue (games over 3 years old) are a significant part of this strategy, as often player's start on the lighter games before digging in deeper.

So our argument is that losing a sale in volume terms is only relevant if it affects overall revenue. By dropping the price to what an individual is willing to pay, you lose the revenue from others who would have bought in any event as they value the product on its merits. The price drop is only sensible if there are enough purchasers tempted by the lower price to make up for the lost revenue. So the perception of an individual customer that this is a binary event is in our view flawed; some money at a low price vs. no money at the current price. The reality is that all this is far from binary and is a very complex big picture calculation, taking into account the buying patterns of millions of sales. Using our knowledge and experience, drawn substantially from our sales data we set the prices at sustainable and realistic levels taking all these factors into account and also factoring in our additional responsibility of making sure our developers get a reasonable return. We know with some certainty that there are not enough people just waiting till the price is dropped to make a purchase. Sure some will, but are they enough to make a difference, we believe not. So taking all of this into account you will see that our prices cover a huge range from $2.99 up to $79.99. In short we are a fairly unique business, with all the problems that entails. In essence our own records and data are our only reliable source of available information, but as we are entirely self funded it's important to get it right and good advice is gratefully received wherever it comes from, so keep it coming we do listen and your comments often spark a good idea.

Another factor in this debate is the comparisons that are being drawn between us and the myriad of distribution companies like Impulse, GamersGate, GOG and Steam etc. It is certainly true that the revival in the PC market place has been phenomenal and in large part due to the success of Steam. However, we are not a Distribution Company. We are an honest to goodness Publisher with a very focused games line-up and target audience. Additionally, both Slitherine and Ageod are still heavily involved in Development of "our" sort of games and our knowledge and experience is freely shared with our Developer partners. PBMM++ and iPad development are examples of this.

Importantly though, we do have some firsthand knowledge of the Distribution business, but this is a very different business model from our own. Apart from Steam and making some sweeping generalisations most Distribution Companies will grab just about any title that comes their way, irrespective of who else is selling it. Developers provide the games as finished articles, ready for sale. For Distributors it's then all about maximizing the size of the store by ramming in as many diverse genres and types of game as you can. It's very much about grabbing market share and generally this is done by discounted sales promotions of one sort or another to attract customers into their stores, why else would you choose their particular point of sale to buy a game you can pick up anywhere. In this model it matters little which products sell and which don't so long as you have enough of them to maintain sales levels. For Developers this can work for the right sort of product, generally where the game has mass market appeal, as here the more points of sale the better and the price is less important than the volume of sales in achieving sustainable revenue. In more specialist games however we believe that this model reverses.

In the past we did do a few distribution deals, but these are gradually being phased out as we focus all our efforts on our Developer partners. What this means in practise is that we work with our Developers from the earliest stage of development, often years in advance of release and seldom less than many months. We encourage new developers to sign up as early in the development cycle as possible, as our experience is that if we can provide advice at an early stage it can cut months from a project. Our role at this stage is therefore to work with Developers, giving feedback and the benefit of our experience to make their game as attractive to our audience as we can. Its heart breaking if the game has already gone too far to make these changes, often leaving a choice between delaying release for many months, or soldering on with a less than perfect solution. A Developers financial position rather than game issues can often dictate what happens next.

In addition we also provide or fund various assets or services as they are required such as, promotional activities, PR, marketing and advertising campaigns on a range of media, research, mission design and balancing, music and sound effects, manual writing, localisation, demo movies, artwork, web site forums and exposure, tech support, management and payment of third party suppliers, box art, movies or TV clips, age ratings, beta testing, Brand Licensing and porting services to other platforms such as the new Tablets, manufacture and sales. We also provide completely free of charge our "PBEM++©" and or Routing Server Services. Once a year we also invite our developers, who are close to release, to meet the Press at our annual Press Conference. The agenda allows for presentations, interviews and plenty of opportunity for our developers to chat informally to the press, each other and have face to face contact with our marketing and production staff. Usually we try to concentrate on members of the specialist press, who actually "get" these games, as there is little point asking for feedback or relevant review comment from the more mass market press. An amusing example of why comes from our press archives. In this particular review the reviewer simply did not understand the appeal of turn based strategy games, he felt the entire genre was dated and past its sell by date. The review headline was, "This Game is ****!" The remark was part of our learning curve. Suffice to say the game went on to become one of our top five all time best grossing games and the magazine is no longer in business.

Another and hugely important area of support is that we frequently support developers financially by way of interest free advances to support them till their royalties start coming in. This allows them to work on the game and draw a wage and or pay for artwork, music etc that they would otherwise not be able to afford. We currently have literally several hundred thousand dollars invested in this way. Obviously we are very careful about who and when this level of support is given, but without this many of their games would not see the light of day, but probably the biggest advantage that we offer is our community and Web Stores. It is without a shadow of doubt true that sales of "our" sorts of games are magnified significantly when sold through our stores. Our audience is pretty savvy, they know what they like and where to find it. From time to time we conduct research, like selling specific titles on other distribution channels, but to date this has been without exception disappointing. In addition we recently put Panzer Corps, one of our current best-selling titles, on Greenlight as we listened to comment in these and other forums and we were curious to see if it would improve sales. We are sceptical that it will improve sales, but we will be happy if we are proved wrong. We have received an enormous number of votes, but disappointingly more than half the votes cast have been to reject the game. Further evidence that we are not really part of the traditional video games industry.

