OT - Can I get some FOFCer's on this? [Archive] - Front Office Football Central

Subby

07-08-2003, 08:56 AM

Sounds fine - although it may be worth selling each individual sport as an "add-on" pack for each of .400 Studios' titles. That would lower the price and give customers the option of picking and choosing the information they want.

This would be even more useful if agreements with other software vendors were struck and this information was portable to other sports textsims...

Stats are organic - maybe think about selling this in a different way - instead of a yearly software product, may approach as a subscription - pay 45 up front and then get the yearly updates for 25 bucks...

Good luck, Joe...

Ksyrup

07-08-2003, 08:57 AM

Questions:

1. Would this replace the ability to use the Lahman Database? Would Lahman no longer be compatible with OOTP and (I assume) the upcoming football game?

2. Would this be a subscription-based service, or is it mine to have and hold forever? For instance, the new wave of selling databases seems to be subscriptions that last 6 months, 1 year, etc. Once the subscription period ends, you lose access to the data, even if you have the disc (I see this a lot with law reporters and specific industry information sources). Would this be the same, or have I purchased the entire database for as long as I either have the elicense or CD-Rom (I'm thinking for something like this, I'd definitely want the CD-Rom)?

Honestly, I probably wouldn't buy it immediately, but would have some interest in it as a handy reference. That said, and this is based on the assumption that it is not subscription-based, my interest would significantly increase if I knew that subsequent years' updates only cost a fraction of the cost of the initial purchase - $45 for the database and, say, $10 for the 2003-2004 updates for every sport. I don't want to spend $45 in 2004, and by 2005, have incomplete and outdated information.

Those are my questions/thoughts off of the top of my head.

sachmo71

07-08-2003, 09:15 AM

My comments are on the .400 board.

albionmoonlight

07-08-2003, 09:24 AM

$45 is too much for me.

I might, however, be interested in football only data for $15-$20. Again, I would want the ability to update yearly for less than the initial price.

QuikSand

07-08-2003, 09:33 AM

I might have some slight interest in a resource like this if it were entirely free. I suspect there are a lot of people who'd fit into that category. It's getting tougher and tougher to charge for simple information these days.

ice4277

07-08-2003, 09:37 AM

I agree that I would probably not buy it at $45, at least right away. However, if I heard some good word of mouth about it, that would probably change my mind. It also, as mentioned before, would have to work easily and functionally with .400 games.

That being said I do think there is a good chance it could succeed, primarily if it is marketed towards the hard-core sports fan/text sim gamer.

Joe Stallings

07-08-2003, 09:41 AM

QuikSand, agreed, and good comments on the .400 board, although I'm not sure I follow the "self-selective" vibe (?) :)

I agree about "charging" for information (which I personally detest), although our financial intent here is not to make millions but simply to cover the costs and make a nominal profit. Putting all that stuff together and updating is not an easy task, and is labor-intensive.

On the other hand, we have to be very careful about spending our (very, very) limited time and resources on something that has no appeal.

Thanks for the comments.

Joe

QuikSand

07-08-2003, 09:58 AM

Originally posted by Joe Stallings
QuikSand, agreed, and good comments on the .400 board, although I'm not sure I follow the "self-selective" vibe.

My intent there is to reinfrce that what you get by launchign a post like this is something very different than what you'd get by doing some sort of truly random survey. If you post a thread saying 'who'd be interested" and you get 20 responses, you might get 15 saying they'd buy it (or something like it) in that group.

It might be tempting, then, to extrapolate from there - and think that if the universe of hard-core gamers out there is something like 5,000 people... than you might be able to sell this (or something) to 75% of them, (since 75% of your thread responses were favorable).

Rather, I think the most sensible way to look at this is to recognize that for every 20 people who bothered to respond yes or no in any way, there are probably scores more who looked at the thread but didn't find anythin of interest at all-- and they are all implicit "no" responses to your query, who don't get counted. That's the self-selecting process I'm suggesting-- this is not a random sample, as many "no" votes simply won't bother to vote or express any opinion at all.

I don't think I'm exactly solving Fermat's Last Theorem here, just offering some gentle advice for using the responses from your inquiry. I expect you've already got that well in hand.

Again, good luck.

Ksyrup

07-08-2003, 10:13 AM

So you're saying that not everyone wants the threadkiller thread deleted?

mckerney

07-08-2003, 11:40 AM

I think that's what they're saying. Especially if they were to realize posting bullshit in the threadkiller prevents the same bullshit from being posted in the threads they read. And it's very easy to avoid the threadkiller, it would seem.

