Online game costs too much

Also to answer the questiion of why i am sticking around if i dont find playing online strat worth it. The answer would be that even though i find it expensive i still like the game. But most of all there is always those who find criticism equivalent to complaining when it is not. The best way to make positive change is from within an organization not from the outside.

All my posts are opinions to spark discussion and ideas on how to improve online strat. Some have agreed with me others have not. But all have expressed tbeir opinions which is always enjoyable to me.

Scott.

Do you mean by value by telling you a different way of offering online strat not comparing it to other activities?

Ok i think i finally understand your question. I re-read all the posts and if i finally got what your asking it is this...

Give an example of any other activity that offers the services that online strat does at the cost of 31 to 37 cents a day?

Please tell me i got it right this time?

Scott.

I do find it unusual that SOM charges what it does. If they are, in fact, maximizing their profits then it's stands to reason demand is fairly inelastic (lowering the price will not increase revenues). This must be an incredibly niche product with little competition. This might be analogous to industries like wireless cellphone service or cable tv: Little competition, high fixed costs, and low marginal costs. The only reason not to lower price means one of two things: 1) Lowering price will not raise profits. 2) They don't understand or have no interest in understanding the economics of their business. I don't know enough about the company or market to say which it is.

Scott is right in that 'value' is up to the individual - it is not an absolute measure based on dollars spent per hour of use.

Personally, after I play out my two leagues at the intro price, I'm not entirely sure that I'll play again at $20 a pop. My price point is probably about half that or lower.

Either way, interesting discussion.

Mike

Scott is right in that 'value' is up to the individual - it is not an absolute measure based on dollars spent per hour of use.

Scott is not right, nor are you. As I correctly said before, "personal value" is up to the individual. "Value" is contingent on both individual perspectives and objective facts and realities applicable to all.

If value were solely contingent on individual perspectives, then nobody could compellingly (or even legitimately) tell someone else what a good or bad value is...which Scott tried to do in his previous posts.


Ps. I never said nor implied that value was "an absolute measure of dollars spent per hour of use"...I have no idea where you got that from. In fact, I never mentioned "time spent" at all, so you need to reread my posts. Scott was the one emphasizing time spent, which was another example of him referencing objective facts (not just personal opinion) in his arguments.

Scott is not right, nor are you. As I correctly said before, "personal value" is up to the individual. "Value" is contingent on both individual perspectives and objective facts and realities applicable to all.

I've never heard this definition of value but, even if it existed, nowhere have you presented the objective facts and realities applicable to all that would convince me that SOM online is a 'good value'.

You did list some features of the online game but there is nothing inherent to those features that give it value. You could make an argument that the game has relative value by comparing it to a similar or identical product but you don't do that. You do compare it to the board & CD-rom version but, as you point out, they are different and probably cater to different people. In fact, I would argue that the board game has better value than the online game because my 8-year old daughter is learning about baseball when we play (the CD-rom has zero value since I own a MAC). But that's for me.

I'm curious as to why you ask Scott to think of something priced at 31-37 cents/day with greater value. Hmmm... can I find something else at the price of 31-37 cents a day that gives me greater utility (since that what really matters)? Sure - the Washington Post on my door at 6 a.m. But again, that's just me.

If value were solely contingent on individual perspectives, then nobody could compellingly (or even legitimately) tell someone else what a good or bad value is...which Scott tried to do in his previous posts.

True. Fortunately, we can still use the term since most people assume that when I say 'product' A is a good value, I am referring to relative value by comparing the price of 'A' to the prices of identical or highly substitutable products. It would be meaningless otherwise. For example, it is meaningless to say that SOM is a good value unless I assume you're comparing it to other internet-based baseball simulations.

Ps. I never said nor implied that value was "an absolute measure of dollars spent per hour of use"...I have no idea where you got that from. In fact, I never mentioned "time spent" at all, so you need to reread my posts.

You are right... however you do imply time is relevant by repeatedly quoting the price on a per day basis. Why do this if time has no meaning in the debate? I would argue that $/hour of use is a better measure over $/day anyway. Someone spending 2 hours/day on the site gets a lot more bang for the buck than someone spending 10 mins/day. Dollars per day doesn't reveal that level of granularity, potentially useful when comparing relative value.

Oh, hey - we go head-to-head in the Redscape League tomorrow night. While I enjoy the debate, the spirit of sportsmanship overrides all here - best of luck!

Mike

Surely you're not suggesting we can't call something a good value unless you are "comparing the price of 'A' to the prices of identical or highly substitutable products." That's silly.

What give SOM online value is that it amuses me. It's fun. If you compare how many hours of fun it gives me compared to other things that give me fun, then yes it is a good value for me. If you look at how many hours of entertainment per dollar any given player gets from the game, then you can determine if it's a good value for any given player by comparing the cost of this pastime to other pastimes. Now if someone only enjoys the game if they win, and it takes them five tries to do that, then it may indeed not be a good value for them and they might want to consider less competitive ways to have fun.

While you can't compare relative values against other online SOM games (there aren't any), you can compare this pastime to other activities that are done for fun.

EDIT: removed two extraneous words from first sentence.

It works like this. You want to sell a product for as much as possible at a price that will make you the most profit. So if your data states that if you price a product at 20.00 you will sell 100 units per month but if you sell at 10.00 you will sell 500 units a month, then you should sell at 10.00 because you will make more money taking into account of course the fixed and variable costs for do so.

