Author: Fernando Villegas
Date: 12:44:45 11/09/00
Answering a post, John Merlino talked about the first production run of CM8000: around, he said, 40 or 50 thousand copies. I believe this is the first figure related to this industry we have got, since ever. Well, now speculation begins. First: how many runs along his full life expectancy we can expect for that product, the more commercially succesfull? I only can guess that maybe there will be three to four runs a year -five, maybe- but only the first year, then maybe one or two at most the second, and from then on just the slow selling of the stock. Second: I can be absolutely mistaken, but I tend to believe that, on the ground of that initial number given by Merlino, the total market of all chess programs, including the so called "mass market" programs and also including even the less known professional, but commercially delivered program, the total selling is, yearly, no more than 300 to 250 thousands copies. At an average price of 40 bucks and a presumed profit of, say, 50% of the price, -I am being generous-, the total net income of chess software industry, each year, cannot be more than 6 to 8 millions dollars. Third: that amount is not enough to sustain the field beyond the very fringe of starvation IF commercially worked as an specialized market niche. An even companies that produces chess software AND produces another things, a lot better sallable, does not love to bleed from a wound even if they have blood enough from other sources. So when you see somebody getting 8 millions dollars or more, as Chris has done with his Oxford Softworks, you are looking at a miracle in which Cstal did not play a rol or at most a very secondary one. Then is when you wonder how is that Ed keeps his vessel above the water level and even sailing. His is enterily chess dedicated. He has not, like Oxford Softworks, a wide line of products capable of a more easy selling. Fourth: I tend to think, then, that chess programming will be more and more a matter of employees working for big houses that can do good use of already available resources to fill this tiny market and get some bucks without too many expenses. It is the case of Chessmaster. That's the reason it is sold and purchased year after year. Conclusion: in the same way independent programmers cannot become commercials by now, "stand-alone"little companies will be ousted sooner or later or will never take-off. Price war is a portent of all that. If you compare current prices in hardware and software chess stuff, you will see a incredible fast shrinking. Great artisans can sustain themselves very well with high medieval prices, but cannot even barely live with industrial prices. Fernando
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