ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil
We don't have anything to add to the price discussion. We disagree with the opinions. Give me an example of a game of the complexity level of Command with the utilitarian look and feel of Command that sells to the mass market and then you have something new to discuss. Other examples are unfortunately irrelevant.
I feel like this is a constant sticking point. There is, in fact, a middle ground between "Call of Warcraft Battlefield 64" and "Super Quartermaster Simulator 2022." The point isn't "Oh, this game won't appeal to Xbox kiddies, therefore we should cater to nothing but the hardest core of hardcore grognards." The point is "There is in fact a very large group of non-hardcore potential grognards who, while not as numerous as the Xbox kiddies, is still so numerous as to justify lowering prices and easing accessibility." The argument is not that Matrix should use mass market strategies, but rather that the overall market has recently become so vast that even a small niche has enough potential customers in absolute terms to justify lowered prices - in effect, that the market has changed, and changed very significantly, since the days when pricing high was the only way a small, niche publisher could stay afloat.
As proof, I point to the fact that the niche of freaking truck driving is large enough to warrant putting up on Steam at an affordable price - and has, in fact, become a top seller. If you don't think a truck driving sim is sufficiently complex to compare with wargames, I point to Kerbal Space Program, a game that is literally about rocket science. Are you really claiming that the niche for wargames is really so much smaller and less profitable than the truck driving niche and the space program niche that it cannot possibly make more money using the same strategies they do? No, not everybody will like Command - but the same applies to Euro Truck Truck Simulator 2 and Kerbal Space Program, and yet they manage quite standout successes.
I repeat: The point is NOT that everyone will like Command. The point is NOT that it will become an instant runaway success that awes the world if the price was lowered. The point is NOT that people are any more accepting of wargames now than they were twenty years ago, or that there are more of those people around. The point is rather that it is now much, much easier to reach out to hidden grognards who never realized that wargames were their niche than it was twenty years ago, so long as the price is right and good distribution channels are used. To use an analogy, it's the difference between advertising by putting up posters outside the store and taking out a national TV broadcast ad - the potential market is and always has been very large, but hard to reach. If you believe that this is entirely untrue, how do you explain the success stories behind a thousand and one tiny, ridiculous niches that would never have turned a profit or appeared on the shelves in the past sprouting up all over the place now?
