Dann Corbit wrote:Uri Blass wrote:Dann Corbit wrote:Tord Romstad wrote:Dann Corbit wrote:The big sales are not driven by any of the things we think of. It does not matter if the engine is strongest. It does not matter if the GUI is best. It does not matter if the database is wonderful. It does not matter if the entire package has every bell and whistle you can imagine and some you cannot imagine.
What matters is shelf space, advertizing, and a nice shiny box.
Another important matter is to choose the right target platform. Since a long time, I've suspected that phones and handheld devices were soon to become a more important target for chess programs than real computers, but I never knew how right I was until the last two days:
Glaurung for the iPhone has been available for approximately 48 hours now. During these 48 hours, Glaurung for the iPhone has seen more downloads than all other Glaurung versions (Mac OS X, Linux, Windows, and source code) combined over
the last two years. There's an awful lot of money to earn in this market. It's a pity I have no business sense myself, and give away my program for free.
Tord
In my opinion, you are:
A very brilliant programmer.
A very nice guy.
A rare combination that should be celebrated. If you wanted to make money at chess, I guess you could do it, but I suspect it would take a lot of the fun out of it. I also guess that someone with your talent can make more money by doing something else. I suspect that those who want to be professional chess programmers do it because they love chess programming so much that they simply don't care if they could be making more money doing something else and chess programming is simply at the top of their list on what they want to do for a living.
Much of the money to be made in the world is on mundane things (helping rich people count their beans, for instance). I do think it is a good idea to choose a profession where you enjoy going to work (but it should also be pragmatic enough so that you can at least survive).
To me, I imagine that all of the top chess programmers are truly excellent programmers. I also guess that even the best professional chess programmers could make a lot more money doing something else. But what if that something else is guiding the missile to its target? And what if the target is a residential area full of families? Maybe (for some) there is an objection to that and they would rather do something else that earns less.
I suspect that only ChessMaster has enough volume to deliver wealth to the chess programmer. Everyone else who is a professional chess programmer is doing it because they can't find anything else they would rather do.
IMO-YMMV
I suspect that Vasik earns from rybka more than what the programmer of the engine of chessmaster earns.
The reason is that I suspect that in the case of chessmaster the engine author get only small part of the money(when programmers of the interface earn more) when in the case of rybka Vasik earns clearly bigger part of the money because unlike chessmaster the engine is the main point of rybka and in previous versions it was the only point of rybka because rybka came with no interface.
Note that this is only a guess and I do not know nothing about the question how much money chess programmers earn.
Uri
I am only guessing also, but the volume of ChessMaster is millions of units and the volume of all others is at least ten times less than that.
So if CM gives 10% as much per unit as direct sales, then I am pretty sure that CM wins for its programmers.
I trust you're right somewhere.
Few years back I was at a gathering with a friend and his family. 2 cousins liked chess since childhood, but allt they knew was softwarewise Chessmaster. And they both knew alot about, but was very unknowing about any other product I mentioned, like Fritz, Shredder etc. Was a bit bizarre since it was like Chessmaster ruled the computer chess world.
So yes, visibillity overrules strenght and quality IMHO.
But it really seems to me like Rybka is becomming more and more visiable. It has become the reference for so many GM's and IM's.
The forum has many new members per day, also when we discard the number of double-accounts and trolls.
And as Rybka is on top, and there's strong developement going on all time, and there's a more or less openess about all setbacks, there's no resaon that Chessmaster is needed. Vas has ChessOk, Chessbase and the giant well-run forum.
The give-away idea for engines older than the last commercial released, is another supermove.
And yes, he has the heart in it all
Best,
Henrik
Best,
Henrik
