Combat Mission and Steam

[snarre]

To H1nd

ei tuo pidä täysin paikkaansa esim saksan maalta ja keski euroopasta löytyy monta elinvoimasta klaania vielä mutta esimerkiksi RO ssa pyöriny sarja peli systeemi kuoli parin suoraan sanottuna idiootin takia joten enään ei oo vuoden kestävää turneeta. noh jos kyseiset COD jannut ovat aikuisia niin eivat ainakaan henkiseltä iältään ole sillä tasolla millä pitäisi. se mitä tulee steam kommunityyn voi olla positiinen juttu pelille mutta se voi tappaa pelin myös . kuten nyt RO 2 osalta kävi osittain. luojan kiitos mätäpaiseet on saatu nyhdettyä pois ja peli alkanu taas kasvamaan plus modi puoli joka on ollu kyseissessä pelissä erittäin isossa roolissa niin karttojen kuin muunkin tavaran suhteen.

[Rosseau]

I think we all trust BFC's judgement regarding Steam. Not that it's any of our business anyway But it is pretty darn interesting that Matrix has suddenly opened the floodgates. Distant Worlds and Pandora might do pretty good. But CC will be the better test. That and whether they hold the price for a year.

I think CC will get some curiosity sales, but no big swell. We'll know the results based on the further actions (or inactions) by the publisher of those games.

It's basically crazy - I see WI selling FW on Steam for $25, when it's also available at GG for $4.

[Lethaface]

Steam would probably be good for attracting new players, but at what costs? Risking a tangible steady flow of income from the current customer base, which seems to be working for BF?. So, since they know about Steam and about the financial impact they will probably be in the best place to make the decision. I'm guessing the probable advantages of the marketing concept Steam offers are not lost on BF.C, but the financial details are lost on us. So, I guess this discussion has no real merit.

[H1nd]

Steam would probably be good for attracting new players, but at what costs? Risking a tangible steady flow of income from the current customer base, which seems to be working for BF?. So, since they know about Steam and about the financial impact they will probably be in the best place to make the decision. I'm guessing the probable advantages of the marketing concept Steam offers are not lost on BF.C, but the financial details are lost on us. So, I guess this discussion has no real merit.

No merit. That is for sure as it is not our decision. And as a positive side: clearly most of us (including me) are quite satisfied in BFC's ability to bring us quality products as the possibility of much more income for BFC and ergo more money for development is judged to be too much of a risk versus current situation.

Sometimes however I can't help but wonder what sort of benefits the added dev resources could bring us players. Maybe we could have had a whole Eastern front setting instead of current piecemeal approach (wich has obvious benefits as well).

[niall78]

I have no strong feelings about Combat Mission being available on Steam. As a gamer I've found the service useful from the day it was released.

I would question the near invisibility of the game for those 'not in the know'. I just don't see it mentioned. For such an amazing series of games that is sad.

My first introduction to CM was a demo of CMBO that came with a PC gaming magazine. Loyal fan since then. I don't see CM getting much exposure these days in the mainstream gaming magazines or websites. People who don't know about these wonderful games can't buy them.

[Lethaface]

No merit. That is for sure as it is not our decision. And as a positive side: clearly most of us (including me) are quite satisfied in BFC's ability to bring us quality products as the possibility of much more income for BFC and ergo more money for development is judged to be too much of a risk versus current situation.

Sometimes however I can't help but wonder what sort of benefits the added dev resources could bring us players. Maybe we could have had a whole Eastern front setting instead of current piecemeal approach (wich has obvious benefits as well).

Well dreaming is a good thing to do I have dreamed about a CM:BS (Black Sea) with graphics like BF4 and players being able to play anything from a soldier to BN commander AND have a decent AI to fill up empty player slots. Unless someone on this forum or at BF HQ strikes an oil well with spare money to sink in leisure projects, I'm afraid it will stick to dreaming

[MikeyD]

I'm reminded of an earlier discussion about CM and gaming consoles. If I recall correctly, the folks who control game console product take a veritable pound of flesh out of the developer for the privilege of playing on their device. Its like being drafted for the NFL. The trade-off for all that money and glory is often a crippling injury that cuts short your career and often reduces your life expectancy. Do you still want to play with the big boys, considering?

