Battlefront

We are planning on adding a few titles here and there over time. The titles will be very unique, directly applicable to the games we sell, and in general pretty hard to find. Me thinks if you liked our initial offerings that you might want to cut back on the beer to save up for another round of book purchasing in the near future Steve

OK, I think this is a good time (for everybody) to close this up. I think everybody has said what they need to say, and now I can go back to making models Austrian Strategist If you think that is bad, think about how much we dislike it. Not only do we have the same opposition to such censorship, at least in the case of a historical simulation, but we also have to take it on the chin for being a part of the censorship. I will close by saying one more thing... The issue of what to do about the censorship problem is not dead. It might be possible to come up with something better. However, as it stands now everything I said is true and (as far as we can see) going to be the case when CMBB is released. But you guys can bet your last dollar that if there is ANY way to change this for the better, it will be changed. We just aren't in the habit of telling you guys things we do not know to be true, even if that means having to deal with some people getting upset. Telling the truth is not about saying what is easy, but rather what is correct. Steve

Scipio, Yup, changing one word negates 5 years of research. Good, solid, thinking in perspective there. As for the BS from the lawyer... you obviously have no experience dealing with lawyers, do you? We were not surprised about what the CDV lawyers came up with. And since this was not "advice", but a "deal breaker", our choice was either to have a deal with CDV or not. For all the reasons I stated in this thread, only a total and complete utter moron would have scuttled the deal over this issue. In fact, the person would have to be so stupid that it is highly unlikely they would have been in a position to make a deal with anybody in the first place. Why? Because they would have put themselves out of business long before it ever got to that point. No, we can not release a patch and "slip" in a change. You are asking us to break a legally binding agreement and the trust between us and a valued partner. To even suggest such a thing does not speak well about how well you can be trusted. We do not stab our partners in the backs. It is also a moronic way to do business. Steve

GreasyPig, Well, the fact the thread in question did break through our rather thick skin (trust me... my feelings are not just my own ) should underscore how we feel about this issue. Also, we know very well (thanks!) that the overwhelming majority of our customers out there are not having a problem with our arrangement with CDV outside of reasonably stated legit complaints/issues. But that thread was getting worse by the minute, with people jumping to all sorts of (incorrect) conclusions about what the CDV deal REALLY means to European customers. PL, Let me clear that one up. We do not condone any hacking of our code. However, should a patch appear that changes this one line of data... well, we wouldn't have our panties in a twist over it. And I am not saying that a hack like that is likely to happen. Just saying that in principle we aren't supposed to do that. Steve

Redwolf, If you have a better suggestion how to handle piracy, I am sure the software industry would love to hear it. Yes, the methods for protecting one's intelectual property are not without their downsides, but the alternatives (i.e. doing NOTHING) are unacceptable. If you think that companies like CDV are thrilled at the notion of paying some software company millions of dollars a year just to irritate you, think again. Yes, all forms of copy protection can be hacked (eventually). However, WAREZ copies are only a fraction of the problem. The other big areas are casual piracy and (in some countries) cheaply produced CDs. This software DOES defeat those people, and since they make up the bulk of the softare theft... it is not a wasted exercise. Just because it is imperfect does not automatically invalidate it. Put another way... if you had a life threatening disease, and there was a drug with some POTENTIAL side effects, would you take the drug even if it only gave you a 30% chance of recovery or would you shun it because it wasn't good enough? Same logic applies here. Imperfect, but better than sitting around with thumbs up one's backside. Steve [ July 10, 2002, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

