Interesting "of note" from Battlefront regarding CMx2

[GJK]

I found this to be an interesting post from Steve at BFC:


Actually, it is the time invested to the amount of sales more than anything. Here are two hypothetica choices. See which one you'd rather:

1. Go without pay for 3 years, release a game, sell x number at $45, then y number at $35, and z number at $25.

2. Go without pay for 2 years, release a game that sells the same as #1.

That's the problem we found ourselves facing. We were knocking ourselves out, putting in every last doodad feature people wanted, all the while not eating and risking going out of business. We release the game and whadda know.... we probably could have wrapped things up a year earlier and the same number of people would have bought it AND (this is the kicker) they would have likely been just as happy with it.

We pushed the envelope so much with CMx1 that nobody has come even close to catching up with us. Other game companies are lucky if players stick around for 2-3 months. Yet here we are, people still playing the games we made 2-3 years ago. Clearly we over did things.

If this extra development came at no personal cost to us, we'd be more than happy to give you even more. But reality is reality... the longer we spend on a title, the less payoff we get after we have reached some (unknown) point in the project. Any time and risk invested after that point goes uncompensated. If this wasn't such a hard and risky business it wouldn't matter. But it is. So we have to do what is best for everybody... and that is do what we need to do to keep us making games. We're not getting any younger

So yeah, it is great you guys are so in love with what we did. We are surprised and really humbled by it. But at the same time, we can't do that again. We really just don't have it in us. Which is why we changed our development model. In the end you'll get nearly what you got in CMx1, but we spread the risk out and shorten the times inbetween eating. Should work out best for everybody!


SOURCE (http://www.battlefront.com/discuss/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=52;t=000155;p=1#000 013)

So it appears that the boys will be throttling back a bit for the next release - probably making things that could of been included for sale as an "add-on pack". I guess I can't blame them, but it's for shame, I wonder how that will impact sales?

[ER_Chaser]

Sad to read it ... they need help. I simply need some time to help them out ...

[Palantir]

"Clearly we over did things."

What the heck? Don't know to many business that say they made a mistake by doing a great job. Or are they saying the players weren't worth the effort and we'd be happy with less of a game? (I can understand the $$ issues).

"In the end you'll get nearly what you got in CMx1"

Then why the heck should I spend $$ to get nearly the same thing when I'm happy with CM that has PBEM?

I agree that they should have just made add-on's, I'd have paid a few $ to have a Pacific/1940/etc expansion kit.

It sounds like they're priming the pump to lower our expectations for CMx2.

Thanks for the update- I'm not wasting my time visiting BFC if I don't have a need.

[KG_Jag]

I believe that Battlefront is in danger of making a very serious wrong turn.

With the new CMx2 engine they should be able to put out many excellent games over a long period of historical time, including well into the future with "Space Lobsters". This gives them the opportunity to market many quality games is a relatively short period of time, provided the CMx2 engine is well done. Now there is the rub. How good will CMx2 be? Will it offer features such as PBEM that have been essential to the success and longevity of the current CM series. How serious problems or limitations shown their ugly heads?

I also read this post as a subtle message that we should lower our expectations with regard to the new engine.

[airBiscuit]

Personally, I am not too worried. The way I understood it was that Battlefront intended on releasing games on a more focussed scenario base so that they could get products out sooner and more often. Let's face it, with CMx1, they covered three major theaters of conflict to the Nth degree. With those three packages, you can play pretty much every European conflict to even ridiculous degrees of unit makeup. They spent a lot of time on units that were less common historically, from nations that had much less involvement in the conflict. They spent all of that extra time gilding the lillies when the product would have played just as well without it.

So, for CMx2, their intention is to bring us down to a specific operational area at a specific point in time and provide the unit and nationality makeup historically suitable for that 'zone'. This way, they craft a game requiring less art assets and provide a better campaign focus for scenario play. All this means is that we will buy CMx2 in diffferent flavors over the course of the next few years: Egypt, Kursk, Normandy, Arnhem, Einhoven, and so forth. If the games do their jobs well and put specific focus and care into each release, then I have no problem with their 'downsizing' approach.

I do hope that PBEM play is available so we can feature it on SZO, but we'll just have to see.

We should be thanking Battlefront for their candor before a product is released, not berating them for the truth. I wish more game companies would show such honesty in what their thoughts and plans are, but I won't blame Battlefront if they think twice about it in the future given the current chatter that has resulted.

[Aries]

I have all 3 CMs (yes even Les "I hate 3d" has all three CMs go figure hehe).

They are what they are.

Not sure though, if the future of BFC rides on this one game eh.
CMx2 might be as important to BFC as Combat Leader is to Matrix Games.

Yeah, both companies are most definitely identified by just one game, but, if they put SC2 on sale tomorrow, they have a sale. If they put CMx2 on sale tomorrow, I probably will want to see the demo at least, but I won't be running around in a state.

I highly doubt they can ever sufficiently re invent the game even if your feature is included to make a radical enough difference.

Yeah, I think they might have wanted to take a page out of Tiller's play book, and released a lot of other CMs same engine, but with great new settings.
Not all of us are really devotees of hunting down user made mods for anything.