[H1nd]

I'm reminded of an earlier discussion about CM and gaming consoles. If I recall correctly, the folks who control game console product take a veritable pound of flesh out of the developer for the privilege of playing on their device. Its like being drafted for the NFL. The trade-off for all that money and glory is often a crippling injury that cuts short your career and often reduces your life expectancy. Do you still want to play with the big boys, considering?

Ahh but the Valve company behind steam has always operated under whole other set of rules. What rules, I dont know. But I still would not compare them to any other instance out there. They are truly a odd ball among the other giants with very unique position. When you control a steady monopoly you can either be reasonably generous or fleece out every single ounce of profit. Wich one leads to continued success? Judging by the success of steam I would dare say that valve is not milking it's cow to death. Far from it.

Edit: and the console dev firms.. well they are just F**** because their competition is too tough and bloody and the developement costs of a new consoles have skyrocketed since the early decades of console gaming. Ergo they will have to milk their cows to death just to survive few more years. Console bussiness is not healthy.

[Apocal]

Well dreaming is a good thing to do I have dreamed about a CM:BS (Black Sea) with graphics like BF4 and players being able to play anything from a soldier to BN commander AND have a decent AI to fill up empty player slots.

Speaking from personal experience, managing large numbers of real players (in my case, somewhere around 160+) isn't the kind of awesome command experience you imagine it to be and more or less exactly the opposite of what makes CMBN fun. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity, every day and twice on weekends, anything people can misunderstand they will, etc. Past about 60-80 real people, you're not even making detailed decisions no matter how simple - there are simply too many moving pieces for even an exceptional person to keep track of them, so things become much more broad-brush than pretty much any tactical wargame I can imagine. Its entirely common for your actual control of sub-units (regardless of whatever exists in the orders menu) to be limited to that of a badly trained dog - "come" and "go!" Its useful for illustrating why there so many control measures like fire support coordination lines, phase lines, fire plans, etc. used by modern armies but I wouldn't call it necessarily "fun."

Don't get me wrong, its awesome when everything comes together in a plan and its executed perfectly, with all elements in tune with each other like a well-oiled engine but that represents extremely good planning far more than any great genius in giving spur of the moment orders.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, the individual players lack agency in all too many situations that commonly arise, with the worst being "held in reserve", since they aren't really playing the game at that point. They also dislike what little agency they do have being impeded by the higher-level gameplay - for example its pretty awesome to set things up so that a reinforced platoon's defensive scheme can be broken down by penetrating one aspect, so a squad-and-a-half is pinned in place by mortars and long-range machine gun fire that only lifts as two platoons have used dead-ground to position themselves close by to pin the defenders in place and take them down in a few swift, brutal seconds by close-assault, with remaining defenders having to withdraw or die in place. Textbook attack, gold star for good tactics, etc. but that is a horrible gameplay experience for the defenders and possibly (or probably) a stale one for attackers. The modal experience of an individual defender is not interacting with or even seeing any of the enemy until the overall outcome is no longer in doubt. The typical attacker doesn't see much of the enemy either, with most of them spending time slithering through covered approaches and defiles, popping up and laying fire down for the much smaller assaulting element. The guys in the assault element probably have some fun, mowing down and blowing up hapless defenders in their holes before they even realize what's going on, but that's offset by the much larger number of guys manning heavy weapons way, way back.

Fundamentally uninteresting gameplay at the individual and small-unit tactics levels, all the play/counter-play options held higher. How to create a fun and interesting combined arms battle at all levels was the biggest problem when I was making missions for ArmA and it wasn't something I saw anyone manage very well, so I biased towards uninteresting for the fewest number of players. That usually meant infantry-centric initial contact clashes with extremely limited vehicle support. Imagine playing meeting engagements four times out of five wherein 85% of your points budget is spent on recon or rifle platoons, 10% on heavy/specialist (infantry) weapons and the remaining 5% split between artillery, armor, air, etc.

BF4 is fun because its standing on the shoulders of a very mature genre for most of its game design decision. Taking it to the next level, things start to break down because real combined arms counters to infantry are harder than good (individual/small unit) gameplay allows so they need to be nerfed. But being nerfed breaks other relationships that higher levels require, so you have to pick and choose your scale.

