Price

[freeboy]

deleted.. answered

[TargAK]

"Coming Soon: Across the Dnepr Mark II

SSG is pleased to announce that a new version of the popular Across the Dnepr scenario will be available as a scenario for the Kharkov system. The new Across the Dnepr will have the following features:
New, larger map
Revised Order of Battle
New unit artwork
Fully compatible with the Kharkov game system (will need Kharkov to run)New Mystery Variants

Discount for existing Across the Dnepr users
Pricing and release timing will be announced in due course"

This was in the manual addendum for Kharkov.

Also:

"The original ATD came with a serial number which I'm sure Matrix has kept track off and which can be retrieved so that existing owners can qualify for a discount.

Gregor
_________________
Gregor Whiley
Vice President, SSG
www.ssg.com.au

http://www.ssg.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4701

Pretty clear to me.

[ComradeP]

I'm not happy with what you're trying to pull here Erik, a discount was officially promised by SSG. You could at least not try to dodge that issue.

As TARG mentioned: one of the ways to give people a discount is by serial and regardless of how "we did not have a complete list of ATD owners to verify against", I have a serial and have registered my copy on the website. It shouldn't be too difficult to give everyone who registered their copy a discount or to create a program/function of a webpage which validates the serial, removes the serial from the checklist afterwards (so it can't be used again) and gives the customer a discount. Incomplete as the system might've been, we have serials.

[Erik Rutins]

I see - Gregor posted this on the SSG forum in August of 2008. This was not an announcement from us and I think he posted this well over a year ago based on our assumption that we would do it that way, before the internal discussion was complete. You are welcome to also confirm this with Gregor if you want, but the pricing as it is now was set with the knowledge that we could not do a discount and SSG was fully in agreement with the pricing.

[Pete AU]

I imagine all that discussion on price was price was pre GFC. As a large retailer myself I can tell you that pretty much reset the playing field on costs and the ability to get a loan for anything business related. I for one want to see SSG continue their line and would hate to see then undervalue themselves.

$45 AUD will get you a main course and a Carona in a crappy mexican diner over here - ATDII certainly represents good value compared to most anything else at that price IMHO.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
I'm not happy with what you're trying to pull here Erik, a discount was officially promised by SSG. You could at least not try to dodge that issue.

I'm not trying to "pull" anything. This is the first I've heard of a discount being announced in any way. This also looks like Gregor posting his early assumptions on his own forum, we did not make any announcement or promise regarding this and all the official announcements here have made no promises in that regard. We had an internal discussion on that subject and I was unaware that anything had been posted publicly.

I would also note as I have several times now that the pricing in the store now was set and agreed to with SSG based on no discount being available. In the case of a discount, I expect it would have been a higher base price with a discount offer for previous owners.

As TARG mentioned: one of the ways to give people a discount is by serial and regardless of how "we did not have a complete list of ATD owners to verify against", I have a serial and have registered my copy on the website. It shouldn't be too difficult to give everyone who registered their copy a discount or to create a program/function of a webpage which validates the serial, removes the serial from the checklist afterwards (so it can't be used again) and gives the customer a discount. Incomplete as the system might've been, we have serials.

Yes, we could have offered discounts to some customers, for whom we had information. Do you think it would have been fair to those who also purchased it but whose ownership we could not verify? How do you think that would have gone over?

I'm sorry that Gregor made a public post in 2008 which was taken as a promise for this release in 2010. Unfortunately, we were not made aware that he had announced that in 2008 and when we discussed the final pricing together with SSG we all agreed on the current price without a discount.

I understand now why people think we are somehow screwing customers over. The fact is this is a miscommunication and it is now too late, even if we could, to change the price and add some kind of discount codes. I regret that this has cost goodwill and created disappointment, that was never our intent.

Regards,

- Erik

[ComradeP]

ATDII certainly represents good value compared to most anything else at that price IMHO.

All nighter for you Pete? I agree that ATD2 will probably provide a fine value like all other SSG games, but I understand why people are confused about the discount issue. The fact that SSG seems to be on radio silence for a while now doesn't really help either.


Erik:

Several people, but mostly me, have mentioned the discount on the official SSG forums recently and SSG has made no comment that a discount was no longer an option. The only comment having anything to do with costs was Roger saying:

On the financial side though .. we (SSG) have talked about a number of things in meetings but the bottom line is that there is not a lot we can do to change things at the moment and this is frustrating. Hopefully this year will see things turn around.

If this is all a miscommunication, it's a really unfortunate one, but I hope you and the other Matrix staff can see why some people are frustrated due to this issue. As SSG has basically remained silent on the discount for months and didn't rebuke statements made by others that there would be a discount, people thought the discount would still be in place.

Yes, we could have offered discounts to some customers, for whom we had information. Do you think it would have been fair to those who also purchased it but whose ownership we could not verify? How do you think that would have gone over?