If Strat-O-Matic could sell five times more teams by cutting the price in half, then you may be right. They can probably make a little more money by doing so. However, suppose their sales only doubled? Now your revenues are the same and your costs have gone significantly up. Since we don't know what would happen to sales with a 50 percent price reduction, and we don't know how much their costs would go up to support five times the number of teams, we are guessing. Since SOM knows their costs and they know how much sales went up when they lowered the price from $25 to $20 (and how many more people buy teams when they run a sale), I'm going to give them credit for having a better idea what the best price is.

To suggest they are ignorant of supply and demand is, well, ignorant!

Scott is not right, nor are you. As I correctly said before, "personal value" is up to the individual. "Value" is contingent on both individual perspectives and objective facts and realities applicable to all.

I've never heard this definition of value but, even if it existed, nowhere have you presented the objective facts and realities applicable to all that would convince me that SOM online is a 'good value'.

As I will point out later below, value does always factor in objective facts and realities; there can be no expressions of (or agreements on) value without them. Also, whether or not the objective facts and realities I presented to you convince you SOM online is a "good" value does not change the fact I did reference objective facts and realities in my argument that it was. I referenced daily costs, product provided, and cost relative to similar service; these are all objective facts that made my value statement not just personal...If you need further such facts in a next post, I will provide them.

You did list some features of the online game but there is nothing inherent to those features that give it value. You could make an argument that the game has relative value by comparing it to a similar or identical product but you don't do that. You do compare it to the board & CD-rom version but, as you point out, they are different and probably cater to different people. In fact, I would argue that the board game has better value than the online game because my 8-year old daughter is learning about baseball when we play (the CD-rom has zero value since I own a MAC). But that's for me.

Now here you (again) misread my previous statement about objectivity and value. I said value was partially contingent on objective facts; I never said any objective fact had any "inherent value" in itself or produced value alone without perspectives or other facts. So, yes, no single aspect of SOM by itself proves its value--and I never said it did--and one does have to compare (as I have repeatedly said before) SOM to other products to effectively estimate its value.

And you're right that I haven't yet made such a comparison, and that I would have to to more effectively communicate my point. I didn't do so before because I don't answer questions to my questions. So, I was waiting for Scott's response, but I will make comparisons in my response below. But I must add that all value is comparative or "relative" to other values, but that does not make each entirely relative or free from objective facts. Making relative comparisons of the value of a 2013 Lamborghini Huracan to a 1976 Gremlin does not change the objective facts of the cars' respective horse powers or steering capabilities, which usually factor in such comparisons.

And honestly, I thought it was obvious why I asked Scott to provide a "better" 37 cent a day value: I wanted him to show that SOM was actually a bad value--and not just for him--compared to others of similar cost, and I was skeptical he could do it. Comparisons I would have made, and am making now are: online newspaper subscriptions; daily coffee drinks (an American staple), and daily after work drinks (another American staple). These are all "daily" products that I would argue as comparable or inferior values to SOM. However to focus on this conversation, and keep this post readable, I will save those comparisons for another post if you want to continue debating SOM's value.

If value were solely contingent on individual perspectives, then nobody could compellingly (or even legitimately) tell someone else what a good or bad value is...which Scott tried to do in his previous posts.

True. Fortunately, we can still use the term since most people assume that when I say 'product' A is a good value, I am referring to relative value by comparing the price of 'A' to the prices of identical or highly substitutable products. It would be meaningless otherwise. For example, it is meaningless to say that SOM is a good value unless I assume you're comparing it to other internet-based baseball simulations.

I appreciate the initial agreement, Mike. However, both your agreement and your amendment following it directly counter your assertion in your previous post that value is "solely up to the individual." First of all, when you "assume" that others will know what you mean, you are acknowledging that there are shared objective realities outside your two perspectives that could give those perspectives commonality. Secondly, you cannot--as I showed in my Gremlin/Lamboghini comparison--compare the value of two products to each other without referencing the objective facts of (and significant to) those products.

And I don't have to compare SOM solely to other internet-based baseball simulations to assess and/or communicate its value. Although such comparisons to similar products are optimal, comparisons between two dissimilar products--such as SOM and daily coffee drinks--can support value assessments of both products.

Ps. I never said nor implied that value was "an absolute measure of dollars spent per hour of use"...I have no idea where you got that from. In fact, I never mentioned "time spent" at all, so you need to reread my posts.

You are right... however you do imply time is relevant by repeatedly quoting the price on a per day basis. Why do this if time has no meaning in the debate? I would argue that $/hour of use is a better measure over $/day anyway. Someone spending 2 hours/day on the site gets a lot more bang for the buck than someone spending 10 mins/day. Dollars per day doesn't reveal that level of granularity, potentially useful when comparing relative value.

Again, thanks for the acknowledgment...I respect your debating in good faith. And yes, I did imply time is relevant to value, particularly to certain products. However, i never emphasized "time spent" by the consumer, my focus was on time of potential enjoyment provided by the producer...so I never said "time has no meaning," and I never would.

And dollars-per-hours-of-use is a poor temporal measure of value if used by itself. One product may provide ten times as much value in ten minutes of its product than another does in 2 hours its product. Also, many consumers prefer lengthy usage while others prefer products that can be enjoyed quickly. You have to always factor in variation in both objective realities and personal perspectives when effectively estimating and communicating value.


Anyway, whether this debate continues or not, I've enjoyed it, Mike. I haven't had such an extensive, intelligent discussion of issues of value since my Marxist Theory seminar in graduate school...which was not as pleasant...