[Lethaface]

Well one can dream, can't I? I don't really play ARMAIII because like you say it is too hard for ordinary casual people (like me) to play the game in a proper coordinated fashion, while I have had my fun with BF4 but have moved on. CM on the other hand is a main stay since 2007, hence my dream. Decent AI can cover for fleshly incompetence

[Redwolf]

I'm reminded of an earlier discussion about CM and gaming consoles. If I recall correctly, the folks who control game console product take a veritable pound of flesh out of the developer for the privilege of playing on their device. Its like being drafted for the NFL. The trade-off for all that money and glory is often a crippling injury that cuts short your career and often reduces your life expectancy. Do you still want to play with the big boys, considering?

That isn't comparable to Steam. The console dictators control things right in the development tools, and you can never escape the platform without a complete rewrite of all system interfacing parts.

[majorbly50]

LOL why?

Here is what Steve has said before:

To me it looks like Steve pays attention to what Steam is up to and he know what he thinks needs to change to make him happy. I say leave him to it.

No, He's more likely more worried about his games getting sold for $4.99 or $9.99 like most Paradox games and having to give away most of his profits.

Battlefront and Shrapnel are the last holdouts. Squeezing every dime of income and profit they can out of these games.

Sure they are niche but they know if people want good quality wargames of this ilk they are going to have to pay them through the nose to get them. Why, do you think they went on the module based system to begin with. There's a lot more money in modules of each front than selling the whole front in one package thas why. From $35 for CMBO to $55 + module costs for each front...think of the difference and profits.

[Erwin]

I admit I have no idea re the pros and cons of a company releasing products thru Steam. Although I would think it leads to a race to the lowest common denominator type of game in order to increase mass appeal.

Am curious what is the advantage to being on Steam for us players? (I had it on my system once, didn't like it, and uninstalled asap.)

[H1nd]

Am curious what is the advantage to being on Steam for us players? (I had it on my system once, didn't like it, and uninstalled asap.)

For CM player there is probably very little direct advantage other than possibly increased dev resources --> better products?. Maybe some sort of additional support for h2h play.

All in all steam has several universal advantages:

-ease of use with high speed internet connections. Installing games has never been easier. I can uninstall and reinstall games in few minutes. No need to look after physical copies wich take space and can get damaged. (there are ofc many good things in physical copies).

-Automatic updates wich can also be turned off if you wish to decide your self when to update. It's handy for keeping your all your games up to date and patched. For me thats close to 100 different games. Ofc most of these are games that I no longer play but if I choose to say play Hearts of Iron 2 after all these years, I dont have to look out for all the patches or disks etc etc.

-Steam workshop is relatively new feature that allows very easy installation of mods and other custom content. For Arma III this seems to be very very handy feature. You browse for scenarios/mods and with single click you can install or uninstall them.

-I can install my games on any computer with access to internet anywhere in the world. Quite handy if you are a travelling type and dont want to carry around whole collection of cd's and dvds just in case you might want to install and play a certain game while on a trip.

Ohh and the steam of 6-7 years ago was quite a different beast than it is today. Back then it was primarily just a something you had to install because valve wanted so. I hated it when it first came out. Now living without it would be very strange.

[Apocal]

No, He's more likely more worried about his games getting sold for $4.99 or $9.99 like most Paradox games and having to give away most of his profits.

Battlefront and Shrapnel are the last holdouts. Squeezing every dime of income and profit they can out of these games.

Sure they are niche but they know if people want good quality wargames of this ilk they are going to have to pay them through the nose to get them. Why, do you think they went on the module based system to begin with. There's a lot more money in modules of each front than selling the whole front in one package thas why. From $35 for CMBO to $55 + module costs for each front...think of the difference and profits.

Developers generally control their product prices. Most companies don't care because a) the overwhelming majority of sales are made within the first four to six months of release and they make up per-unit profit by increasing volume. As for modules, upgrades, packs, etc., I consider them different names for DLC. Not like I'm forced to buy any (like Gustav Line) to play the base game.

[Pelican Pal]

majorbly50 - Prices are set by the developer/publisher not Steam.

