Author: John Rice
Date: 07:57:40 05/21/03
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On May 21, 2003 at 00:00:11, Russell Reagan wrote: >As far as I know, computer chess is the most popular computer board game. There >are dozens of commercial programs, and hundreds of amateur programs. > >What do you think are the main contributing factors to computer chess being the >most popular? Why not checkers/draughts, or go, or any other game? > >I think there are two main factors. > >1. Chess is one of the most popular games in the world, if not THE most popular. > >2. The computer chess community has created a good environment that is inviting >to potential computer chess programmers. > >One example of #2 can be seen in the nice GUI's that we amateur computer chess >programmers have. Between Winboard and Arena, we have nice looking interfaces, >and networking support for internet chess servers, and we get it all for free. > >I also think that chess servers such as ICC and FICS do a great deal to attract >potential programmers to chess instead of other board games. > >For instance, I have tried to make other game playing programs in the past >(checkers and amazons), but after a while my program slaughters me, and there >isn't anyone to play my program. If I had a nice GUI like Arena that would let >me organize a tournament with a dozen other amazons programs, then I would >maintain my interest in computer amazons. Or if there was an "Internet Amazons >Server", and I had a GUI that would handle the networking for me, I would be >much more motivated to continue programming amazons. > >So what do you think contributes to the popularity of computer chess? Yahoo! (Advanced) chess lounges deserve much of the credit imo. Thousands of people go there to play the "my program/computer can beat your program/computer" game. Yahoo! (Advanced) chess lounges started to become really popular around 1997/98. Many of the users there were using Chessmaster 6000/Fritz 5.32 at that time. Then when Junior6 and Fritz 6 hit the market shortly after, everyone there "had" to have them to remain competitive. That trend has continued to this day. At any given time, there are nearly 11,000 players in the various Yahoo! chess lounges! 11,000 is huge! Out of that number, I would estimate roughly 2000 are using various chess programs. So there you go. Chessbase and the others should thank Yahoo! for much of their retail success since 1997/98. Good Day
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