Author: George Sobala
Date: 13:28:15 09/06/05
Go up one level in this thread
On September 06, 2005 at 09:24:32, A. Cozzie wrote: > >All of CCC needs to realize something: the number of people on the planet who >are seriously interested in engine-engine play is perhaps 1000. When you sell >something, you want to target a large group of people. I'd rather try to sell >Zappa to 'people who like to play chess', and have features for them, than >'computer chess afficiandos' who like to run engine matches for days on end, >simply because there are *way more* of the former. If I can sell a copy of Zapa >to 0.01% of the former I will make more money than selling to 90% of the latter. > First time I've come in on this discussion, but here's my simpleton's view. There are perhaps three types of people who buy chess software: 1. Low ability, newcomers. What these people really need is a good training / beginner package. The strength of the engine is completely irrelevant as TSCP would probably suffice - what they need is something to teach and enthuse them. That is what they NEED. What they actually BUY is usually whatever 5 year-old budget $3 software they see on the racks in the local home hardware shop, usually completely inappropriate. They are a fairly large group but they are not your market. They are not even going to FIND Zappa / Diep3D. 2. Proper chess players from strong amateurs upwards. They are going to use the engine mostly for analysis not to play against. These players want something that can handle opening theory well, good search facilities, extensive database of old games and good auto-annotation. They are going to be influenced by what their peers are using and will gravitate strongly towards Chessbase or possibly Chess Assistant. Vincent is going to have to go a long way with his interface to match those capabilites. (The Shredder native GUI comes nowhere close.) If you can pitch Zappa to them as the new best engine (based not just on World Championship status but also SSDF etc rankings) then this is a very strong market - indeed, your largest. But they will want it to work in the GUIs that they know and trust. Heck, Chess Assistant would probably pay you to include Zappa in their next version if you talked to them. 3. Computer engine freaks. A minority market, about whom you know a lot I am sure. They will want a UCI or at worst Winboard compatible engine. They will not buy it otherwise. So my strong advice is to make your engine UCI compatible, or at least to include a UCI version.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.