Re: Share why you buy or not Many Faces of Go

You were maintaining that "everyone else" offers "free upgrades." I disagree that they do.

Yeah, but *most people* do.

Categories can be broadened until any two things can be classified together. Beginners and a few others might be trying to choose one or (exclusive) the other as alternatives. But, since the circumstances under which one would use go software or a physical set are so different, for most go players with a computer. the alternatives would have software choices independent of go set choices. You considered not the original purchase price of go software, but accumulated cost of the original purchase and upgrades. The software choice has to include "no upgrade", so, I think you presented a false choice. Also, a series of upgrades can extend over years. This seems to support the idea that it isn't a suitable comparison. How many people considering purchasing software think that they are committing themselves to a series of possibly costly upgrades?

I think only David Fotland would use that as an argument to defend his
over-priced product (which also would explain why you suddenly popped
up here only to write 3 posts with that e-mail address, defending the
price of MFGO), but anyway:

Shell and slate stones last for, what, 20 years? 30? 50? For that
price you get to use and upgrade MFGO for maybe 3 years or however
long it took to release those four upgrades.

Even the initial price is nuts. No other computer game costs that much
(yeah, maybe you can find one to prove me wrong, but most games don't,
plus you get to upgrade them for free; and you can't compare Half-life
1 to Half-life 2 or whatever since the latter is a completely new
game, totally reworked with everything new). For $90 you can get some
pretty nice go equipment instead, so why waste it on a computer
program that's rivaled by free alternatives such as GnuGo, MoGo,
GoGrinder and others? You don't even NEED to pirate it in order to
play go on your computer. Even $90 is like a shin-kaya board with
yunzis.

It's not a false choise at all. If John Doe has $300 to spend on his
hobby, will he put it on an extremely over-priced computer program +
upgrading it a few times, or some really nice go equipment? For most
people it's a no-brainer (and that's why it doesn't sell, to answer
the original question). You don't need to broaden the categories in
this case.
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: gettext/GPLv4 virus infects FreeBSD
    ... I remember funny upgrade of libtool or perl too. ... Yeah, I know, it's a function of what you have installed. ... Bob Melson ... reason so few engage in it. ...
    (comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc)
  • Re: Celeron to P4 vs. AMD64 overhaul
    ... Neocamel wrote: ... > That was another thing, yeah my mobo is 478, I was thinking, and i ... > looking for just with a p4 upgrade. ...
    (alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt)
  • Re: Upgrade from SQL Server 2005 to 2008 r2
    ... Yeah, i've started reading through the MSDN....... ... John Bell wrote: ... The first step will be to check out the upgrade advisor. ... cover it in enough detail (as it is a pretty impossible task to do ...
    (microsoft.public.sqlserver.server)
  • Re: Google does Mars
    ... I hope they upgrade to include street maps soon. ... Yeah... ... I want to zoom on the parking garage at the Mars Face Complex. ...
    (sci.space.history)
  • Re: Elements 5 Review
    ... I guess it's time to move my Elements to an XP m/c and upgrade! ... Haha, yeah. ... We all have to get round to it sometime. ...
    (alt.graphics.photoshop)