So in the last analysis it's important for us all to remember that if a Development team cannot make a decent return for literally thousands of man hours of work they will stop making these games. Then I guess the same people demanding deep discounts will complain that strategy games are dying. Someone in the forums mentioned it, but where on earth do you get hundreds of hours of entertainment for $30 and we figure it's an important part of our job to make sure that the Developers gets a fair deal.

In summary, we are very much a niche business, part of the strategy wargames world selling products that are exclusive to us, with links to the Video Games industry. This unique combination of factors makes our business model indecipherable to many. What I will say is that the company continues to grow exponentially, with growth approaching 70% last year and on track for a similar pattern this year. As you have probably noticed we have been recruiting further specialist staff, not easy in any niche business, and there are now 25 of us running this business. We have offices in Vermont USA, Edmonton Canada, Milan Italy, Grenoble France and our head office in Epsom UK. So, just maybe despite all of the advice that we have been offered, it could be that we have stumbled along the right path.

Finally, an idea regarding sales of back catalogue from Tim Stone a reporter at RPS has a certain resonance, as coincidentally we have been looking at doing something along the lines he suggests. Firstly we have to hear back from our developer partners, as we don't cut their prices without consultation and they may not be interested. So how about this for an idea, as Tim seems keen to help us. We host a promotion, sale of the week and run it in conjunction with RPS.

Thanks for reading and listening and keep the feedback coming, as I say we do listen and to confirm this we give you a list of responses to some of the points that have been made, don't expect this every time but as I have said we do listen.

Regards and Best Wishes

Iain McNeil
Slitherine Group


Re Pride of Nations, Ageod and other postings; Our general response
•   Control of where Pride of Nations and some other Ageod titles is being sold has unfortunately spun out of Control. The problem is that certain distribution channels will sometimes sublicense games to other distribution outlets without the knowledge of the Developer. It appears that this is in fact what happened to Pride of Nations. Consequently the game has been totally devalued and sold at ludicrous price points. Even worse, sales have not been reported or paid to Ageod from these sites. As you might well imagine we are tracking these down one by one to remove our products and end this practise. You can help here and if you see any of our products especially Ageod titles on sale, other than through our own sites or a Plimus affiliate, we would be very grateful if you would let us know.
•   The game was release 1 year 9 months ago, not 3 years as has been suggested, which in our world is a fairly recent release. The fact is that these games have a much longer life span than the mass market.
•   We did not increase the price, but matched the current price on the AGEOD site, which is the official RSP and typical for games of this type, any difference is due to currency conversions.
•   We were not aware that the game was being sold at $1.50. This was certainly never permitted by AGEOD.
•   AGEOD chose to leave Paradox of their own free will. Subsequently and mainly for the reasons outlined in this mail they decided to join us. They better than most understand the very specific differences that apply to this sector of the market.

Re Response to some of the other Posts

•   A demo or not? It's certainly true we don't make a demo for every game and there are varied and complex reasons for that. As a general rule for games that you can pick up and get into quickly, such as Battle Academy or Panzer Corps we do make demos. For games that require an investment in time we generally don't. Here we believe demos are counterproductive as more time, effort and exploration is needed by the player to get into the game than is generally allowed in a demo.

•   We did not suggest Paradox have done anything illegal. Paradox has cooperated fully with us in the Ageod transition and has informed all of their distributors to remove Ageod games from their sites and or transfer reporting and royalties to us. We are aware however that certain Distributors have sublicensed the games to others and it is those who may be continuing to sell our games without permission. Anyone who legally continues to sell our games will be required to price match our sites.

Good explanation for the newer catalog...

But does not explain selling old unsupported games at new game prices.. You say Panzer Corps was successful... It was polished up, and sold at a reasonable price. It was a revisit to an old classic (the appeal wore of quickly for me, because yes, it is a great beer and pretzels game, but it's the same old same old).. Still I can understand it's success)

Then you have SPWAW which is realistically an expansion (since the base game is free) at a premium price 70 dollars!.. with no support at all (besides some devoted fans).. If you're someone that's not tech savvy on your computer and you end up buying that for your Win 7 machine, boy have you a fun surprise when you go to install.

WITP non AE 60 dollars.. support stopped long ago.. I'm sure like things like the resolution fix in AE could be ported over. But no, there is no continued support on this game with a premium price.

Even Battlefront that sells product at a premium price, slowly lowers that price of their catalog as time goes on..

Matrix sales are almost as funny as Shrapnel, not quite so bad, but still kind of laughable by today's standards..

Do I think they should have 1.99 sales or however low some games go from the bigger company's.. Of course not...
Hey, I bought Pride of Nations for 20 bucks when it came out.. Even though I knew of it's bad press.. But I know that the AGEOD company will continue to work on it.. I didn't pre-order AEJ for 20 so ended up paying 25 for it shortly after when it's price rose. That did not bother me one bitl. I discovered AGEOD from buying ACW (a Classic IMHO), for ten bucks from a store bin... I got a game cheap.. They got a fan... ACW also just received another patch still I think in 2012.. That's what I call support from a company that doesn't over charge for their games. I hope that they don't become a Matrix high priced item. You know, if ACW2 was 50 bucks or anything like that, I would pass. BTW I have yet to play PoN or AEJ yet.. I just loved 'ACW so much and their starting prices just sucked me in.

Sorry, I've just become Stingy in my old age.. but I already have to buy my kids games at full price when they come out, so I'm not gonna do the same with my collection, unless I really want it!

Matrix has a lot of loyal fans/customers... But they are slowly giving quite a few (not all - there's still plenty of fans) a sour tastes in their mouth when they see the continued overpriced listings in their catalog. Again, as I mentioned in a previous post, Slitherine does seem more reasonable.

