Middle East campaign series releases sep. 24

[Tuna]

What do you think a fair price point would be for such a package?

In case of JTCS - around 100 bucks

You are kidding right?

Why kidding?  For a game bundle that would be several years in the making and include a number approaching 1,000 scenarios?

For that many scenarios, not to mention the OOBs, custom graphics, etc. to go with it -- other game projects would charge for the original game, then also "expansion packs", or DLCs, or "gold version".

In any case, (re)bundling ain't ever gonna happen (again), so why even speculate about it?

For a game engine that is about ten years old.. Might as well jack the price of Steel Panthers up again..

[Jason Petho]

I'd be inclined to disagree. That statement seems to suggest that the engine has been stagnant for 10 years, which it most certainly hasn't, as shown with the recent release of Middle East.

Fundamentally it is similar, sure, but it is hardly the same. And with each passing month there are improvements with more more improvements to come.

[Tuna]

I'd be inclined to disagree. That statement seems to suggest that the engine has been stagnant for 10 years, which it most certainly hasn't, as shown with the recent release of Middle East.

Fundamentally it is similar, sure, but it is hardly the same. And with each passing month there are improvements with more more improvements to come.

The thing is, you want to make the most money possible. When you hit 'certain' price points.. you turn off people. You have a lot of hard core fans, you'll get them whatever you charge.. But you want to get more than that initial bang.  More reasonable would be 20 bucks each.. then if you want to bundle at 60 (but again, there are people who are not going to dump 60 into a one shot purchase). Again, if word gets out and you sell a lot more units you make more.

I paid 80 for WITE the day it came out. Never again, there wasn't anything there that was 'more' to make me think it was money well spent. I have yet to buy SPWAW (because of the price point). You can get people to buy more, by not hitting them so hard in the 'single' purchase.

Again, you'll have fans that will pay 100.. You won't have the outcry there was with World in Flames because it is more stable. But you also are going to have a lot of 'non' sales that you won't even 'know' about.

[Jason Petho]

No worries, we're not doing the bundling thing.

I suspect the initial releases will be between 30 and 40 USD each. I'm not 100% sure though.

[berto]

What do you think a fair price point would be for such a package?

In case of JTCS - around 100 bucks

You are kidding right?

Why kidding?  For a game bundle that would be several years in the making and include a number approaching 1,000 scenarios?

For that many scenarios, not to mention the OOBs, custom graphics, etc. to go with it -- other game projects would charge for the original game, then also "expansion packs", or DLCs, or "gold version".

In any case, (re)bundling ain't ever gonna happen (again), so why even speculate about it?

For a game engine that is about ten years old.. Might as well jack the price of Steel Panthers up again..

We fully intend to back port "those counters".  But we will be unbundling the older games into separate, standalone WF 3.0, EF 3.0 & RS 3.0, you should know.  Of course, Rome Wasn't Built in a Day.

So if version 3.0 WF, EF and RS are separately sold, what will be the price? And will the owners of Matrix JTCS be able to get any discount?

Remember:  These games will be substantially revamped.  They will not be mere repackaging of the old JTCS.  So much of the data, graphics included, are being reworked.  New code is being written, and old code is being overhauled.  The game engine etc. continue to evolve incrementally.

In similar fashion, Windows has evolved over the course of its near 25-year history -- incremental evolution.  With each new version of Windows, was Microsoft supposed to sell at an ever more discounted price an "OS engine" that was 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years old?  And so too with MS Office.  Do you think that Microsoft rebuilt Office every few years out of an aversion to "old engines"?  Was Office always supposed to sell at a(n ever) discounted price because at its core it was "old" technology?

In the gaming world, you do know that, to give one example, War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition was built on a code foundation -- Uncommon Valor -- that dates back to the early 2000s.  When WITP:AE came out, was Matrix supposed to sell the game for less than the original Uncommon Valor?  Or perhaps $10 more (due to the additional content of covering the entire war), because it was an "old game engine"?  (Hmm, don't answer that.)

I could give many other examples in the video and PC gaming world where supposedly "new engines" were really evolutionary advances over the "old".  Half-Life, then Half-Life 2, for example.

I don't understand the focus on "new engine".  New engines built entirely new from the ground up.  With all new bugs, and years of field testing to discover all the new and inevitable flaws.  Why is "new" always better than "old"?  What's wrong with "tried and true [and evolved]"?

Some people -- present company excepted, of course  ;) -- blithely throw around the term "new engine" without having any idea how difficult it is, how long it takes, to create such a beast.  And suggest in effect that, every five years or so, a game dev should just chuck the "old engine" and start all over again with something New! and! Improved!

I've purchased and played "new engine" games, sometimes at premium prices.  In many cases ... yuck! 

There's no winning this argument.  An argument perhaps unique to the PC war gaming market.

So sorry that you and others are unhappy with the new direction that the CS will be taking.   :(

[berto]

I'd be inclined to disagree. That statement seems to suggest that the engine has been stagnant for 10 years, which it most certainly hasn't, as shown with the recent release of Middle East.

