Author: Dann Corbit
Date: 08:21:07 08/22/05
Go up one level in this thread
On August 20, 2005 at 15:48:13, Arifur Rahman wrote: >Well, it’s not like that Shredder did badly only in this tourney. Even in the >Chess960 tournament in Germany Shredder finished 4th. > >This shows at least that the amateur programs have caught up (even passed?) with >the top commercial programs. Short contests like that do not demonstrate what you think they do. It may or may not be true. But a contest of less than 100 games cannot possibly give the answer you imagine unless it is a case of total domination by one side or the other. > The main (maybe the only?) reason for buying a >Fritz , Shredder etc over Zappa or Fruit will be because of the GUI that comes >with the commercial programs. Ease of installation. Nice GUI. Database features. Understandable analysis (e.g. ChessMaster's is very good). Technical support. Nice manuals. Online play. Tutorials. Those are some of the things that make commercial chess systems better. But it is not the reason that people will continue to buy them. That reason is advertizing and shelf space. You have to create a decent product or it will fizzle, but if you manage that, then people will walk down the isles of the store and see a chess package. The chess package will have some nice graphics and amazing claims about strength etc. The shopper will pick it up and say, "This looks nice and my wife/son/daughter/husband likes chess. I think I will buy it for him/her." The price is very cheap and so it is an impulse buy. They won't know about WMCCC or WCCC or ICCT or event the SSDF. Only the rarest of buyers pays attention to that stuff.
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