I don't think Matrix/Slitherine grasps that while they fill a niche in the video gaming market, they're not the only choice for wargamers to spend their dollars. I play other styles of video game, I play board games, I play miniatures wargames. There are more games for me to purchase and play than I'll ever have time for. My money goes where I perceive value and respect for the consumer. I'm seeing less of both these days from Matrix/Slitherine.

One other thing I saw somewhere...Matrix are no longer selling through NWS. Now I'm not surprised...and indeed it always surprised me that you could get Matrix Games cheaper there.....but still I bought direct from Matrix...and yet I just can't swallow "we're the good guys" with closing down other avenues for your products...it just doesn't come across right.

There's been change at Matrix since Slitherine got involved and whilst you might (correctly or otherwise)  say it's for the benefit of the company...I noticed the change, didn't like it and left. I can't put my finger on it though and it wasn't immediate either. Maybe there's a good reason for that change - who knows.

I wish them all the very best and hope things go well for them and will probably buy from them if the price is right...but the feel of the place has changed.

I do know what I don't like...their disregard for Android in favour of Apple. I get the reason - but as a non apple user I don't like the direction. Not that I mind Apple getting products...just their disregard for android.

I also don't like the fact that not only were their back products over priced imo, but they have gone up in price since the merger. I wish I had proof of that, but it only came to light when I was looking at CotA the other day. £35 for something I'm pretty sure I recall being £25...possibly less. Like I said...no proof but it definitely feels like that to me.

I think I'll jump off the bus now.

I will leave it saying this - I hope what they have works. I'll buy when I want and what I want. But looking at their pricing structure over the last couple of years, my purchases will likely be less and less. Boardgames have taken a chunk of my money as well as sale items (even of things I've yet to play - like Sleeping Dogs or Max Payne 3) and other ventures (DCS)

And - I just spunked £40 on Race Room cars and tracks!  :(

I laughed, Judge, at your Apple/Android comment as an Android user myself.  Of course, I've been through this before, having been an Atari loyalist back in the C64/Amiga days.

Maybe I should stay away from the race track.

I actually liked Iain's post, since it's at least finally one coherent thought rather than scattered little bits. I think it suffers from the same obfuscations that I see from certain posters in any discussion that has ever appeared about this topic on their forums (claims out of nowhere that clearly anyone disagreeing with their pricing policy wants to sell their games for $1.99, or expects Call of Duty sales numbers by just dropping the cost of purchase), but at least it's something.

There are a couple of things that I wonder, though.

-Their stuff is selling well on tablets. That's great. But how much of that comes from the fact that the tablet games have a modern interface? It would be nice to see more PC wargame developers move on from something that looks like it would be a good fit for a spreadsheet program from 1993. In my opinion this is the #1 reason that Paradox's catalog of very deep, complex strategy games have broken out of the niche.

-It would be nice if this company seemed to have a clue about marketing itself and getting the brand out of the little niche. And yet, they continue to be absolutely facepalm-worthy in this regard. Tim Stone is the writer of the weekly The Flare Path column on Rock Paper Shotgun. It's a strategy/simulation/wargame column, and it was within that weekly release that he posted last week's critique of a lot of Slitherine's business practices. Apparently Slitherine has thought about doing a weekly sale for awhile (the timing seems awfully convenient, but whatever), and Iain mentions that maybe Tim would like to help out by advertising that sale. Great! It's mentioned that Tim likes the idea. Great! And then :

QuoteThe invitation is open and he knows where we are :)

(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reactionface.info%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimagecache%2FNode_Page%2Fimages%2F1314029819767.png&hash=36182f184ba42aa91585dd7df115215ad206ffc3)

Or you could, you know, SEND HIM AN EMAIL YOURSELF. Is he supposed to be at your beck and call here? HE is doing YOU a favor, not the other way around.

But hey, it'll all be okay. Just spend another year's marketing budget renting out an Italian villa so that a bunch of web sites nobody has ever heard of can copy-paste your press release out as a news post. That's how to get it done.

Quote from: mirth on April 24, 2013, 09:53:00 AM
I don't think Matrix/Slitherine grasps that while they fill a niche in the video gaming market, they're not the only choice for wargamers to spend their dollars. I play other styles of video game, I play board games, I play miniatures wargames. There are more games for me to purchase and play than I'll ever have time for. My money goes where I perceive value and respect for the consumer. I'm seeing less of both these days from Matrix/Slitherine.

That's a very good point. There are certain companies that don't seem to understand a lot of the time that they aren't just competing with other game publishers. They're competing for entertainment dollars in general. And with board wargame publishers most definitely pushing the envelope A LOT more than their computer brethren are, they're losing out on more of those dollars.

http://matrixgames.com/news/1060/Matrix.offers.you.the.Deal.of.the.Week!

Judge seems to have won his argument !  ;)

Woah - It wasn't my crusade...although I was vocal.  :)

I'm glad they're doing it. Seems the talk over there seems to be more along the lines of doing something for loyalty than adjusting pricing to bring in more money. I stopped reading.

I hope it does bring in more money for them - unfortunately I have both those titles.

By the way - Forge of Freedom is worth the FULL price if they gave the interface a makeover. The game is superb - it just looks butt ugly on a new monitor.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 29, 2013, 10:04:57 AM
By the way - Forge of Freedom is worth the FULL price if they gave the interface a makeover. The game is superb - it just looks butt ugly on a new monitor.

Going to get that one...was too expensive for me.

Ditto, I'll be buying that one tonight.   Goes against my "don't buy any more games" resolution, but I think this one is worth it.   This is one of the few matrix games I don't have that I'd be interested in.   Carriers at war is the other, but given the price and limited replay ability, it's a no-go.