Ben E Lou

07-08-2003, 11:58 AM

Originally posted by mckerney
I think that's what they're saying. Especially if they were to realize posting bullshit in the threadkiller prevents the same bullshit from being posted in the threads they read. And it's very easy to avoid the threadkiller, it would seem. That's my theory. The riff-raff need a place to go too. In the novel version of John Grisham's A Time To Kill, Sheriff Ozzie Walls makes a campaign promise to the local pastors that he'd close all the local tonks, to get rid of all the drinkin', fightin', gamblin, etc. He did so upon election, however the local rednecks resorted to drinkin', fightin' and gamblin' in the town square, rather than in the tonks, and the preachers went to Ozzie and begged him to re-open the tonks, so the riff-raff would have someplace to go. I believe the line in the book I love is, "Ozzie hated that the tonks were open in his county, but he was convinced that his law-abiding constituents were safer and happier when they were open."

sachmo71

07-08-2003, 11:59 AM

Why are we talking about the threadkiller thread in Joe Stallings thread?

Ksyrup

07-08-2003, 12:00 PM

Originally posted by sachmo71
Why are we talking about the threadkiller thread in Joe Stallings thread?

I just saw a parallel and pointed it out, that's all.

Joe Stallings

07-08-2003, 12:02 PM

Now that *does* solve Fermat's Last Theorem.

mckerney

07-08-2003, 12:04 PM

Oh, and to post on the topic

It's not something that I'd use as when I'm playing sims I'm more interested in a fake future than the real past, but I know a lot of people over here do use that feature and would probably drop the cash on it.

vtbub

07-08-2003, 12:13 PM

Here's what I said over there:

I didn't vote because I'm not sure. It would depend on how often it was updated and how much it cost for the updates.

Since multiplayer seems to be where you guys are headed, would all players in a league need to buy this data?

A bigger question is why buy what you can already get for free?

Also, .400 games as a whole don't claim to be replay simulators, but career based games. Why pay for stats if your product doesn't replicate them very well?

Not being critical, just food for thought.

The concept is very good.

kcchief19

07-08-2003, 12:18 PM

I would probably be the type of person that would be the prime market for something like this, but I'm not sure I would bite. As a standalone product. There are some nice features listed (historical depth, anyalysis tools, draft histories), but there is some stuff that I could care less about (venue history, weather, essays on sport sims).

Perhaps I'm wrong, but after reading this feature list, my immediate conclusion was that .400 was building such a database in order to support historic play for the basketball, football and hockey sims, since no suitable database comparable to the Lahman DB exists for these sports, and then .400 was planning to sell the database to recoup some of the expense. That makes me feel someone used and manipuated as a consumer, I would probably pass on that ground alone. I could be way off -- those are not necessarily your thoughts or intentions, but that is the "feel" I get from this idea.

I would also be concerned about updates for such a database. If the information is as comprehensive as you indicate (particularly with analysis tools), I could imagine spending $45 for something like this, but I certainly would not be willing to shell out another $10 every year and I would not be interested without updates.

I don't know if I'm jumping the gun, but if owning the $45 database were a prerequisite for historic play in .400 sims, it would make me less likely to buy a .400 game. Even with flaws, the abiltity to use the Lahman DB for free for historic play in OOTP has been at the heart of my purchase of OOTP 3-5.

JeeberD

07-08-2003, 12:32 PM

Whoa, SkyDog has an avatar! ;)

It looks really interesting and something that I would love to have, but $45 is a bit steep for this poor college student.

Maybe if I ever graduate and get a real job then I could afford to purchase it...

Bee

07-08-2003, 12:53 PM

For me, the only way I'd buy it is if the games that it worked in conjunction with were top notch. If a game really holds my interest, I'd be willing to drop another $45 to add another dimension to my options in playing that game. I prefer playing fictional universes, but sometimes it's nice to re-live a little history. If the games are good enough that they hold my interest and provide a challenge, then an add-on like this would be something I'd consider.

Honolulu Blue

07-08-2003, 01:04 PM

Random thoughts:

1) Not interested in the currently mentioned product at the $45 price.
2) Think it would probably be better off split into individual sports with the essays as a bonus on each.
3) Import function would work best with replay sims such as Strat-O-Matic and not the games .400 currently offers.
4) Baseball is well covered with stat reference materials already; the other sports less so.