Fundamentally it is similar, sure, but it is hardly the same. And with each passing month there are improvements with more more improvements to come.

The thing is, you want to make the most money possible. When you hit 'certain' price points.. you turn off people. You have a lot of hard core fans, you'll get them whatever you charge.. But you want to get more than that initial bang.  More reasonable would be 20 bucks each.. then if you want to bundle at 60 (but again, there are people who are not going to dump 60 into a one shot purchase). Again, if word gets out and you sell a lot more units you make more.

I paid 80 for WITE the day it came out. Never again, there wasn't anything there that was 'more' to make me think it was money well spent. I have yet to buy SPWAW (because of the price point). You can get people to buy more, by not hitting them so hard in the 'single' purchase.

Again, you'll have fans that will pay 100.. You won't have the outcry there was with World in Flames because it is more stable. But you also are going to have a lot of 'non' sales that you won't even 'know' about.

You're raising the issue of price "elasticity" of demand.  I suppose there is less elasticity here than you might imagine.  Slitherine (which bought out Matrix) is a successful and growing company.  There is much money at stake in their understanding their market(s) and getting their games' pricing "right" (so as to maximize their profits).  I trust that Slitherine has studied this carefully, knows its business, and knows best how to price its products.

[panzerde]

There's no winning this argument.  An argument perhaps unique to the PC war gaming market.

So sorry that you and others are unhappy with the new direction that the CS will be taking.   :(

Even more true in an era of $.99 "apps" being considered "normal."

I'm most definitely in the camp of "not unhappy with this direction." I play CS and the JTS/HPS games specifically because the game engines are well-developed and have had nearly all of the rough edges worn off. That, and the fact that once I've learned to play one of these games I don't have to relearn the engine to play the next. I can concentrate on learning the part I want to learn, which is being a better commander of troops in whatever era is represented in the game.

There is HUGE value in the consistency of a stable software product. Polishing UI and adding features worked out across years of actual use is considerably different than the featureitis and "chrome" of an "oooh, shiney!" software project. I'll take your 10 year-old engine, along with its much appreciated new features, but what I'll PAY for is exactly what you're talking about doing: more scenarios, better OOBs, improved graphics, and the works.

This is a niche hobby. Sorry but it's always going to be a niche hobby. Despite the dreams of some people, wargaming is never going to be mainstream. The economics of being a niche hobby mean that you're going to pay more for CS: Cold War than Angry Birds. Developers and publishers have to make money, and in this hobby that is never going to happen through volume.

[PAK]

"Unhappy" perhaps is a too big word, maybe "not fully satisfied" is better. But I'm a customer and You're doing the business, our goals are simply different, I understand and respect this. And I fully appreciate what You guys did with JTCS.
As for pricing, Camo Workshop Steel Panthers cost 40 bucks apiece (SP World War 2 and SP Main Battle Tank).  For long time I was considering this price as too steep for such old games, but when I finally bought both Camo's SP's, I didn't regret it. Camo team twisted the game code to the extreme, those Steel Panthers are still great. My view on JTCS progress is similar. Of course I would be most happy to pay only for a big update that levels JTCS with Middle East or Vietnam but if the team decide to take a different path - it is their right to do it. Depending on how many changes there would be, I probably would buy at least two titles out of three (probably EF and WF).  Maybe I would do this with teeth a little clenched 

[jomni]

The problem with the JTCS reboot is that it is also competing with the original JTCS witch is so much value for money compared to what I'm hearing about the reboot.

The customers don't care about how much time developers spend.  What they care about is how much time they are going to spend playing.
So assuming if they spend the same time playing "reboot" and "original" and get the same level of satisfaction, original JTCS wins.  The OOB, engine changes, 2D and additional scenarios don't matter.
I have to admit.  I am buying Mid East not for the changes under the hood but for the setting and scenarios.  I don't even like the 2D counters. 

[panzerde]

The problem with the JTCS reboot is that it is also competing with the original JTCS witch is so much value for money compared to what I'm hearing about the reboot.

The customers don't care about how much time developers spend.  What they care about is how much time they are going to spend playing.
So assuming if they spend the same time playing "reboot" and "original" and get the same level of satisfaction.  The OOB, engine changes and additional scenarios don't matter.

To you. Clearly that is not the case with many other players, given the number of people that have purchased at least three different versions of Command Ops, or have purchased multiple Combat Mission 2 or 3 games that replicate the same battles found in CM1. Or the many, many people that bought AGEOD's ACW2, or BOA2 or...

If you're talking about people that don't have the game already, I would guess that Matrix isn't going to keep selling the original JTCS once they start publishing the new games.

[Tuna]

The problem with the JTCS reboot is that it is also competing with the original JTCS witch is so much value for money compared to what I'm hearing about the reboot.

The customers don't care about how much time developers spend.  What they care about is how much time they are going to spend playing.
So assuming if they spend the same time playing "reboot" and "original" and get the same level of satisfaction.  The OOB, engine changes and additional scenarios don't matter.