Carriers at War was a huge disappointment for me. I bought it on release, but it was way too simple - but the most annoying thing about it (that I remember) were huge ships in a small theatre - really limiting the variability of the scenarios.

Forge of Freedom though - superb. Has a "quirky" interface in places and as I said, doesn't look as great now as it did on my 1024x7687 monitor - but gameplay was great. Very, very configurable with a strategic layer and then jumping in to a tactical layer.

I particularly loved seeing my units get upgrades from swords to rifles to better rifles, to seige mortars and receiving traits.

I just wish they would revisit it and give it an upgrade. I know that's probably not feasible financially - but the gameplay works so well...by not looking after it and giving it a makeover it's a waste of a fantastic game.

Forge of Freedom is a classic game.

As a business professor I think that the strategy Slitherine is following is rational.  This is a nitch market.  Lowering the price may decrease revenues.
Software development has huge initial fixed costs.  The incremental cost after that is pretty trivial.  So your goal is to maximize your revenue once you have spent the money developing the game.

The pricing strategy is pretty common for firms with nitche products, very finite demand, huge upfront sunk costs, and very low variable costs.

If you can't make money at something - you stop doing it (unless it is a 100% hobby).  I hope that Slitherine and other game manufacturers make lots and lots of money and use some of it to develop more fun products. 

I can look at a lot of this from a hobbyest from childhood, but also as a business owner, business consultant, and business professor.

Quote from: airboy on April 29, 2013, 12:14:02 PM
As a business professor I think that the strategy Slitherine is following is rational.  This is a nitch market.  Lowering the price may decrease revenues.
Software development has huge initial fixed costs.  The incremental cost after that is pretty trivial.  So your goal is to maximize your revenue once you have spent the money developing the game.

The pricing strategy is pretty common for firms with nitche products, very finite demand, huge upfront sunk costs, and very low variable costs.

If you can't make money at something - you stop doing it (unless it is a 100% hobby).  I hope that Slitherine and other game manufacturers make lots and lots of money and use some of it to develop more fun products. 

I can look at a lot of this from a hobbyest from childhood, but also as a business owner, business consultant, and business professor.

Personally I think its a test on Slitherenes part. Given strength of the debate in recent days - I would bet its designed to either prove people wrong - by doing what they wanted and then showing them the numbers to show it doesnt work - OR - it will work and then they make some money from old games. Either way it seems win - win. to a certain extent.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 29, 2013, 12:54:38 PM

Personally I think its a test on Slitherenes part. Given strength of the debate in recent days - I would bet its designed to either prove people wrong - by doing what they wanted and then showing them the numbers to show it doesnt work - OR - it will work and then they make some money from old games. Either way it seems win - win. to a certain extent.

Fantastic, I love tests like these where I get to buy the games I have always wanted but could not afford at cheaper prices.

QuotePersonally I think its a test on Slitherenes part.

Not the case, we had this planned already many weeks before this whole debate exploded, nobody will believe us, but that is the truth.

I can know as I was consulted as a developer if I would agree on sales on some of our older products, a thing Slitherine Group always does, prior to any sale... they are real gents.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 29, 2013, 09:17:36 AM
http://matrixgames.com/news/1060/Matrix.offers.you.the.Deal.of.the.Week!

Judge seems to have won his argument !  ;)

Well I'll be damned.  That's definitely a step in the right direction IMHO. 

Quote from: Lord Zimoa on April 29, 2013, 01:00:46 PM

QuotePersonally I think its a test on Slitherenes part.

Not the case, we had this planned already many weeks before this whole debate exploded, nobody will believe us, but that is the truth.

I can know as I was consulted as a developer if I would agree on sales on some of our older products, a thing Slitherine Group always does, prior to any sale... they are real gents.

It works for me at least. FoF has been a long time on my list but it was too expensive to be added to my large list of games...

Quote from: Lord Zimoa on April 29, 2013, 01:00:46 PM

QuotePersonally I think its a test on Slitherenes part.

Not the case, we had this planned already many weeks before this whole debate exploded, nobody will believe us, but that is the truth.

I can know as I was consulted as a developer if I would agree on sales on some of our older products, a thing Slitherine Group always does, prior to any sale... they are real gents.

I stand corrected. And quite the contrary, I do believe you. Just keep making the games is all I care about.

I'm not even sure if I'd ever get around to playing FOF right now, with my backlog, but it's still very tempting at the sale price. 

The small screen resolution can be overlooked, at this price, as long as the game doesn't interfere with my vid card settings for keeping the exact resolution displayed (with black bars around it).  Most don't, but I've found one or two games that override that setting. 

I suppose FOF also works okay on Win7?

Quote from: Ashcloud on April 29, 2013, 12:57:49 PM

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 29, 2013, 12:54:38 PM

Personally I think its a test on Slitherenes part. Given strength of the debate in recent days - I would bet its designed to either prove people wrong - by doing what they wanted and then showing them the numbers to show it doesnt work - OR - it will work and then they make some money from old games. Either way it seems win - win. to a certain extent.

Fantastic, I love tests like these where I get to buy the games I have always wanted but could not afford at cheaper prices.

:)

Quote from: Nefaro on April 29, 2013, 02:54:58 PM
I'm not even sure if I'd ever get around to playing FOF right now, with my backlog, but it's still very tempting at the sale price. 

The small screen resolution can be overlooked, at this price, as long as the game doesn't interfere with my vid card settings for keeping the exact resolution displayed (with black bars around it).  Most don't, but I've found one or two games that override that setting. 

