[quote comment=”5336″]One thing to add about software prices is that if it’s productivity software that people use to create wealth, it can justifiably cost more – just like a mechanic will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a good set of tools. A game, on the other hand, is entertainment. And unless you’re going on holiday, entertainment should never cost that much (to most people’s way of thinking).

Also, it’s not really true that game development requires more people than Microsoft needs to make its products. Witness the 43 people involved in deciding how ‘shutdown’ should be presented in the Vista start menu.[/quote]

True. I agree with that, but there are 3 caveats that you need to keep in mind:

1. They are not designing a brand new Office suite. Large parts of the code base are in place, the public and secret API’s are there for them to use. Granted, there is a lot of work to be done, but building a product from scratch is always more difficult than polishing out a new edition of existing one.
2. When I talked about game design, I mentioned that a lot of the expense and man power needed there is external. Having 43 salaried full time software developers argue over start button is different from brining in talent to design artwork, do the voice acting and etc. I mean look at C&C3 – can the cost of hiring Sawyer from Lost, 2 Cylons from BSG, that dude from Starship Troopers, and Lando Clarisian can be really compared to the cost of MS developers debating a button?
3. Having 43 developers/designers/manages working on a shutdown button is a great example of “to many cooks”. It might have worked for microsoft, but in my experience, if you have 43 people arguing over a small detail like that, nothing is really getting done the way it should.

[quote comment=”5336″]I don’t disagree about the ‘what the market will bear’ pricing (it’s true for most things, really), but even without the Microsoft bloat, a product like Office is going to require a hell of a lot of developers.[/quote]

Yes, but as illustrated by the efforts of the Open Office group, it does not have to be that expensive.

[quote comment=”5338″]oh.. :mrgreen not working..[/quote]

mrgreen has two colons – one at the beginning, and one like the end. Just like wink. :mrgreen: :wink:

[quote comment=”5339″]The the 43 people involved in deciding how ’shutdown’ should be presented in the Vista start menu is probably not a fair comparison as that reflects bureaucratic corporate nonsense as much as anything else.[/quote]

Yup! That’s exactly what it is.

vacri I agree windows stability problems are not as bad as they used to be. I can’t speak for vista as I don’t use it nor do I ever plan on ever using it. XP will be the end of my windows days. Really 2000 pro is the version of win I use on my own machine and the only time I see or use XP is when friends came by or call saying help my machine is screwed would ya fix it for me. So my perception is prob a little skewed cause i do see XP machines with all kinds of problems, and in all honesty these would be problems i prob wouldn’t have if i used XP on my machine. The the 43 people involved in deciding how ’shutdown’ should be presented in the Vista start menu is probably not a fair comparison as that reflects bureaucratic corporate nonsense as much as anything else.

And btw I don’t play computer games but i do think some killer programming goes into many games. While office applications are complex, so too are many games and they are growing in complexity. And I only had to laugh at the statement “entertainment should never cost that much (to most people’s way of thinking)“, hmm you’ve obviously never known any junkies or crack heads or anybody like that. but anyway i know what you’re trying to say. lmao

and yeah “productivity software that people use to create wealth usually does cost more in the software for money business. witness autocad photoshop et al . And btw I’m not really satisfied with the open source CAD programs I’ve found and i certainly need one for Linux. If anyone has any suggestions let me know. I’m also looking for a good recipe program comparable to AccuChef, I used to work as a Vegan chef and I’m not so far happy with the Linux recipe programs I’ve found so far.

And Matt` I certainly have nothing against pirated or hacked software, but i chose not to use it … cause the LAW don’t like my ass and I am not giving them any more ammo than I gotta. I’m an activist and do not live by their rules and they know it and that is the reality I gotta live in at least as long as I live in a police state.

oh.. :mrgreen not working..
test: :) :D :( :wink: :P

Stuff is expensive until it gets hacked, then its free :mrgreen

Starhawk – The infamous blue screen is a fact of life for windows users. Pre-XP this was the case, but it’s just not true these days, and hasn’t been for years. Windows has plenty of problems, yes (such as the ‘just restart it’ culture), but BSODs are pretty much a thing of the past.

Luke –

One thing to add about software prices is that if it’s productivity software that people use to create wealth, it can justifiably cost more – just like a mechanic will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a good set of tools. A game, on the other hand, is entertainment. And unless you’re going on holiday, entertainment should never cost that much (to most people’s way of thinking).

Also, it’s not really true that game development requires more people than Microsoft needs to make its products. Witness the 43 people involved in deciding how ‘shutdown’ should be presented in the Vista start menu.

Don’t forget that Office also has to work in multiple languages, on non-windows platforms, and that there are a lot of interacting programs in office. I don’t use Office much, but the complexity of the environment it dwells in far exceeds even the most complex computer game. Besides, office may not need artists for things like 3D models, but it does need artists for icons, guis, clipart, and so forth. Theoretically they also do usability studies (which are distinct from beta testing), and a bunch of other things a game simply doesn’t need.