Swaggs

07-08-2003, 01:23 PM

I might get blasted for this, but I don't think I will every pay for another CD from .400 again because I ordered the one for Tournament Dreams and it came about 10 days after release and 2 or 3 versions behind the current release (and about 3 hours behind on my 56K connection). I ordered it so I wouldn't have to download the huge file and ended up having to download the huge file, pay $10 more, and pretty much ended up with a useless disk.

I would probably only buy something like this if it were available for download, because I know smaller companies (while I love you all) do not have the resources to thoroughly test the software and it will probably require downloadable patches, which pretty much negate the appeal of getting software on disks (when I can burn it at any given time).

Ksyrup

07-08-2003, 01:37 PM

Originally posted by Honolulu Blue
3) Import function would work best with replay sims such as Strat-O-Matic and not the games .400 currently offers.

I'm confused by the several mentions I've seen to the limited "replay" value of imported stats from this product, should it ever come to be. Would this not work in exactly the same way as the Lahman Database does? That's not limited to replay sims, but career league sims where you import real-life rookies each year and the players develop, age, retire, etc., based on the game's engine, not their real-life stats.

Now, I seriously question whether I would want to buy this database for that purpose when Lahman does the exact same thing for free, but that's another issue.

Am I missing something?

Abe Sargent

07-08-2003, 02:52 PM

I am going to be picking up and playing TPF in a game online and yet I would find no use for the product.

-Anxiety

JPhillips

07-08-2003, 04:29 PM

I don't think I would pay more for data tha for a complete game. 45$ seems really high to me. Also, if I were you I would worry that this could be undersold or even given away easily, that is unless you alter code to make your games only work with your data. If you did that you would basically have to give up player editing.

I think this idea may sound good and plausible on paper, but I just can't come up with a viable model for this generating much cash. Games are at least somewhat unique, but data is available for free from multiple sources. I will continue to purchase your games, but I would just look for data somewhere else. It may take a while, but eventually someone would post a new, free database that would cover my needs.

Good luck, and thanks for the recent OOTP update.

CAsterling

07-08-2003, 04:52 PM

Considered it, but apart from the football information, I wouldn't be interested.
I don't have enough interest in Baseball, Hockey and absolutley no interest in Basketball, so I would only find 25% of the data useful (and not all of that).

Split into seperate sports, I would be interested in the football data, but that would depend on the price and possible cost of future updates.

Good luck with the project.

LastWhiteSoxFanStanding

07-08-2003, 08:42 PM

I would be interested in something like this if speed, fielding and relief pitcher attributes were more accurate than the Lahman Database.

Honolulu Blue

07-08-2003, 09:28 PM

Originally posted by Ksyrup
I'm confused by the several mentions I've seen to the limited "replay" value of imported stats from this product, should it ever come to be. Would this not work in exactly the same way as the Lahman Database does? That's not limited to replay sims, but career league sims where you import real-life rookies each year and the players develop, age, retire, etc., based on the game's engine, not their real-life stats.

Now, I seriously question whether I would want to buy this database for that purpose when Lahman does the exact same thing for free, but that's another issue.

Am I missing something?

Maybe. Or maybe I just didn't explain very well. I'm not saying that you couldn't import these stats into, say, OOTP. I'm sure it would work fine.

But games like Strat-O-Matic and Diamond Mind are designed to be accurate season replay sims. A .273 hitter with 13 home runs in one of those games would, given the same schedule, hit pretty close to .273 with 13 homers. OOTP has broader ratings and more variables, and so there would be more variability in season replay results.

Also, SOM and DM charge $15 and up for each season disk (I'm not sure either of them are compatible with Lahman), so to be able to tap into a database like this would be a coup for users of those games, but OOTP is already compatible with Lahman, so the value added there would be limited.

I hope this helps clarify my thinking.

Stunt Monkey

07-09-2003, 05:31 AM

Joe, I would imagine that it would cost a fortune to put together a commercial product with the statistics of all 4 major league sports.

To the best of my knowledge, OOTP 5 and most games of that kind of size (read: not produced by a major game publishing house) come without real life major leaguers, mainly because of licencing issues. If you were to create a statistic database, you would obviously need real players, and this would mean that you would need the blessing of the league (and possibly the teams involved). That most likely means you will need to pay them big bucks.

I think $45 may not be enough to cover your costs.....