I suppose FOF also works okay on Win7?

I believe I have had it installed and playing on my Win 7 (64 bit) machine.

If you want concrete proof, I can re-install and try? But I'm pretty sure I tried it only a couple of months ago.

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 29, 2013, 03:32:31 PM

Quote from: Nefaro on April 29, 2013, 02:54:58 PM
I'm not even sure if I'd ever get around to playing FOF right now, with my backlog, but it's still very tempting at the sale price. 

The small screen resolution can be overlooked, at this price, as long as the game doesn't interfere with my vid card settings for keeping the exact resolution displayed (with black bars around it).  Most don't, but I've found one or two games that override that setting. 

I suppose FOF also works okay on Win7?

I believe I have had it installed and playing on my Win 7 (64 bit) machine.

If you want concrete proof, I can re-install and try? But I'm pretty sure I tried it only a couple of months ago.

Naaa.. no need to waste your time.  I can always look on the game forum if I feel compelled to buy it.  I probably won't just because it's not something I'd fire up anytime soon.

Hmmm...I simply don't have enough historical backing on ACW at this point to get much out of FOF...and yet I'm considering it, because I'm a sick, sick man.  ::) ;D

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 29, 2013, 04:09:55 PM
I'm a sick, sick man.

I've been saying that for ages!

I really enjoyed FoF... yeah.. graphics aren't exciting... when I first started playing, I was like WTF with tactical battles, then I got addicted! Kind of like Civilization meets the Civil War.. but then the Tactical Battles is like icing on the Cake..

lol. I was bringing my laptop to work so that I could play during my lunch hour out in the car!

Funny thing is, I bought Crown of Glory after that, but never got into it..

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 29, 2013, 04:09:55 PM
Hmmm...I simply don't have enough historical backing on ACW at this point to get much out of FOF...and yet I'm considering it, because I'm a sick, sick man.  ::) ;D

Do it.  Its a great game :)

Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 29, 2013, 06:26:27 PM

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 29, 2013, 04:09:55 PM
Hmmm...I simply don't have enough historical backing on ACW at this point to get much out of FOF...and yet I'm considering it, because I'm a sick, sick man.  ::) ;D

Do it.  Its a great game :)

Seconded. My favorite ACW game!

Quote from: bbmike on April 29, 2013, 06:35:30 PM

Quote from: TheCommandTent on April 29, 2013, 06:26:27 PM

Quote from: Arctic Blast on April 29, 2013, 04:09:55 PM
Hmmm...I simply don't have enough historical backing on ACW at this point to get much out of FOF...and yet I'm considering it, because I'm a sick, sick man.  ::) ;D

Do it.  Its a great game :)

Seconded. My favorite ACW game!

Second favorite.. AGEOD comes first in my book!  ;D.. But still a great game and so is Scourge..

I get value out of my games because I'm not a collector and rarely impulse buy.  I could see where someone in those two categories wouldn't be happy with Matrix Games pricing as they are on the high end. 

In their defense the customer support is first class and they are responsive to the community when issues are raised.  That said I really don't buy the "niche market" line but.............................

Something constructive has occurred. Matrix Games has started having a Deal of the Week (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3316096). "Starting this week, there will be a weekly deal of the week offering selected games at a special price. From 29th of April to 5th of May, Forge of Freedom (http://matrixgames.com/products/333/details/Forge.of.Freedom:.The.American.Civil.War.1861-1865?utm_source=Matrix+Newsletter+-+April+2013&utm_campaign=Matrix+Apr+News&utm_medium=email) and John Tiller's Battleground Civil War (http://matrixgames.com/products/319/details/John.Tillers.Battleground.Civil.War?utm_source=Matrix+Newsletter+-+April+2013&utm_campaign=Matrix+Apr+News&utm_medium=email) will be sold at $19,99/$29,99 (Digital/Boxed version), which is a discount of up to 60 %!"

Mentioned on page 11 on this thread - post #156   ;)

But better to be safe than sorry when posting and repost - in case someone misses it  :)

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 24, 2013, 10:13:09 AM
One other thing I saw somewhere...Matrix are no longer selling through NWS. Now I'm not surprised...and indeed it always surprised me that you could get Matrix Games cheaper there.....but still I bought direct from Matrix...and yet I just can't swallow "we're the good guys" with closing down other avenues for your products...it just doesn't come across right.

There's been change at Matrix since Slitherine got involved and whilst you might (correctly or otherwise)  say it's for the benefit of the company...I noticed the change, didn't like it and left. I can't put my finger on it though and it wasn't immediate either. Maybe there's a good reason for that change - who knows.

I wish them all the very best and hope things go well for them and will probably buy from them if the price is right...but the feel of the place has changed.

I do know what I don't like...their disregard for Android in favour of Apple. I get the reason - but as a non apple user I don't like the direction. Not that I mind Apple getting products...just their disregard for android.

I also don't like the fact that not only were their back products over priced imo, but they have gone up in price since the merger. I wish I had proof of that, but it only came to light when I was looking at CotA the other day. £35 for something I'm pretty sure I recall being £25...possibly less. Like I said...no proof but it definitely feels like that to me.

I think I'll jump off the bus now.