To you. Clearly that is not the case with many other players, given the number of people that have purchased at least three different versions of Command Ops, or have purchased multiple Combat Mission 2 or 3 games that replicate the same battles found in CM1. Or the many, many people that bought AGEOD's ACW2, or BOA2 or...

If you're talking about people that don't have the game already, I would guess that Matrix isn't going to keep selling the original JTCS once they start publishing the new games.

I bought East Front, East Front II, West Front, Rising Sun.. then later JTCS.. not going to pay a lot for act 3.. no biggie, it's your choice and your model and I wish you the best of luck. But when you offer no 'upgrade' price to the existing owners, kind of turns off some of the buyers. Like I said before, you have some big fans, that will pay whatever you want to charge.

And the wargaming niche thing doesn't work anymore, because Paradox is thriving with their Clauswitz Engine (due to their aggressive prices). That stuff is not for the faint of heart. But yet they get tons of people to buy their product who will never use it. JTCS is much easier to jump into, but with the age of the engine could never enjoy that type of success. BTW my 16 year old is a Paradox expert, but I have not spent very much time in any of the big three CK2, Vicky2, EUVI (because I just don't get them).

Combat Mission is pricey but a great value for the money, because it 'is' a new engine. But still. I have not 'bought' into the 'paid' updates.

Command Ops, bought version 1, did not fall for Version 2

Ageod still works for me, it's relatively new, and they're prices are certainly not outrageous.

[panzerde]

In response to statements like "AGEOD is relatively new" I'll just point out that AGEOD's Birth of America was published in 2006 making it a "nearly 10 year old engine." The engine in Thirty Years War is exactly the same engine, just polished up a bit and with new content.


Thirty Year's War retails for $29.99. I believe the next AGEOD game in the pipeline is Wars of Napoleon, which is a remake of the 2007 title Napoleon's Campaigns. Matrix/AGEOD recently released Revolution Under Siege Gold, priced at $19.99. However, if you own the previous game, you get an 80% discount off of RuS Gold, making it $5. They did exactly the same thing for Rise of Prussia Gold.


The real world evidence is that older games are remade and released all of the time. Matrix frequently provides discounts on these games. Jomni himself bought Pike and Shot, and then about a year later bought Pike and Shot Campaigns - which is exactly the same engine with a not very sophisticated campaign system grafted on to it, but which significantly added to the number of scenarios and army lists available. The game engine in question is the Battle Academy engine, which is also older at this point. Again, for people that owned Pike and Shot, Matrix offered a great discount and the new game ended up being something like $5.00.


So here we have some developers that have come to the forums to share with us all of the very cool things they are planning to do with the game engine in the future. In fairly short order the discussion devolves into statements about how "people are not going to buy that" and "customers don't care how long you worked on it or if you added a bunch of content." Of course, a developer that showed up and said "We have a new engine but the content is exactly the same as what you had ten years ago" would get piled on about having no new content (and rightfully so, IMHO). 


The damn games aren't even in development yet. The developers have said that Vietnam and Cold War are the next targets, with Vietnam definitely being completed before the WW2 games. Matrix hasn't put forward any pricing. No one from the publisher has announced that there will be no upgrade pricing. One developer speculated that they might price the games similarly to other new games they sell, in the $30 to $40 range (you know, like Thirty Years War at $30).


But some of you guys already know that you are going to buy the game because the non-existent no-upgrade pricing "turns off some of the buyers." Seriously? You can't fathom why a developer of CS would do exactly what AGEOD and a ton of other publishers have obviously done in remaking a game using the same engine because it "competes with the existing game." Despite the fact that you, yourself have demonstrably purchased games that have done exactly this.


I give.

[Jason Petho]

Keep in mind that a decision to offer discounts for owners of JTCS hasn't been made one way or the other. Slitherine/matrix may well choose to do so.

[-budd-]

I'll buy it no matter what. It's been on the hard drive for a awhile and looking forward to the upgrades so it can stay on the hard drive for many years to come. I like the direction there going and the improvements they've made and look forward to more improvements. I think with wargames a mature engine just works better, maybe not for the fancy graphics but as far as game play is concerned. CSME is one of the cleanest releases that i can remember, QA did a great job. I'd like to see improvements in the 3d terrain and units and hope those can be improved [the new 2d views are fantastic, thx] and that the AI will get on going improvement[seems to play better in ME]. I guess just by looking you might think its an old engine but CSME certainly doesn't play like an old engine.

Hey Tuna- take another look at CO2, maybe not to buy the ones you already own but there is a new module out and one on the way soon. The Westwall is out and Knock On All Doors is coming. I think people miss the fact that one of the biggest changes with CO2 is size of the maps possible. Check out the Knock On all Doors thread and look at the size of the maps.

[jomni]

Lol! I'll buy every pike and shot iteration. Especially if are new eras and settings.

As for JTCS.  I'm not ready to buy just another WW2 game.
  The buying decision is easier if it were another era.  My stace is to embrace every CS game out there. But the news of a WW2 reboot and splitting them into 3 got me thinking (just hope the price of entry is not really steep).  That said, I will now shut up about WW2 from now until we get more details.   

Back to regular programming.  :P