Sorry, but I still don't see the problem.

If you don't have a serial, you can't install or patch the game so ownership becomes somewhat irrelevant without a serial. As long as people can prove they own a copy of ATD through giving a serial, they can be identified as an owner. Some people might feel they got shafted because they couldn't find their serial, but those people can't play the game they own to begin with so they can't really prove they own it through registration.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: ComradeP
Several people, but mostly me, have mentioned the discount on the official SSG forums recently and SSG has made no comment that a discount was no longer an option. The only comment having anything to do with costs was Roger saying:

On the financial side though .. we (SSG) have talked about a number of things in meetings but the bottom line is that there is not a lot we can do to change things at the moment and this is frustrating. Hopefully this year will see things turn around.

If this is all a miscommunication, it's a really unfortunate one, but I hope you and the other Matrix staff can see why some people are frustrated due to this issue. As SSG has basically remained silent on the discount for months and didn't rebuke statements made by others that there would be a discount, people thought the discount would still be in place.

I understand - it is indeed a very unfortunate miscommunication. We don't read the SSG forums except on rare occasions and in our internal discussions with SSG, we were never aware that a discount had been announced to the public. The discount was very much a point of discussion and in the end the issues with incomplete records are what made us all decide against it. Frankly, I'm guessing SSG also did not think they had made a promise of a discount as both of our companies are customer-oriented, we always try to generate goodwill rather than disappointment.

Sorry, but I still don't see the problem.
If you don't have a serial, you can't install or patch the game so ownership becomes somewhat irrelevant without a serial. As long as people can prove they own a copy of ATD through giving a serial, they can be identified as an owner. Some people might feel they got shafted because they couldn't find their serial, but those people can't play the game they own to begin with so they can't really prove they own it through registration.

I wasn't clear enough in explaining the issue. We no longer have a complete record here of all ATD serial numbers. We know customers have their serial numbers, but we can only verify some, not all of them. This is the only game for which we have this problem, as I believe it was the first serialized game we had and the records were not well organized.

[ComradeP]

Sad to see the launch being troubled by this issue, at least now we know what the story is about why there's no discount.

By the way, I still think a Kharkov+ATD2 bundle for a reasonable price would be a good thing.

[Erik Rutins]

I will see if there's anything we can do at this point, even if it's in the form of a discount promise on a future release, to make folks a bit happier.

[TargAK]

It was also stated in the manual for Kharkov.

"Coming Soon: Across the Dnepr Mark II

SSG is pleased to announce that a new version of the popular Across the Dnepr scenario will be available as a scenario for the Kharkov system. The new Across the Dnepr will have the following features:
New, larger map
Revised Order of Battle
New unit artwork
Fully compatible with the Kharkov game system (will need Kharkov to run)New Mystery Variants

Discount for existing Across the Dnepr users
Pricing and release timing will be announced in due course"

This was in the manual addendum for Kharkov.

As far as your argument about whats fair in regards to Matrix not keeping good records I will say that that is not my problem nor is it my concern if other people fail to register the serial number. Perhaps this would be a good learning experience for them and in the future they would register the serial number.
It may be harsh but if they did not care enough to register the serial number than I do not care that they would not have gotten a discount (if one would have been given).

You have made it clear that no discount will be given even though it was clearly promised. Fine I can deal with that and in spite of that I purchased the new add on. What I don't appreciate is having to spell this out for you. Perhaps it would be better for you to touch base with SSG and prepare a statement about the change to the promise made and not fulfilled for whatever reason.


What's done is done and I am still disappointed . I am sure I will enjoy the product but the transaction has left a sour taste in my mouth.

[Erik Rutins]

ORIGINAL: TARG
It was also stated in the manual for Kharkov.
"Coming Soon: Across the Dnepr Mark II
SSG is pleased to announce that a new version of the popular Across the Dnepr scenario will be available as a scenario for the Kharkov system. The new Across the Dnepr will have the following features:
New, larger map
Revised Order of Battle
New unit artwork
Fully compatible with the Kharkov game system (will need Kharkov to run)New Mystery Variants
Discount for existing Across the Dnepr users
Pricing and release timing will be announced in due course"
This was in the manual addendum for Kharkov.

I didn't realize that and I have no excuse for not realizing that. If we put it in the manual, we should have followed through on it. Frankly, I wish someone had brought this up here before release where we would have seen it. I can only say to this that we set the final base price with the knowledge that we could not offer a discount.

As far as your argument about whats fair in regards to Matrix not keeping good records I will say that that is not my problem nor is it my concern if other people fail to register the serial number. Perhaps this would be a good learning experience for them and in the future they would register the serial number.

