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        Arimaa >> General Discussion >> Thanks Karl. ;-)
        
(Message started by: Arimabuff on Jul 13^th, 2008, 1:26am)

Title: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by Arimabuff on Jul 13^th, 2008, 1:26am

I assume that you're the one who brought Bot Arimaanator Fast back on line. :)

I think people around here should take advantage of that opportunity.

This bot is really something different.

Title: Re: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 13^th, 2008, 6:21am

I'm glad you got to enjoy a few games against it. I'll probably take it off-line again soon because it is a CPU hog and I need the computer for other purposes. Mostly this is a reminder how generous it is of Omar to let us play a whole host of bots at any time of day or night. That CPU ain't free, and the server rental charge adds up.

In fact, if publication of boxed Arimaa sets causes a surge in player participation, the first thing that will have to go is the CC bots, followed by the Fast and Blitz versions, because those are the ones that hog the CPU. The P1 bots and most P2 bots aren't as resource intensive, though.

Title: Re: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by 99of9 on Jul 13^th, 2008, 7:07am

If the player numbers do jump up, it might be better just to limit the number of concurrent games for the CC bots, because otherwise we lose the best bots we've got.

Title: Re: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 13^th, 2008, 8:47am

Actually, the best bots we've got, namely BombP3 and BombP4, are already disabled because they took up too many server resources. With the CC bots, it's the same thing to a lesser degree. If the server is nearly busy, and we have a choice, would we rather let one person play a CC bot, or let fifteen people play P1 and P2 bots?

For now it isn't an issue, and it still won't be an issue if the active playing pool doubles or triples. There is no urgency. I'm just getting optimistic about the effects of releasing Arimaa as a boxed set. What if fifty to a hundred people are logged in at the same time, and most of them (as now) want to play bots? The server could probably handle fifty beginner bots at once, but once it gets full, there's a harsh trade-off in the number of low-level bots that have to be shut down to start one CC bot.

Obviously it is up to Omar whether he prefers quantity or quality, but my preference is decidedly in favor of quantity. In the mean time, we don't have to make any tradeoffs, and we can still have everything! :)

Title: Re: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by Fritzlein on Jul 18^th, 2008, 9:33am

I got motivated to do a little economic calculation about the bulk cost of a bot game if we had enough demand to sell them continuously.

Suppose I rent a hosted server like Omar's for $1200/year for the purpose of running Blitz, Fast, and CC bots. (These are bots that use the CPU for a fixed amount of time per move, as opposed to P1 bots which use negligible CPU.) Suppose I find I can run at most ten bots at once, but due to variations in demand, I can only expect an average utilization of half that, i.e. five simultaneous bots. That means that in order to break even I need to charge

($1200/year)*(1 year/365 days)*(1 day/24 hours)*(1 hour/60 minutes)/(5 bots)
= ($0.0004566/bot*minute)

If a game averages 40 moves, the cost per game is

Blitz game = (1 bot)*(40 moves)*(15 second/move)*(1 minute/60 seconds)*($0.0004566/bot*minute) = $0.004566
Fast game = (1 bot)*(40 moves)*(30 second/move)*(1 minute/60 seconds)*($0.0004566/bot*minute) = $0.009132
CC game = (1 bot)*(40 moves)*(120 second/move)*(1 minute/60 seconds)*($0.0004566/bot*minute) = $0.03653

Realistically consumer price needs to be 4x wholesaler cost for anyone to want to sell, so I expect the per-game market retail should be about

Blitz game: 2 cents
Fast game: 4 cents
CC game: 15 cents

I think that's pretty good news. Even if a surge of demand means that Omar can't provide unlimited free bot games to everyone, the market should be able to provide them at an affordable price. I see from my record that I have played 720 bot games in the four years I've been addicted to Arimaa: paying, say, $30 for that would be a steal of a deal.

I was initially considering the cost of bot games just because I am worried that Omar's server will be overwhelmed if Arimaa's popularity skyrockets after the introduction of boxed sets. However, I wonder if pay-per-play could be some kind of motivation to bot developers. If Janzert hosted the latest version of OpFor on his own machine on a pay-per-play basis, I'll bet he would have some takers even now, never mind in a community ten times the current size. Maybe the possibility of a new revenue stream would persuade Fotland to revive his Bomb development. The marketing model is already in place: Omar could get folks hooked with free samples (i.e. P1 and P2 bots) and leave the bot developers to both host and profit from the strongest versions of their creations.

By the way, I'm assuming that Omar will continue to host HvH games for free indefinitely, since that requires far fewer resources than running bots. We might have to get to 50x the current community size before he couldn't give us free HvH games, which is a hope even beyond my wild imaginings. Whenever I start having crazy thoughts like that I have to bring myself back down to earth and realize that Arimaa won't necessarily take the gaming world by storm. Maybe a year from now the Arimaa community will look, well, pretty much exactly the same as it looks today. And that will be fine too!

Title: Re: Thanks Karl. ;-)
Post by mistre on Jul 18^th, 2008, 10:02am

on 07/18/08 at 09:33:04, Fritzlein wrote:

Blitz game: 2 cents
Fast game: 4 cents
CC game: 15 cents

It's funny that the CC and Fast bots are the most expensive because they are also the least utilized on the site even though they are currently free.

IMO, the fast bots are underutilized because you have to wait 30 seconds for a bot to make a move, but you also have to constantly pay attention or you will run out of time. I have commented before on how this throws off my timing and may have the same effect on others.

I also dislike playing the CC bots (even though they are considered the best) because of the long wait times between moves.

I would not be sad to see either bot type go to a pay-per-play model.

Having said this, it probably would make more sense and be easier to mange to have some sort of "Gold" membership to the site that would open up playing Fast, Blitz, and CC bots as well as provide some other incentives (discounts on Arimaa merchandise? discounts on tournament fees? expanded player statistics?). $15-20/yr sounds about right.