Author: John Merlino
Date: 14:56:25 04/02/04
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On April 02, 2004 at 17:16:02, Dann Corbit wrote: >On April 02, 2004 at 15:09:58, John Merlino wrote: >[snip] >>You're assuming that, for most people, the most important part of a chess >>program is the strength of the chess engine. The reality is that, for many MANY >>people, this is not as important as the overall feature set, tutorial content, >>UI quality and (in Chessmaster's case) reputation of the program. The vast >>majority of "typical computer chess software users" couldn't care less if the >>engine was Super-GM strength or GM strength...or even IM strength! > >I am guessing that most of them don't even know what an IM is. > >>Even if there were a hundred free Winboard engines stronger than The King, >>people would still buy Chessmaster because of the incredible value of the entire >>software package. > >If they were 200 Elo stronger it would cause problems, I think. But what would >happen is that a stronger engine would be used instead. > >>Additionally, people typically don't find out about the existence of free >>engines without first delving into computer chess via a commercial package. I >>don't know how many people download Crafty each year, but I would suspect that >>each one of them has bought a commercial program first. > >I used free engines before I even knew that there were commercial packages. I >am not even sure that commercial packages existed back then. > >Most of them were not very strong (I used EdChess before anything else around >1990 or so, I think). > >I used GnuChess, Crafty, and Arasan before I ever used a commercial package, >even though I knew of commercial systems by that time. > >For me, your description was upside down. I used the free stuff, and that got >me interested in the better, commercial stuff. > >So there is at least one exception to your rule. Every good rule has one. :-) jm
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