I don’t disagree about the ‘what the market will bear’ pricing (it’s true for most things, really), but even without the Microsoft bloat, a product like Office is going to require a hell of a lot of developers.

I never really cared for the commercials. I never wanted a Mac until OSX rolled out. And even then, the selling point for me was the unix core inside.

Essentially you are running BSD, but with a nice and shiny UI an everything just works out of the box – especially on a laptop. No hassle with wifi setup, no issues with a weird mobile video card, and etc

I was wondering the same things about the apple ads myself, I suppose Apples multimillion (or is that billion?) dollar advertising campaign really hasn’t sunk thru people Microsoft induced cultural trance. Sadly they’ve had some damn good ads too over the years, made me even want an apple :D And i suppose only geeks see those linux ad/videos on youtube. lmao

Actually the teacher (HS btw) asked me what i had did to windows to make it look and act like that, multiple desktops esp. In the past I always did “strange” things to my windows machines so they maybe didn’t look exactly like win outta the box. Stuff like that sorta scares me tho he is responsible for teaching our kids but surely he has students more computer literate than him by far! And sorry to hear ya gotta work with people like that, i know ya blog on it often, but it would seriously get on my nerves.

LOL! I talked to people like that too! Actually, I work with a lot of people like that. But you know what is really interesting? The people who have no concept of OS, and who think Windows is “built in” still see the Apple comercials on TV.

I mean do they think that OSX runs on windows? Or what?

Actually, most of the time, people don’t bring up the fact that my OS is different at all. I suspect they just don’t know how to phrase the question.

Software developer’s and companies are seldom held accountable for half finished, untested products being rushed out of the door and the public has came to expect it, take it for granted. Interestingly enough in the same blog that inspired this one I found this:

You can talk about investing more time in testing, to reduce the costs of defects as early as possible, and they’ll still be more interested in beating a competitor to the market with a bug-riddled application than they will be in sparing users a frustrating experience and corrupting their data.

After reading Creating my own personal hell i started feeling sorry for him, lol. But if buggy software trashes your data perhaps they ought to held legally accountable. Instead of having ya click ok after reading some legal mumbo jumbo claiming they are not responsible for anything. lmao I suppose part of it is the mystic of the computer, we are talking about a technology that is not very well understood outside of certain circles. I was talking to of all things a school teacher the other day and he noticed my desktop did not look like ah Windows. And it of course was Ubuntu and I have it looking the way i want it to. So i told him it was Ubuntu and then linux and then explaining what linux was and so on. But the shocking thing was the teacher did not know what the phrase Operating system meant, he thought windows was kinda built into the machines one buys at like a hardware level. He was unaware of other Operating systems completely. A perception that things are one way that one has no other choices and such this sort of perception causes a alot of social damage. Wake up is about all I gotta say on that one!! Mind you the school teacher would swear up and down he was educated , master degree even and yet he on more than one occasion has demonstrated quite clearly to me to lack basic cultural literacy. And there’s the problem computer illiteracy in particular helps perpetuate a lot of false concepts and absurd arguments.

Seriously, I hate the idea of Intellectual Property as much as the other guy. I just didn’t want to get side tracked in that whole discussion while trying to make a point about software prices.

Intellectual Property is abhorrent travesty that is not only killing the software industry, but also slowing down scientific progress and destroying our cultural legacy for future generations. It actually frightens me that one can exclusively own an idea, scientific method and etc.

But thats’ a whole other discussion.

Btw, I love that “How am I gonna make a living if software is free” argument. Classic piece of FUD. It reminds me of these classic arguments:

1. How am I going to make money if people can just listen to my song on the radio for fee?
2. How am I going to make money if people can just copy my song off the radio with the cassette recorder?
3. How am I going to make money if people can just watch my movie on public TV for free?
4. How am I going to make money if people can just tape my movie from TV using VCR?
5. How am I going to make money if people can just download my song/movie from the internet for free?

But it turns out that nothing is ever really free, and things work out for the best in the end. Oh, except that last one – that one seems to be still going on.

It has been proven, over and over again that:

a. people will buy a superior product even if it’s more expensive
b. piracy cannot be extinguished, stopped or slowed down
c. there is no copyright protection that cannot be broken

Logical conclusion here is to give away your software for free to those who would pirate it anyway and to offer more attractive deals to paying customers. Note that few people bother pirating copies of “enterprise” editions of linux distros – most people are content with the basic free editions

Once you stop thinking about piracy as “lost sales” but as free promotion, free testing and means to build a critical mass on the market you can start sleeping better at night.

I mean, look at WinZip – they are still around and making money despite the fact that Vista and XP have a ZIP functionality built into the windows explorer. Not mentioning that there is about a zillion free (and often better, more feature full and less bloated) alternatives out there.

And regarding maintenance: you are right. It’s funny how software is just about the only industry where you can rush a half finished, untested product out the door, and then release a patch 6 months later to fix the most glaring security issues, and away with it.