Author: Chris Whittington
Date: 14:21:35 10/16/97
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On October 16, 1997 at 16:54:43, Robert Hyatt wrote: >On October 16, 1997 at 15:10:06, Christophe Theron wrote: > >>The competitors of the world microcomputers championship have just >>received a mail from Mr Marsland, saying that: >> >>1) Heureka, Chess Wizard and Hiarcs have withdrawn. >>2) Their places are being taken by: Kallisto, M-Chess Pro 7.0 and >>TechoChess. >> >>We already knew for Heureka. >> >>Chess Wizard, written by Frederic Louguet, is a strong french program, >>it made 2nd four days ago in the french microcomputer championship, just >>behind Virtual Chess. Its author seems to be too busy to compete this >>year. Believe me: you'll hear about this program again. >> >>It seems that $1000 entry fee has thrown out of competition one of the >>best program in the world: Hiarcs. If it is the case, I totally >>understand Mr Uniacke. The price is too high for professionals. To pay >>your fee you have to sell more than a hundred units of your software. >>For some of the "professionals" it's not so easy. > > >I don't follow your math. I can't imagine a circumstance where a >program >sells for $100 us, and the author only makes 10 bucks on the deal. >Chris >could answer what the CD costs per unit, and also packaging. But this >10% >seems horribly low to me... It all depends how they sell it. 1. Sell themselves, normally via a distributer. They will have to give 40% to 50% discount probably to the distributer. So out of $100, thet will see maybe $50. CD's ? Less than a dollar each, but they need to order in bulk for that, probably they get left with unsold units at the end. Say $2, including the art on the CD. Manual. Maybe $1 or $2. Translation: either they get it for free somehow, or it costs $500-$1000 per language. So, after all the crap, they're going to see a good $40. If they get paid, if the distributer doesn't insist on SOR and so on. How may do they sell ? Good question. From 3 units to 500 units to 1000 units ? If they are very lucky. Do they advertise ? $1000-$2000 a page at least. Then they normally have a loyal following for uprades at 50% of the cost.. Maybe they get $30,000 after sales, maybe $100,000,. some of them. They don't look rich when you see them. Out of this, PC's, maybe a support programmer. All the general costs of running a business, fax, phone. 2. Licence the engine to a product developer. The product developer will then either publish himself or licence it on it far away territories. For direct sales by the developer. Maybe the engine programmer will see 10%, because the engine is not finsihed product. For licence sales of the finished product, maybe the developer can get 20% of wholesale (this will be mass market, so $50, the wholesale of this will be around $20. The developer will get maybe $4. You can see that the programmer won't get rich here unless many many units get sold. Mass market only works for really big names, and console (PSX, Nintendo) ports. Chris > > >> >>TechnoChess, written by Christophe Jolly, is another french program. It >>made 7th in the last french championship. I don't know much more about >>it. >> >> >>- Christophe -
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