Houdini 1.5: one mystery/question

[tmokonen]

Come on John a workmen is worth his hirer , a lot of time , energry , years of formal education have gone into these engines they are worth paying for. Why should Stephen work for free?

i was being 100% sarcastic. the 'bastards' i was referring to are the free guys.

IMO, € 65 is a ridiculous price to charge for a chess program that doesn't even have a GUI. Most video games are much cheaper than that, and have a team of programmers, designers, graphic artists, and musicians to create them. Why should chess engines be so much more expensive than other types of games?

[Graham Banks]

IMO, € 65 is a ridiculous price to charge for a chess program that doesn't even have a GUI. Most video games are much cheaper than that, and have a team of programmers, designers, graphic artists, and musicians to create them. Why should chess engines be so much more expensive than other types of games?

Agreed. About 30 euros sounds fairer.
Even with a GUI plus other features, 65 euros is too much to ask in my opinion.

[Houdini]

Personally I think Robert Houdart is concerned about legal issues considering he admits he got allot of ideas from clones that were taken from Rybka.

No, that is not the case.
Building on publicly available ideas is perfectly acceptable, there is little doubt that every high-level engine author is taking ideas from these sources.
If I should be concerned about selling Houdini, I should be even more concerned about giving it for free, the latter being probably worse for the competition.

I'm actually a bit surprised by the seriousness of the responses, in fact my original reply was a rhetorical answer to a rhetorical question from the original poster. Maybe I should have added a wink .

Robert

[tmokonen]

IMO, € 65 is a ridiculous price to charge for a chess program that doesn't even have a GUI. Most video games are much cheaper than that, and have a team of programmers, designers, graphic artists, and musicians to create them. Why should chess engines be so much more expensive than other types of games?

Agreed. About 30 euros sounds fairer.
Even with a GUI plus other features, 65 euros is too much to ask in my opinion.

Yes, 30 would be a fair price. I have purchased a few chess engines in that price range.

[Sedat Canbaz]

Agreed. About 30 euros sounds fairer.
Even with a GUI plus other features, 65 euros is too much to ask in my opinion.

Dear Graham,

After looking/comparing with the latest blitz rankings,i am going to this conclusion:
-150 euro or 200 euro will be the right price for latest Houdini
*Note alo that there are many other commercial programs which play about 300-400 elo weaker than Houdini,but cost approx.50 euro or even more...

BTW,if Houdini will cost 30 euro,hmm...then the rest commercial programs which play 300-400 elo weaker,should be approx. 5-10 euro


Greetings,
Sedat