Author: Roy Eassa
Date: 10:47:16 08/13/01
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On August 13, 2001 at 13:18:04, Kevin Stafford wrote: >winning doesn't really matter, and perhaps may hurt potential sales. This may be >twisted logic, but here's why I think this: the media is jumping on this match >as a rematch between man and machine. If machine beats man, no one is shocked, >because its the general publics viewpoint that the best chessplayer is already a >machine, so this isn't really news. Man beats machine on the other hand, and you >have an epic comeback story to put on the news, one that restores faith in our >dominance over our creations, blah blah blah. Fritz beating Kramnik gets a >byline on the backpage. Kramnik beating Fritz is front page news, once the media >puts their spin on it. Front page news = more copies of fritz 7 sold = >chessbases ultimate goal. > >Of course the opposite side of this is that if they win they can put a big label >on the box saying so, which is great advertising in itself, so I could be >totally off base. Something to ponder at least. > You are not totally off base. A big label on the box will sell a small number (call it x) of additional copies to a mostly-existing audience (where does the public see the box?). The bigger news story you hypothesize from Fritz's losing will get the attention of a much larger potential audience. Even if only a small percentage of these "new people" buy, it will result in selling y additional copies, where it is reasonable to expect that y is significantly greater than x.
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