I agree that a discount should not have been promised if we could not offer it. I think this all comes down to some disorganization here and a miscommunication with SSG. I do know that back in 2008 we probably thought that a discount was possible but the pricing was also non-existent at that point, that decision only gets made close to release.

It may be harsh but if they did not care enough to register the serial number than I do not care that they would not have gotten a discount (if one would have been given).

Note that the logistical issue is not just about not registering or about us not having all the serial numbers at this point. As best as I can tell now, I believe some copies of ATD were also sold without serialization as it was very early in the serial number process, I think it was the first game with serial numbers.

You have made it clear that no discount will be given even though it was clearly promised. Fine I can deal with that and in spite of that I purchased the new add on. What I don't appreciate is having to spell this out for you. Perhaps it would be better for you to touch base with SSG and prepare a statement about the change to the promise made and not fulfilled for whatever reason.

The reason you had to spell it out to me is that I was completely flat-footed. I'm sorry I was not well informed on this and I clearly should have been if it was printed in our manual. We clearly should have handled this better pre-release in terms of explaining the pricing and the fact that the discount would not be offered.

What's done is done and I am still disappointed . I am sure I will enjoy the product but the transaction has left a sour taste in my mouth.

Understood, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about that.

[Lützow]

Frankly, I don't understand this business decision, but oh well. [;)]

With the expansion for almost same price as the basic game, why didn't you single that out and sold it as stand-alone? Making it easier for new customers who may be more interested in Dnepr theatre. On the other hand the user-created content is free for Kharkov owners. Don't you think AtD would sell better with four scenarios instead of one?

Not that I do care much or argue about this - it's just a deja-vu-feeling from WitP:AE. Myself I'm going to download the patch, as I'm more interested in Budapest anyway, and will wait for next holiday sale in order to acquire AtD.

[Rosseau]

Was just going to say the same thing, Lutzow. It was so nice of them to put the three "free" scenarios in the Kharkov patch, but they shouldn't have. Even an SSG addict like me can't justify AtD now. But I might have with four scenarios included!

And because SSG sells in such "low" volume, they probably need to charge $40 to just get by. It's a tough situation. Like many of you, I have occasionally bought games to support the developers, but I can't on this one. The needs of the real charities are just too great at this time.

[Nebogipfel]

Hi  Erik,

I dont think, that you are responsible for SSG´s communication problems.
It should have been SSG´s turn, to tell you, what they had "promised".

To support a small company is fine, but if its so important, where are they ?

[Carl Myers]

To support a small company is fine, but if its so important, where are they ?

Probably just getting up, it is early morning in Aussie land.

[Erik Rutins]

Guys, please do not get down on SSG, the price was set with the knowledge that we could not do a discount (they did ask us if we could, we just didn't realize it had been publicly announced to create an expectation) and it was set as low as they could afford it to be while continuing to make games like this.

[TheWombat_matrixforum]

Like it or not, this type of wargame is a very niche product. Niche products cost more, it's pretty much a fact of life. If it was a mainstream game there would be a market dynamic keeping the price down but face it, there isn't much/any competition here. All the wargames we like--the SSG stuff, the Panther stuff, the upcoming Grigsby War in the East game, etc.--is pretty much unique. And even if we all buy a copy (and we probably will) that won't exactly make these guys millionaires.

Do they cost more than I want to pay? Yeah. But hell, I paid about the same if not more for the C64 versions of stuff like this, so, eh, what the hell. It's not like I buy more than a few a year, as there AREN'T more than a few a year....

[tide1527]

ORIGINAL: TheWombat

Like it or not, this type of wargame is a very niche product. Niche products cost more, it's pretty much a fact of life. If it was a mainstream game there would be a market dynamic keeping the price down but face it, there isn't much/any competition here. All the wargames we like--the SSG stuff, the Panther stuff, the upcoming Grigsby War in the East game, etc.--is pretty much unique. And even if we all buy a copy (and we probably will) that won't exactly make these guys millionaires.

Do they cost more than I want to pay? Yeah. But hell, I paid about the same if not more for the C64 versions of stuff like this, so, eh, what the hell. It's not like I buy more than a few a year, as there AREN'T more than a few a year....

I agree with TheWombat he pretty much hit the nail on the head. I never played the Operation Konrad scenario or it's sub scenarios so there's a bonus in it for me. [;)] And having owned the original ATD and now getting a look at what's been done to ATD to run on the Kharkov engine I will say it is worth the price of admission.
As for Gregor stepping on it and forgetting he promised a discount ( TWO YEARS AGO!! ) I can't remember what I told the wife a week ago [:D] It's not Matrix's fault or problem.
My 2 pence [;)]

[mariovalleemtl]

Come on guys, don't be cheap. SSG and Matrix publish amazing niche Grognards games and they need our support. I play more then 100 hours with all of them so it's a good deal [:)]