What is a Good Price for Rybka 3.0 multiple processor?

tjfroh · Post by **tjfroh** » Thu Jun 19, 2008 6:01 pm

With a 70% increase in search speed with the Vista 64bit version and even more speed with multiple core usage, do you think that Rybka 3.0 should be priced higher or should we keep it low and sell 10X as many programs?

TJ

playjunior · Post by **playjunior** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 2:41 pm

You have 3 categories, i-50$, ii-60$ and iii-80$
I think you have to consider the following facts/groups in deciding about Rybka price.

a) People that will buy it for sure. They pay more or less any price. This includes mainly Computer Chess fanatics, Rybka fans, and to a lesser extend players who believe they must have it.
b) People who play online, and analyze a little. This category buys Fritz, plays online and watches games of GMs with an engine turned on sometimes. I belong to this category, I also know GMs who still use Fritz for their everyday analysis as they claim there is no difference for them which engine to use: they understand things better, they just need something to check their tactics.
From the perspective of this group, 80$ for a GUI that is new (i.e. should have 10x more bugs and 5x less features than Chessbase), no online play/or online play on a non-popular server is not worth it. (Morozevich plays on playchess. Everyone plays on ICC. Can you offer something comparable?) I'll pay for the next Junior if it is in the new Chessbase GUI, but I'll definitely not buy Rybka, unless the feedback from CHESSBASE users says it is remarkable.

c) Guys who buy chess soft from the stores. You have 0% sales here, Fritz is 10% and Chessmaster is 90%. I think this market is kind of closed for you.

If we estimate category b) to be 5x larger than category a), and assume that category b) will buy it -with 20% probability if price is 80$, 30% probability if it is 60$ and 40% if it is 50$, we have:

50$: A*50+5A*50*0.4 = 150A
60$: A*60+5A*60*0.3 = 160A
80$: A*80+5A*80*0.2 = 160A

However, I would assess that category (b) is larger than 5x category (a), and I would assume you MIGHT have a shot at at category (c) if you offer it for 50$, get rid of that ugly fish logo, do a great deal of advertisement. Ihmo, any chance of sales at category (c) outweighs other arguments, because if you want to be rich-you have to reach (unwashed) masses. From that point of view making a GUI was the best decision probably, but you have to offer the best price too.
Good luck!

Matthias Gemuh · Post by **Matthias Gemuh** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:33 pm

tjfroh wrote:With a 70% increase in search speed with the Vista 64bit version and even more speed with multiple core usage, do you think that Rybka 3.0 should be priced higher or should we keep it low and sell 10X as many programs?

TJ

Talking about speed of Rybka is a joke !
Due to the node count obfuscation, Vas can display whatever speed increase he likes, simply by modifying the obfuscation algorithm.

Matthias.

Albert Silver · Post by **Albert Silver** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:36 pm

Matthias Gemuh wrote:
tjfroh wrote:With a 70% increase in search speed with the Vista 64bit version and even more speed with multiple core usage, do you think that Rybka 3.0 should be priced higher or should we keep it low and sell 10X as many programs?

TJ

Talking about speed of Rybka is a joke !
Due to the node count obfuscation, Vas can display whatever speed increase he likes, simply by modifying the obfuscation algorithm.

Matthias.

Well, most people would simply see how long it took to find the solution to a position on one setup, and then compare it to the time it took on another setup. Frankly, I can't imagine measuring speed any other way.

Albert

S.Taylor · Post by **S.Taylor** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 4:45 pm

If it's 50-100 elo above closest rival in existence (with same cpu power), then I think a higher price is well deserved. I'm not talking about a thousand dollars!
With own gui, all the more, and with greater features even more. (even more true, I mean)
But I don't want to disuade a lower price. But even if I personally have no money, I respect value, in computer chess programs!

And don't forget! I don't like having many diferent programs. If it were the sport of the times to buy more and more, I would say $10 is enough.
But one great program to use for 3 years, is worth easily $80, if not more.
BUT, it must be designed in a way that I won't be waiting desperately for the next version. I mean, even $150! I mean, if it is 100elo above all else at the time.

