So here my attempt to try and figure out if I can argue in a comprehensible way using I.strether posts as a perameter,
"Scott, we haven't been discussing whether or not Strat is cheap (although it may be); we've been discussing whether its price is fair, and it is. A season takes from 54-64 days of game play, depending on playoff participation. That means a day of strat costs from 31-37 cents a day to play. For that not-so-exorbitant sum you do get to do all the activities you mentioned above (for ten minutes or more or less). But, more importantly, you get all the services and facilitated game-play Strat provides that I mentioned in my post above yours, services you neglected to address in your post above. So yes, I would say all this is worth 31-37 cents a day.
My questions to you would be:
1. What do you think are better deals out there for 31-37 cents a day?
and
2. If you consider On-Line Strat too expensive at 31-37 cents a day, how much per day would be a fair price for Strat to charge?"
So this was an early post by I.strether
the answer to these two questions are the following:
1. Pokerstars, yahoo games, and many facebook games you can play for free.
2. A fair price would be between 5 to 10 dollars per team (8 to 18 cents a day).
Here is part of another post by I.strether replying to a post by RedRum666 where RedRum666 mentioned that strat is too expensive because "It takes forever for leagues to fill. Multiple 12 team leagues should easily fill on the same night if the game were price correctly. Unfortunately, SOM is shortsighted in this area. They should lower their pricepoint. It would likely result in a lot more businesz."
Now here I could just as easily say "the bottom line is the game is priced fairly," but I would rather convince than rest on platitudes. So, I will refer you back to my earlier post (Apr. 24 2:27 pm) where I presented Strat's main services and the actual costs for those services --31-37 cents a day--and ask you the same question concerning them that I earlier asked Scott:
1. What do you think are better deals out there for 31-37 cents a day?
and
2. If you consider On-Line Strat too expensive at 31-37 cents a day, how much per day would be a fair price for Strat to charge?
To be accurate here are Strat's main services that I.strether pointed out:
It allows you to draft a team against 11 (or 23 or 6) other managers (from different US states), organize that team through provided salaries and salary caps, and then compete against those other managers every night as you continually manage your team through strategy and general manage it through transactions.
I am still understanding I.strether which is good and unlike before I answered his two questions. Let's continue...
After others spoke their piece and I.strether argued with them I stated:
What I.strether is talking about is the value is good for him. But that means little to anyone other than him. His opinion is that its worth the price. My opinion is that it is not. My thinking is that if som priced it lower i would buy more teams. I would spend more money over all if the price was lower. If the price was 10.00 i would be less reticent in joining leagues where im less sure i would have fun playing. Or to join a league when my confidence is less strong. I have bought 4 teams so far with 2 being autodrafts and 1 being a multi frwnchise draft and one being a live draft.
I think this is where I made a mistake. I attributed I.strether remarks as personal opinion, where I.strether was arguing from an objective standpoint (I hope I got this right). Here is how I.strether answered my post:
You' need to improve your reading, Scott. I explained quite well (in numerous posts) and quite incisively why SOM is a good value, period, not just for me. If you disagree with my arguments, you really should actually address
them instead of making such inaccurate, unsupported statements.
You claim you don't like spending the SOM cost of 31-37 cents a day--which Is an excellent value (not just for me)--when you have to "spend 10-30 minutes a day checking losing box scores each day." So, you are actually doing what you inaccurately accused me of; you are judging the cost and value of SOM based on your own personal experience, not it's cost and value outside of it. To evaluate its actual cost and value, you need to compare SOM's price and value to other values of similar cost.
So I will ask again--since it is germane to this discussion--that question I asked you before:
Since you don't consider SOM a good deal at 31-37 cents a day, what is a better deal out there for 31-37 cents a day?
I look forward to your answer. But, considering you probably know there are few better deals out there, I won't hold my breath...
Ok so I answered the 31-37 cents a day question earlier in this post which I didn't answer originally up to this point in the argument. I.strether also attributes to me for the first time that I am arguing the cost and value of strat from "personal experience not its cost and value outside it."
I am assuming now that in order to make a good argument I must remove my personal experience from judging whether the cost and value of strat makes it's price point of 31-37 cents a day not expensive. That personal experience is not relevant.
Originally I continued to argue from a personal experience, according to I.strether, when I compared online strat to a movie. He stated:
You also fail to aptly compare SOM to a value of similar cost here. First of all, you keep basing your comparisons on your own experience/personal opinion. When you earlier misspoke and inaccurately accused me of basing my arguments on personal opinion, you did make one correct observation: if a point is merely based on personal opinion, it is only relevant to that person, not anyone else. So your movie/SOM comparison based on your personal experience/opinion is really only relevant to you, it does not successfully or accurately represent or diminish SOM's value.
I.strether also points out that I made a mistake since I didn't include the services strat provides in my comparison:
Also, your attempts at mathematical support also fail. You only factor in the minutes of your actual interaction with SOM, not all the services it provides you every day, such as games facilitated and run, and drafts run on many days, so you are misrepresenting the provided services in your calculations. And you can manipulate your calculations using your own non-mathematical personal experience all you want; it doesn't make a 6-9 dollar movie a "12-dollar movie," nor does it make a "12-dollar" movie an accurate comparison to SOM's cost and/or value.
[btw im in Canada and a movie costs 12.00]
He concludes his argument with what I think is the core of his own argument:
So, in conclusion, you still haven't shown that SOM is a bad value for anyone else but you. If you want to actually do so, you actually have to compare it to another value of approximately 31-37 cents a day--without relying on your personal experience/opinion--and show why that comparison makes it a bad value for most people, not just for you.
Ok so now we have the core argument of I.strether.
No personal experience, compare it to another value of 37 cents a day, and after comparing it show why that comparison make it a bad value for most people.
Ok now that we have the parameters of the argument lets see how clearly I can argue that strat is a bad value at 31-37 cents a day, negating the fact that I think it is since what I think is personal experience and therefore irrelevant.
The best argument I can muster, and hopefully this is clear and understandable is the following:
Pokerstars, yahoo games, and many Facebook games offer their services for less than 31-37 cents a day. In fact they offer them for free. People play them at no cost. They offer a similar service with tracking your progress and statistics as strat does.
In fact their services are more expansive. They rank your progress compared to your friends and others playing the game. They allow you to play the game live against others not just choose the way a computer will play your game for you. They allow you to chat live with other players both in game rooms and specific games you are playing. All these things online strat does not offer.
If everyone can play these games for free, Is paying 20.00 for a the game of online strat not a bad value for most people?
Hopefully I didn't miss the point this time
Scott.