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BGonline.org Forums
XG Mobile Marketing train wreck
Posted By: W Womack In Response To: XG Mobile Marketing train wreck (benf)
Date: Monday, 10 September 2012, at 4:12 a.m.
When XG Mobile was first announced I was a little surprised they even offered a free version. I downloaded it, read the differences between the free and paid versions, and immediately purchased the paid version. I am not sure what XG's target market is for the mobile app, but I would be surprised it was targeted to the casual player that just wanted a backgammon "toy." Certainly XG Mobile is intended for people that take backgammon at least somewhat seriously and are looking for more than your typical mobile backgammon app has to offer.
In the realm of specialized apps that cater to enthuasits of certain activities I don't think the $9.99 price tag is over the top at all. I have a few specialized apps for other activities that come in at the same price, for example the official geocaching.com app is 9.99 even for the iphone, and I have a specialized outdoor GPS app that was the same price. Other apps designed for specific task, such as Pages and Numbers are also priced at $9.99, as well as several game apps. Benf's link shows over 200 games in the app store at that price.
If you want to compare XG to Backgammon NJ on a price basis then I guess the real question is it worth the extra $3.00? First off, I only have NJ for the IPhone because the Ipad version is a separate program and I really did not want to buy it twice. (XG is designed for both for 1 price, and the app store licensing allows it on both devices for a single purchase).
NJ does not allow you to set up a position and evaluate it or play from that position. While XG Mobile may offer only 3ply analysis that will work for a lot of positions, and shooting over to XG for a more indepth analysis is quite easy. The feature also lets you use XG as a portable board for working out problems or practicing certain aspects of your game based on a type of position. You might not agree, but I find that feature alone to be worth the extra $3.00.
Admittedly XG Mobile does not offer online connections to fibs or game center for playing others like NJ, but for a lot of us that is a non issue.
From what I can gather from information posted by Backgammon NJ and information provided on the XG mobile site XG is stonger than NJ (would be interesting to test that out but I am not going to spend the time it would take to play them head to head long enough to get a significant result).
I don't see that XG Mobile is "over the top" at $9.99, there are a lot of other specialized applications at this same price.
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