I will leave it saying this - I hope what they have works. I'll buy when I want and what I want. But looking at their pricing structure over the last couple of years, my purchases will likely be less and less. Boardgames have taken a chunk of my money as well as sale items (even of things I've yet to play - like Sleeping Dogs or Max Payne 3) and other ventures (DCS)

And - I just spunked £40 on Race Room cars and tracks!  :(

Just trying to understand your logic on the apple issue.  While I do respect the fact that not everyone can afford an iPad or may not like "apple" in general I do very much understand the logic behind slitherines motive for producing games for the iPad and vrs android .  Slitherine makes a game for iPad and in general it will work on all iPads .   Android tablets range from $49-$799 and higher.  Not all the games will work on all the tablets or phones.   My first smart phone was an android and it turned me off so much I turned to apple and have never looked back.  If android just had "google play" and that's the only way to get games for the android then maybe I could see your point.  But it's not .   While I don't like the way apple handles some games for example the Japanese imperial flag of ww2 is considered to offensive for apple while on android it is not.   While I have been very critical of slitherines pricing policy and customer service skills they have done this right.  If you played BA on the iPad I suspect you would agree with me.   And by the way my name is Rodney and I hope this response to your post here didn't disgust you as much as you pointed out that it did on the matrix forum site.
And I'm sorry to tell you I much rather liked the sequel to judge dread than the original.
Regards-
Rodney.

Quote from: Greybriar on April 30, 2013, 02:11:04 PM
Something constructive has occurred. Matrix Games has started having a Deal of the Week (http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3316096). "Starting this week, there will be a weekly deal of the week offering selected games at a special price. From 29th of April to 5th of May, Forge of Freedom (http://matrixgames.com/products/333/details/Forge.of.Freedom:.The.American.Civil.War.1861-1865?utm_source=Matrix+Newsletter+-+April+2013&utm_campaign=Matrix+Apr+News&utm_medium=email) and John Tiller's Battleground Civil War (http://matrixgames.com/products/319/details/John.Tillers.Battleground.Civil.War?utm_source=Matrix+Newsletter+-+April+2013&utm_campaign=Matrix+Apr+News&utm_medium=email) will be sold at $19,99/$29,99 (Digital/Boxed version), which is a discount of up to 60 %!"

Thanks GB.  I did miss the earlier post, so this is a good example of what Dredd is talking about.  I've been thinking about getting Forge of Freedom and almost certainly will now, at that price point.

Quote from: Rogo727 on April 30, 2013, 06:50:04 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 24, 2013, 10:13:09 AM
One other thing I saw somewhere...Matrix are no longer selling through NWS. Now I'm not surprised...and indeed it always surprised me that you could get Matrix Games cheaper there.....but still I bought direct from Matrix...and yet I just can't swallow "we're the good guys" with closing down other avenues for your products...it just doesn't come across right.

There's been change at Matrix since Slitherine got involved and whilst you might (correctly or otherwise)  say it's for the benefit of the company...I noticed the change, didn't like it and left. I can't put my finger on it though and it wasn't immediate either. Maybe there's a good reason for that change - who knows.

I wish them all the very best and hope things go well for them and will probably buy from them if the price is right...but the feel of the place has changed.

I do know what I don't like...their disregard for Android in favour of Apple. I get the reason - but as a non apple user I don't like the direction. Not that I mind Apple getting products...just their disregard for android.

I also don't like the fact that not only were their back products over priced imo, but they have gone up in price since the merger. I wish I had proof of that, but it only came to light when I was looking at CotA the other day. £35 for something I'm pretty sure I recall being £25...possibly less. Like I said...no proof but it definitely feels like that to me.

I think I'll jump off the bus now.

I will leave it saying this - I hope what they have works. I'll buy when I want and what I want. But looking at their pricing structure over the last couple of years, my purchases will likely be less and less. Boardgames have taken a chunk of my money as well as sale items (even of things I've yet to play - like Sleeping Dogs or Max Payne 3) and other ventures (DCS)

And - I just spunked £40 on Race Room cars and tracks!  :(

Just trying to understand your logic on the apple issue.  While I do respect the fact that not everyone can afford an iPad or may not like "apple" in general I do very much understand the logic behind slitherines motive for producing games for the iPad and vrs android .  Slitherine makes a game for iPad and in general it will work on all iPads .   Android tablets range from $49-$799 and higher.  Not all the games will work on all the tablets or phones.   My first smart phone was an android and it turned me off so much I turned to apple and have never looked back.  If android just had "google play" and that's the only way to get games for the android then maybe I could see your point.  But it's not .   While I don't like the way apple handles some games for example the Japanese imperial flag of ww2 is considered to offensive for apple while on android it is not.   While I have been very critical of slitherines pricing policy and customer service skills they have done this right.  If you played BA on the iPad I suspect you would agree with me.   And by the way my name is Rodney and I hope this response to your post here didn't disgust you as much as you pointed out that it did on the matrix forum site.
And I'm sorry to tell you I much rather liked the sequel to judge dread than the original.
Regards-
Rodney.

I too have a hatred for Apple, the proprietary BS is for the birds.. be thankful for Android to make Apple start to lower their prices... Apple blew it big time in the PC Market.. they had a far superior machine but they didn't want competition.. so they lost that war...

When I buy music, I want it to be mine.. so I really hate ITUNES.. ITUNES also runs like piece of crap on my PC.. so another knock against it... I buy my music from Amazon and Google Play, so that I can play my music where I want on whatever PC I want, without the ITunes Handcuffs..

Android market is only getting bigger.. and if Slitherine doesn't want that slice, than that is up to them..

Quote from: Tuna on April 30, 2013, 08:09:33 PM

Quote from: Rogo727 on April 30, 2013, 06:50:04 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 24, 2013, 10:13:09 AM
One other thing I saw somewhere...Matrix are no longer selling through NWS. Now I'm not surprised...and indeed it always surprised me that you could get Matrix Games cheaper there.....but still I bought direct from Matrix...and yet I just can't swallow "we're the good guys" with closing down other avenues for your products...it just doesn't come across right.