Paradox is also not giving away profits. You can't give away what you don't have. There exist a population of people who will buy a game at a certain price. After those people are exhausted sales drop. If you drop the price you then have a new population of people who are willing to pay. To put it simply not everyone will buy a game for $50. In fact there are people who will pay $5.00 for games that they don't really want. Now you have a choice of whether or not you want to do this. Paradox does, and it appears to be working out great for them. They are releasing more games of higher quality than ever before. It won't necessarily work for BFC.

Selling games for less is not always a bad thing. Sure 10 people buying $80 worth of product is going to net you $800, but 100 people buying $20 will net you $2,000.

Erwin - That is provably false. Steam sells Close Combat, Arma, god knows how many Paradox grand strategy games, and much more. Hearts of Iron 3 is not a race to the lowest common denominator.

H1nd covered most of the player benefits for a game like CM. Steam also allows for a single purchase to work on any supported platform. For example, if I buy Civilization 5 it works on Windows, Mac, and Linux without me having to buy multiple copies. It also allows me to stream games I play from my gaming desktop to any computer in my local area.

[MarkEzra]

...Battlefront and Shrapnel are the last holdouts. Squeezing every dime of income and profit they can out of these games....

How little you seem to understand the mindset of BFC. Here are a small group of guys who Love wargaming and have a vision of how the hobby can be developed. They devote themselves fully to the task and make their living doing so. Nobody is getting rich off the deal... so every nickel DOES count.

The vast majority of forum members feel CM is pretty close to what they want in wargaming and get satisfaction with each BFC purchase they make.

As far as Steam goes...don't care.

[Lethaface]

No, He's more likely more worried about his games getting sold for $4.99 or $9.99 like most Paradox games and having to give away most of his profits.

Battlefront and Shrapnel are the last holdouts. Squeezing every dime of income and profit they can out of these games.

Sure they are niche but they know if people want good quality wargames of this ilk they are going to have to pay them through the nose to get them. Why, do you think they went on the module based system to begin with. There's a lot more money in modules of each front than selling the whole front in one package thas why. From $35 for CMBO to $55 + module costs for each front...think of the difference and profits.

Lol are you a communist? Or did you fail at economics?

If one sells 20,000 $50.- games a year = $1,000,000.-

Let's say all operational and overhead costs for everything from packaging, hardware, hosting, office supplies, etc etc are $300,000.- yearly.

That leaves $700.000,- for salaries and buffers. Lets say a median company salary costs (before tax, including all company costs like insurance, pension, etc) $100,000.- times 6 workers = $600.000,-. So that's $100,000.- profits (buffer).

Of course this is just plain made up numbers, I don't know how many unit BF.C sells yearly, how many employees they pay what salaries and what their costs are. I don't need to know either. They won't however be selling millions of copies of $45,- games on a yearly basis.

So I guess they make a decent living from operating BF but probably invest loads of energy/workhours into it. So like most people running their own business they are mostly in it because of gratification of the work itself ('hard work, little earnings' as the saying goes ).

So when you're talking about squeezing out the last bucks I don't know what type of company you think you are talking about. You could say you don't see the value for money, but demanding everything should be cheap because it should just be like that is actually quite dumb or just communist

Me thinks they aren't squeezing you out, they are trying to make quality games while staying in business and keeping the wife and children happy with some food on the table. Personally I have a soft spot for these type of companies and happily support them buying all CM games when they come out, whether I have time to play them or not. Apart from that I've probably sunken thousands of hours in CMx2 since CMSF in 2007.

One thing I would like to see is Steam statistics of spend $ per hour played for CM games. I reckon CM is way above average.

[SgtHatred]

In a world where Crusader Kings, Close Combat, Dominions, and Hearts of Iron can exist on Steam, so can Combat Mission, and it would make a killing doing so.

I just spent $100 on the Battlefront store, after working up the willpower to sign in to yet another store with another account. The experience was terrible. It asked for my shipping address for a downloadable program, twice. I had to scrounge up the patches needed for Red Thunder and Battle for Normandy, finding which patch is needed for which version of the product I own. I had to read up on how Battlefront's DRM works, and how I may be locked out of my own purchases.

I looked into a way to buy a 2nd copy of Red Thunder for a friend. Couldn't find one.

The installers for the games I bought wanted me to install a toolbar, as if the year is 2004, all over again.