[Palantir]

We should be thanking Battlefront for their candor before a product is released, not berating them for the truth. I wish more game companies would show such honesty in what their thoughts and plans are, but I won't blame Battlefront if they think twice about it in the future given the current chatter that has resulted.

I did this very thing at BFC and applaude their honesty, in fact it raised their company in my eyes.

However I believe I got blasted by certain members over there for adding my own comments to theirs,and then had my concerned threads locked "because" but they let childish & rude threads roll on.

This plus their "dumbing down" the game for us "because" just lowered them again...

[British Tommy]

Well lads, all we can do is sit back and wait for the screen shots and then the demo to come out. In the meanwhile I got some scenario's to design for BB and AK :)

[The Purist]

I can see their point in over doing some things though. Did they really need to put in the Pz IV/70, three versions of the Pz VG, the early, mid, late model of the IS-2? Most of the changes in the game for these vehicles is minimal to none existant and they could have gotten away with far less and still had great accuracy in recreating the battles.

[ER_Chaser]

It surprises me to hear this comment from you, purie... Actually I thought you would like it ---- as a purist :D

In fact, me, as a gamey player, Liked that detail even though I never used all of them. The point is I do not think it requires like 2x effort in research to put up such database, because even with only one version, you still have to do the research and besides, you might get add-on burden of deciding what kind of balance you need to put into that single model abstraction. And after all, such details are very nice to be available for those "historical" designer --- can be really handy at times :)

[jaegertech]

I'm sorry to say that I now believe that they have forgotten that they are dealing with the most finicky of the gaming niche markets.

[Pfc TAZ]

I think this was just worded poorly. Very poorly.

What they should have said is that they were creating a stable game engine that could allow them to release smaller modules that enable them to focus more accurately on a subject. This will mean more new games and scenarios for players.

I do think they will make it more difficult for user created content. That way no one creates something that would compete with their future modules...not good.

[Doctor Sinister]

I'm sorry to say that I now believe that they have forgotten that they are dealing with the most finicky of the gaming niche markets.
I think they are somewhat out of touch with their market. This is bound to happen with such a long development time - they've gotten so focussed on what they want to do, and are now so concerned with getting the product out of the door to get the cash coming in that they are ignoring any wrong turns and carrying on regardless, it's going to turn around and bite them if they are not careful.

There are some people who will buy regardless because of the name associated with the game, but if bad reviews start coming in, the general market will be put off, and that could kill them.

Dr. S.

[Tripps]

I on the other hand have been so impressed by CM BO, BB, AK, and have had such great service over the years, for a very well priced game, that i think i would buy the game regardless of any reviews and or demo's and see for myself.

I didnt like the CMBO demo either, and thought the game was kinda crap even in PBEM against Gaz_NZ when we were trying it out in the early days.

Would I even go as far as to say I would pre-order now without even a date of release? Probably, in todays market where game ISO's are ready for download within minutes of release (and i'm no saint there) I like to support the companies like BF - they are not stiffing the mass market with overpriced rubbish, or rehashing last years game with a different name and some cosmetic differences (Think EA Sports).

Will it be as good as the current? Who knows, but i'm going to try and not prejudice myself either way, going by CM's track record so far, I should hopefully enjoy it, if it sucks, I wont beat myself up that much :)

[Full Monty]

Will it be as good as the current? Who knows, but i'm going to try and not prejudice myself either way, going by CM's track record so far, I should hopefully enjoy it, if it sucks, I wont beat myself up that much :)

The initial sales of the game probably won't be that bad, but if enough customers come on to boards like this one saying the game 'sucks big time' then the next BF game (which will use the same engine from what I can gather) won't sell very well at all. As we all know, in business it takes a long time to build a good reputation, but a very short time to lose it. I hope CMX2 is the game we all want it to be, both for our and BFs sakes :)

[Palantir]

I hope CMX2 is the game we all want it to be, both for our and BFs sakes :)
I completely agree. I don't think anyone wants to see BFC/CMx2 fail just because.
But I'm looking for a greatly improved CM series (because BFC said it would be so) in CMx2 not an expansion CM with a few cool features for $60.

If they came out and said - "due to costs / problems we're shipping CMx2 without PBEM right now, BUT we are working on a "patch" that will add PBEM within a year etc," Then that's a completely different animal. But NO PBEM at all...

[2054172]

Correct me if I am wrong. I am new to this online gaming, and I am enjoying it. But as I travel around visiting game stores it seems that companies come out with a few good games then drop off. I guess due to money etc. I hope this is not the case with CM. :smoke:

[GJK]

CM:Beyond Overlord came out what, 4, 5 years ago and they since released 2 additional versions. Lately, they've really expanded into other genres of games as well - so at this stage I would say that Battlefront is in an expansion mode. If CMx2 turns out to be another EYSA (Squad Assault) - then who knows. Personally, I don't think that would destroy BFC by any means, but it would be a big stab in the heart since CM is their premiere game. As mentioned here though, and I tend to agree that based off of the following that the first 3 games of the series has, initial sales at least will be promising for them. If the game is a flop though, sales for all the expansion modules may fall off. It's hard to say at this point, it'll be interesting to watch what happens after it is released though, that's for sure!