Dann Corbit · Post by **Dann Corbit** » Fri Jun 20, 2008 8:25 pm

$100 for the bare engine would be reasonable.
$100 for the aquarium gui would be reasonable.
Should I crosspost to the Rybka forum?

playjunior · Post by **playjunior** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:46 am

For anyone who does not play it against other engines, Fritz is better. Your GUI cannot be better than something that has been developed for 10 years, and difference in engine strength-I don't care. When I analyze my games, play, evaluation sometimes jumps from -3 to +5, and for that I don't need the neatest engine.
Being clearly behind Chessbase and Lokasoft in sales, you have to put a damping price. Ask yourself a question: wouldn't you love to be No. 5 in rating list, but sell 5x more?

Tony Thomas · Post by **Tony Thomas** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 12:55 am

playjunior wrote:For anyone who does not play it against other engines, Fritz is better. Your GUI cannot be better than something that has been developed for 10 years, and difference in engine strength-I don't care. When I analyze my games, play, evaluation sometimes jumps from -3 to +5, and for that I don't need the neatest engine.
Being clearly behind Chessbase and Lokasoft in sales, you have to put a damping price. Ask yourself a question: wouldn't you love to be No. 5 in rating list, but sell 5x more?

I doubt that Rybka is behind Lokasoft in sales..

Dann Corbit · Post by **Dann Corbit** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:03 am

playjunior wrote:For anyone who does not play it against other engines, Fritz is better. Your GUI cannot be better than something that has been developed for 10 years, and difference in engine strength-I don't care. When I analyze my games, play, evaluation sometimes jumps from -3 to +5, and for that I don't need the neatest engine.

If you analyze opening positions, Rybka is the only engine that is capable of sensible answers. The place where something is really important is where it jumps from 0.15 to .95 after a good long think. It means you have found a tangible advantage. Once a game is won or lost (e.g. +3 pawns or more and it is all over except the shouting in 999 games out of 1000) the analysis is not so important. It is while we both think that the ground is level but want to find some slightly stronger position that the games are won or lost.

Being clearly behind Chessbase and Lokasoft in sales, you have to put a damping price. Ask yourself a question: wouldn't you love to be No. 5 in rating list, but sell 5x more?

Rybka is sold in several places including directly by ChessAssistant. Since it is the strongest engine and everyone knows it, I guess that Rybka is second in sales behind ChessMaster.
This gives me 240,000 hits:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pu ... ybka+chess
And this gives me 289,000 hits:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=pu ... ritz+chess
but I suspect that all the fritz engines all together are getting smoked by Rybka, Naum, ZapChess, etc. At least, they ought to be.

Age does not make an interface better. I liked the ChessAssistant database better than ChessBase from day one. I have all the Fritz chess engines and the GUI of course, but I no longer buy ChessBase engines because I need the capabilities of UCI. From what I have seen of Aquarium so far (I am a beta tester) it does everything I want in an obvious way. I guess it will be as big of a hit as Rybka 3, and I think it may be the first time ever that ChessMaster may face real competition.

IMO-YMMV.

Ovyron · Post by **Ovyron** » Sat Jun 21, 2008 2:48 am

Dann Corbit wrote:If you analyze opening positions, Rybka is the only engine that is capable of sensible answers.

I disagree. In fact, I think that Rybka's opening is one of her biggest weaknesses, and for analyzing the opening and late opening other engines are better. Once Rybka is on the middle game she's so good that the opening loses relevance, and it's important to know when it's time to switch it on.

For example, in a simple opening position like this:

[d]rnbqkbnr/ppp1pppp/8/3p4/3P4/8/PPP1PPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1

How much time does your Rybka take to avoid Nc3!? (That blocks c4!!) In positions in where we don't know what's the best move Rybka might be suggesting something bad, just because it was designed with an opening book in mind, that's why I think an engine like Pro Deo is better for opening analysis even though Rybka (and most other strong engines) will destroy it on the middle game.