Finally, please stop characterizing Steam as a cesspool of CoD players ala Xbox-Live. I'm worried that if I roll my eyes that hard again I will go blind.

[Lethaface]

In a world where Crusader Kings, Close Combat, Dominions, and Hearts of Iron can exist on Steam, so can Combat Mission, and it would make a killing doing so.

I just spent $100 on the Battlefront store, after working up the willpower to sign in to yet another store with another account. The experience was terrible. It asked for my shipping address for a downloadable program, twice. I had to scrounge up the patches needed for Red Thunder and Battle for Normandy, finding which patch is needed for which version of the product I own. I had to read up on how Battlefront's DRM works, and how I may be locked out of my own purchases.

I looked into a way to buy a 2nd copy of Red Thunder for a friend. Couldn't find one.

The installers for the games I bought wanted me to install a toolbar, as if the year is 2004, all over again.

Finally, please stop characterizing Steam as a cesspool of CoD players ala Xbox-Live. I'm worried that if I roll my eyes that hard again I will go blind.

Steam certainly has it's benefits and I'm a happy user. Admitted the toolbar is a 'bit' out of date , the BFC store isn't a major hassle imo. Yes buying for a friend and auto updating would be nice. But you can just share a key you bought for a friend or send them paypal $ so they can open their own account. Apart from all that, AFAIK there are no CMRT patches as of yet?

[Ultradave]

Sure they are niche but they know if people want good quality wargames of this ilk they are going to have to pay them through the nose to get them.

Personally I don't begrudge the price of these games and modules. Each one is less than the cost of a nice dinner out. But I figure the cost/HrPlayingTime is well worth the expenditure.

Having done my share of software development (scientific programming) I am sympathetic to the amount of work that goes into finishing a good product.

[SgtHatred]

Personally I don't begrudge the price of these games and modules. Each one is less than the cost of a nice dinner out. But I figure the cost/HrPlayingTime is well worth the expenditure.

Having done my share of software development (scientific programming) I am sympathetic to the amount of work that goes into finishing a good product.

Yeah, I won't begrudge anyone the right to set their product at the price that will fit the work they put into it, but putting a game on Steam doesn't mean it has to be cheap.

Of course, when you put a game on Steam you may score big with a lower price. Hell, even the guys at Eagle Dynamics do it now.

[CombatDave]

I think anyone looking for this type of game probably already knows about Battlefront or will find them in a search. If Battlefront wants to increase sales they just need to keep improving the game like they have with 2.0 and release more modules. In the past I looked at the game, tried the demo and took a pass due to the really slow game engine. Seeing 2.0 on YouTube made me look again and now I own the bundle. This is a unique game, I have yet to find something similar in scope, realism and simplicity that CMBN has so they don't really have much competition in this niche (yet). Also I am a Steam user with 113 games and like the service a lot. It will be interesting to see what the annual sale does to the Close Combat title as I have never seen these lower than $30 or so. I do own one from Matrix. I am glad that Battlefront gets the majority of my $$ instead of Steam, the download, install, activation was no big deal. Now back to the Normandy campaign!

[Erwin]

"I just spent $100 on the Battlefront store, after working up the willpower to sign in to yet another store with another account. The experience was terrible. It asked for my shipping address for a downloadable program, twice. I had to scrounge up the patches needed for Red Thunder and Battle for Normandy, finding which patch is needed for which version of the product I own. I had to read up on how Battlefront's DRM works, and how I may be locked out of my own purchases.

I looked into a way to buy a 2nd copy of Red Thunder for a friend. Couldn't find one."

If you find it this hard and complex to purchase a CM2 game, then perhaps you won't have the ability or patience to actually play the game either.

I wonder who else on this forum experiences these problems in purchasing a CM2 title?

[Pelican Pal]

I think anyone looking for this type of game probably already knows about Battlefront or will find them in a search.

See I don't think this is particularly true. Like I got into CM because of a cheap copy of CM:SF in the bargain bin and an old article in Computer Gaming World that I remembered reading in middle school.

But where do new players find out about CM? Like I said before CM has precious little traction outside of some backwater review sites and very niche gaming sites. And I don't think CM is a niche game. It looks nice, it is relatively intuitive, it does something few other games do. I'm sure more people are interested in CM than know about it. I just don't see how they can know about it.