How Much Is Hiarcs 14 worth?

[Sean Evans]

Hello group,

At the moment Hiarcs 14 is retailing for: £49.95 / €59.95 / $79.95.

How much would you be willing to pay for Hiarcs? In other words, what do you feel is the value of Hiarcs 14?

I note that the IPON rating list has Hiarcs rated at ninth place! A full 200ELO below Houdini and Komodo!!

The CCRL rating list has Hiarcs in fourteenth place. Again 200 ELO below the top rated engines.

In addition, Hiarcs is only a 32bit program, there is no 64bit program!

Cordially,

Sean

[hgm]

Why would users care how many bits a program is? That seems a totally irrelevant technical detail.

Would you be wiling to pay more for a weaker engine just because it was 64 bits? Would you be willing to pay more for it if it was written in Java rather than C? Would you pay more for it if it was compiled with gcc rather than the Intel C compiler? Or when the programmer used a fancy IDE do write the code rather than NotePad?

[Kaj Soderberg]

One important law of Murphy is:

"Never argue with a fool; people may not see the difference".

[hgm]

Well, it depends on your priorities, I suppose. What good is a wisdom if you don't dare to speak it out of fear to be taken for a fool?

[IanO]

I didn't vote, because there wasn't a "more than Shredder" option. It sells for €99.

[MM]

I didn't vote, because there wasn't a "more than Shredder" option. It sells for €99.

Shredder 12 has been released 3 years ago and at that time it was much closer to the top engines than Hiarcs today, in terms of strenght.

Shredder12 GUI was/is a very nice GUI, SMK is much more experienced about GUI's compared to Hiarcs team.

This poll is about Hiarcs and nothing more, i don't see any sense to push inside comparisons versus other engines but you can create a new poll about your opinions if you wish.

Best Regards

[hgm]

But there could have been a 'more than $99' option.

I also didn't vote, because for me also none of the choices applied. I wouldn't pay for HIARCS even if I got it for free! Of course that holds even more so for the 12 engines above it on the rating lists.

For me, it only starts to get interesting from Fairy-Max on. (Oh, but that is not ion the rating list! ) Well, I am lying that: I would also do it for Bihasi!

[Terry McCracken]

How long is a piece of string? How large is a lump of coal?

IOW how can I assign a value? If you asked what it is worth to you the chess program aficionados then maybe you could get an answer that means something.

[MM]

But there could have been a 'more than $99' option.

I also didn't vote, because for me also none of the choices applied. I wouldn't pay for HIARCS even if I got it for free! Of course that holds even more so for the 12 engines above it on the rating lists.

For me, it only starts to get interesting from Fairy-Max on. (Oh, but that is not ion the rating list! ) Well, I am lying that: I would also do it for Bihasi!

Yes, i think i would insert 1 options: more than 79.95 us dollars and stop, without referring to shredder or other engines (in the poll). In the post we can talk vastly about shredder, komodo, houdini, rybka, junior ecc. ecc. and the hypotetical price for them.

Best Regards

[Sean Evans]

Would you be wiling to pay more for a weaker engine just because it was 64 bits?

It makes the point that the author wants absolute top dollar for a program with mediocre ability and he is to lazy to make it 64bits! My suggestion is send this guy a message, don't buy the software until the price comes down!!

Cordially,

Mr. Frugal