There's been change at Matrix since Slitherine got involved and whilst you might (correctly or otherwise)  say it's for the benefit of the company...I noticed the change, didn't like it and left. I can't put my finger on it though and it wasn't immediate either. Maybe there's a good reason for that change - who knows.

I wish them all the very best and hope things go well for them and will probably buy from them if the price is right...but the feel of the place has changed.

I do know what I don't like...their disregard for Android in favour of Apple. I get the reason - but as a non apple user I don't like the direction. Not that I mind Apple getting products...just their disregard for android.

I also don't like the fact that not only were their back products over priced imo, but they have gone up in price since the merger. I wish I had proof of that, but it only came to light when I was looking at CotA the other day. £35 for something I'm pretty sure I recall being £25...possibly less. Like I said...no proof but it definitely feels like that to me.

I think I'll jump off the bus now.

I will leave it saying this - I hope what they have works. I'll buy when I want and what I want. But looking at their pricing structure over the last couple of years, my purchases will likely be less and less. Boardgames have taken a chunk of my money as well as sale items (even of things I've yet to play - like Sleeping Dogs or Max Payne 3) and other ventures (DCS)

And - I just spunked £40 on Race Room cars and tracks!  :(

Just trying to understand your logic on the apple issue.  While I do respect the fact that not everyone can afford an iPad or may not like "apple" in general I do very much understand the logic behind slitherines motive for producing games for the iPad and vrs android .  Slitherine makes a game for iPad and in general it will work on all iPads .   Android tablets range from $49-$799 and higher.  Not all the games will work on all the tablets or phones.   My first smart phone was an android and it turned me off so much I turned to apple and have never looked back.  If android just had "google play" and that's the only way to get games for the android then maybe I could see your point.  But it's not .   While I don't like the way apple handles some games for example the Japanese imperial flag of ww2 is considered to offensive for apple while on android it is not.   While I have been very critical of slitherines pricing policy and customer service skills they have done this right.  If you played BA on the iPad I suspect you would agree with me.   And by the way my name is Rodney and I hope this response to your post here didn't disgust you as much as you pointed out that it did on the matrix forum site.
And I'm sorry to tell you I much rather liked the sequel to judge dread than the original.
Regards-
Rodney.

I too have a hatred for Apple, the proprietary BS is for the birds.. be thankful for Android to make Apple start to lower their prices... Apple blew it big time in the PC Market.. they had a far superior machine but they didn't want competition.. so they lost that war...

When I buy music, I want it to be mine.. so I really hate ITUNES.. ITUNES also runs like piece of crap on my PC.. so another knock against it... I buy my music from Amazon and Google Play, so that I can play my music where I want on whatever PC I want, without the ITunes Handcuffs..

Android market is only getting bigger.. and if Slitherine doesn't want that slice, than that is up to them..

I dislike some of Apple's practices also, but I'm pretty sure you aren't locked into using an Apple device to play music you buy from iTunes.   Click on the song and select "Create MP3" version".  I think you can transfer this to whatever device or machine you want.  Could be wrong, but I think it works this way.   That said, I also don't think you could always do this.

Creates an MP3 with your Itunes ID imprinted in it! Watch your kids.. make sure they aren't sharing, or you could be at the receiving end of one of those fun lawsuits you hear about..

Quote from: smittyohio on April 30, 2013, 08:20:34 PM

Quote from: Tuna on April 30, 2013, 08:09:33 PM

Quote from: Rogo727 on April 30, 2013, 06:50:04 PM

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 24, 2013, 10:13:09 AM
One other thing I saw somewhere...Matrix are no longer selling through NWS. Now I'm not surprised...and indeed it always surprised me that you could get Matrix Games cheaper there.....but still I bought direct from Matrix...and yet I just can't swallow "we're the good guys" with closing down other avenues for your products...it just doesn't come across right.

There's been change at Matrix since Slitherine got involved and whilst you might (correctly or otherwise)  say it's for the benefit of the company...I noticed the change, didn't like it and left. I can't put my finger on it though and it wasn't immediate either. Maybe there's a good reason for that change - who knows.

I wish them all the very best and hope things go well for them and will probably buy from them if the price is right...but the feel of the place has changed.

I do know what I don't like...their disregard for Android in favour of Apple. I get the reason - but as a non apple user I don't like the direction. Not that I mind Apple getting products...just their disregard for android.

I also don't like the fact that not only were their back products over priced imo, but they have gone up in price since the merger. I wish I had proof of that, but it only came to light when I was looking at CotA the other day. £35 for something I'm pretty sure I recall being £25...possibly less. Like I said...no proof but it definitely feels like that to me.

I think I'll jump off the bus now.

I will leave it saying this - I hope what they have works. I'll buy when I want and what I want. But looking at their pricing structure over the last couple of years, my purchases will likely be less and less. Boardgames have taken a chunk of my money as well as sale items (even of things I've yet to play - like Sleeping Dogs or Max Payne 3) and other ventures (DCS)

And - I just spunked £40 on Race Room cars and tracks!  :(

Just trying to understand your logic on the apple issue.  While I do respect the fact that not everyone can afford an iPad or may not like "apple" in general I do very much understand the logic behind slitherines motive for producing games for the iPad and vrs android .  Slitherine makes a game for iPad and in general it will work on all iPads .   Android tablets range from $49-$799 and higher.  Not all the games will work on all the tablets or phones.   My first smart phone was an android and it turned me off so much I turned to apple and have never looked back.  If android just had "google play" and that's the only way to get games for the android then maybe I could see your point.  But it's not .   While I don't like the way apple handles some games for example the Japanese imperial flag of ww2 is considered to offensive for apple while on android it is not.   While I have been very critical of slitherines pricing policy and customer service skills they have done this right.  If you played BA on the iPad I suspect you would agree with me.   And by the way my name is Rodney and I hope this response to your post here didn't disgust you as much as you pointed out that it did on the matrix forum site.
And I'm sorry to tell you I much rather liked the sequel to judge dread than the original.
Regards-
Rodney.

I too have a hatred for Apple, the proprietary BS is for the birds.. be thankful for Android to make Apple start to lower their prices... Apple blew it big time in the PC Market.. they had a far superior machine but they didn't want competition.. so they lost that war...

When I buy music, I want it to be mine.. so I really hate ITUNES.. ITUNES also runs like piece of crap on my PC.. so another knock against it... I buy my music from Amazon and Google Play, so that I can play my music where I want on whatever PC I want, without the ITunes Handcuffs..

Android market is only getting bigger.. and if Slitherine doesn't want that slice, than that is up to them..

I dislike some of Apple's practices also, but I'm pretty sure you aren't locked into using an Apple device to play music you buy from iTunes.   Click on the song and select "Create MP3" version".  I think you can transfer this to whatever device or machine you want.  Could be wrong, but I think it works this way.   That said, I also don't think you could always do this.

You are not locked into using an apple device in playing music.  Look I get the fact that there are those who don't own apple products who say they are garbage or don't like them but when you have people making incorrect statements based on the fact they don't like a product someone should correct them.  I have bought several songs on amazon that transferred to my apple products.   With iCloud I can  play my music on any computer anywhere by signing in.  Regardless if it has iTunes installed or not.   

Quote from: Tuna on April 30, 2013, 08:26:49 PM
Creates an MP3 with your Itunes ID imprinted in it! Watch your kids.. make sure they aren't sharing, or you could be at the receiving end of one of those fun lawsuits you hear about..

Again folks just use iCloud ....

I will say this there are some damn fine wargames in google play that I wish we're on the iPad.  Both platforms are here to stay for along time.  So lets take advantage of it.

Quote from: Zulu1966 on April 29, 2013, 09:17:36 AM
http://matrixgames.com/news/1060/Matrix.offers.you.the.Deal.of.the.Week!

This is a welcome move by Matrix and I will certainly have my eyes open for their weekly deal. I can't play everything I have now, but that's not the point   8)

Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 29, 2013, 10:04:57 AM
By the way - Forge of Freedom is worth the FULL price if they gave the interface a makeover. The game is superb - it just looks butt ugly on a new monitor.

Plays kind of butt-ugly, too. Great game, but damn does it need an interface overhaul; I want to fight the Yanks or the Rebs, not the UI.

That being said, we should spread the word on the Grog Sales Thread each week, and among our compatriots. I already own just about every Matrix game I might care to buy, but my brother (from whom I learned to play wargames, but who has this thing called a "life" and doesn't collect them) might go for a new game hearing me praise it. (I mean 'new' from his standpoint.)

I own a fair number of old Matrix titles, too, but there are a few that I would consider purchasing if they're on a sale like this. 

Ones that I never would, otherwise.

Quote from: Nefaro on May 01, 2013, 11:51:47 AM
I own a fair number of old Matrix titles, too, but there are a few that I would consider purchasing if they're on a sale like this. 

Ones that I never would, otherwise.

Same here

Quote from: Tuna on May 01, 2013, 12:33:24 PM

Quote from: Nefaro on May 01, 2013, 11:51:47 AM
I own a fair number of old Matrix titles, too, but there are a few that I would consider purchasing if they're on a sale like this. 

Ones that I never would, otherwise.

Same here

Me three.

Although I've already got WiTP and WiTP-AE, so technically I have no time to play anything else, ever.

Would love to see Distant Worlds + expansions get featured in these new sales they're doing.  With apologies to Huw (who would understandably disagree), that game should be getting a lot more exposure than it currently is, and a decent sale could certainly help with that. 

Quote from: donkey_roxor on May 01, 2013, 01:07:07 PM
Although I've already got WiTP and WiTP-AE, so technically I have no time to play anything else, ever.

From everything I've ever heard, I'm always amazed those of you who own either/both of those games ever manage to find time to even post!  ;) 

QuoteI'm always amazed those of you who own either/both of those games ever manage to find time to even post!

Owning is not playing... :P

Quote from: Martok on May 03, 2013, 07:54:34 AM
Would love to see Distant Worlds + expansions get featured in these new sales they're doing.  With apologies to Huw (who would understandably disagree), that game should be getting a lot more exposure than it currently is, and a decent sale could certainly help with that. 

I doubt that's going to happen for a long time (if ever), but they could put the AI War collection on sale, as that has already been made available through other venues.

And they're leading out right with Tiller's Civil War and Forge of Freedom: two high quality representative games that have seen better days.

WitP1 at a discount would be sure to garner sales of the Admiral Edition, I'd think; the War Plan Orange game is a fine introduction to that system, too. Or heck, Uncommon Valor (or whatever the first iteration of that system was called). But WPO has the advantage of introducing the game system AND ALSO being a unique speculative war scenario.

Quote from: Martok on May 03, 2013, 07:54:34 AM
Would love to see Distant Worlds + expansions get featured in these new sales they're doing.  With apologies to Huw (who would understandably disagree), that game should be getting a lot more exposure than it currently is, and a decent sale could certainly help with that. 

Heh, no worries mate.  Clearly everyone else sees something that I don't, and I've made my peace with that. :)