Boy, this is great. We treat customers like they are gold, bend over backwards to put in every significant feature request we see, and continue advancing what most people acknowledge to be the best wargame ever made. But OH MY GOD!! Change "Waffen SS" to "Waffen Grenadier" and change one BMP... and guess what happens? We have "sold out" we "don't care", yadda yadda yadda. What a load of crap. Customers do have the right to voice their opinions. They also have a right to express frustration at how our decisions affect them. But NOBODY has the right to cast dispersions on us or our motivations. What have such people done for the wargaming community that gives them the moral authority to judge us? We do more in one day than most people do in a lifetime. The day that no longer counts for something is the day we close up shop and do something far less stressful. OK, now that that has been said, time to clear up all the WRONG information being circulated around. I will do this in the form of a FAQ: Q - What is with BF.C's sudden change of policy towards selling Combat Mission into Europe? A - There is nothing "sudden" about it. We have not been selling Combat Mission - Beyond Overlord into Europe for nearly a year now. CDV has been doing all sales and distribution into Western Europe during this time. An even older deal has existed with a Japanese company for them to sell and distribute CMBO in Japan. A number of months ago we even made a deal with another company giving them the sole rights to Poland and the Czech republic. Just because someone might be totally ignorant of these facts does not make them any less real. The new CMBB arrangement is no different. CDV has exclusive rights to Western Europe, and therefore we can not sell directly into that market. Just like it is illegal for them to sell into the other territories not covered in our agreement. This is a standard, sensible arrangement that is good for both parties. It is also worthy to note that we retained the Macintosh rights because CDV was not interested in the Mac market. Instead of killing off the Mac version, like so many other companies would have done, we structured the deal so that we can continue to sell Mac version of CM into Europe. And no, CMBB is not likely to be a hybrid, so PC users don't plan on buying the Mac version. We packed the game with too many graphics and sounds to fit both version onto one CD At least that is how it is looking to be. Q - Why on Earth would BF.C, who brazenly displays its independence, "sell out" to a big publisher? A - We didn't sell out. What we did was make a decision that is in the best interests of both customers and us. The truth of the matter is our direct sales into Europe were about 25% of what they in theory should be. This is in part due to the variety of languages, but it also has to do with the fact that Europeans do not use the Internet as much for their purchases. So by continuing to ignore these facts we are missing out on 75% of CM's potential direct customer base. And since retail can still hit 10-20 times the number of customers we can attract directly, we were only capturing perhaps 5-10% of the potential market for Combat Mission in Europe. Note that I am only talking about CUSTOMERS here, not revenue. The revenue picture is very different because direct and retail sales involve totally different forms of compensation, risk, and efforts. Yes, we will make more money through this arrangement with CDV, but one very important thing to us is to get CM into the hands of as many people who want it as possible. CDV can sell to far greater numbers of people than we can, so it make sense from that perspective alone. Those of you who are online and buy your products from us in Europe are a small, but growing type of consumer. It is not fair of this small group to put its narrow self interests ahead of all the others out there. It is critical for the survival of wargames to GROW its customer base, not shrink it down to a small hardcore audience. History of this industry clearly shows this very clearly. Q - OK, so the deal with CDV was an act of desperation and/or a yielding to piles of corporate profits, right? Wrong. Although we are certainly not a non-profit company, would never, ever put ourselves in a position that we feel compromised us or our products in any meaningful way. The deal with CDV is, as with any honest deal, not totally lopsided in our favor. And that means there are some things about the arrangement that we are not 110% happy with. But for those of you who are in business or even personal relationships know... there is no such thing as a perfect deal. None. However, our arrangement with CDV is closer to perfection than we ever thought possible. Not perfect, but if we expected perfection we would be utter fools. Other publishers would laugh at CDV for pretty much agreeing to all our terms. We have seen what the others offer, and it makes us sick to our stomachs to think that anybody would be foolish enough to sign such arrangements. CDV has been a very good partner to work with and they understand that doing things more or less our way is good business for them. That is the only reason we are still working together. Q - So let me get this straight... you guys have the power to tell any publisher in the world to take a hike, yet you voluntarily signed an agreement with CDV. Do you mean to tell us customers that you did this because it is in our best interests short and long term? A - Yes. Now you are catching on What is good for CDV is good for us. What is good for us is good for the customer today, tomorrow, and the days after that. If we are not totally happy with the contract CDV presented to us, we will not sign it. I am sure that those CDV officials who were a part of the contract process would tell you (in confidence of course ), that we are tough as nails to negotiate with. If you think that you care about what happens to CM, multiply that by the number of possible Quick Battles the generator is capable of producing and that is how much WE care about it. We do NOT F AROUND WITH OUR FUTURE OR OUR WORK. Q - So you are going to stay with CDV forever now, right? A - Wrong. We have no agreements with them beyond one product. We signed up with them for CMBO only at first. Both parties were pleased with the results so we decided to continue working together. The current agreement only covers CMBB. Obviously if we continue to be happy with our relationship it is possible that we will work together on more products. But it will always be on a case by case basis. Q - What are the differences between the BF.C and CDV versions of CMBB? A - No version of CM has ever had Swastikas in it, but the CDV version will not have "SS Runes" in it, just like the CDV CMBO version for sale over the last year. The only other difference, and I need to stress this.... ONLY other difference relates to what the Waffen SS units are labeled as within the game and (obviously) the manual. Just like with the year old CDV CMBO version, Waffen SS troops will be called Waffen Grenadier. If any of you have further questions, kindly go to your dictionary and look up the word "only" and see what that word means. That will answer any question without the need for posting here. Q - OK, so if I get the CDV version can I undo the censorship? A - Yes and no. The player can swap out the BMPs if desired and put anything in there they want, just like any other BMP. If you want Swastikas dripping with blood displayed in your game, knock yourself out. No version of CMBB will prevent you from doing this. What the player can't do is change the text in the game. That would require hacking the application. We are under legal obligations (well, more ethical than legal I suppose) to not do anything to undermine this. However, if someone were to figure out how to hack this one aspect of the game we wouldn't be upset. Q - Why the censorship? Doesn't Battlefront care about historical accuracy? Q - Of course we care about historical accuracy. Why else would we have spent five years painfully researching and developing a wargame system that the bulk of people out there don't give even a second glance? Because we like limiting our audience and income, or might it be because we care so much about doing it right that we rather make far less money and have something that we feel proud to say is the most accurate wargame ever made? That having been said, there are certain realities we have to deal with. The world we live in is imperfect, and therefore perfection is an ideal that is never obtainable. In this case German law prohibits certain symbols and terminology associated directly with the Third Reich. It is a criminal offense to sell or possess products made with these things within the boarders of Germany. Unfortunately, CDV is a German company. Unlike most other nations, Germany does not allow its corporations to conduct business in other countries which is legal there but not in Germany. Therefore, it is illegal for CDV to make or sell anything outside of Germany that is in violation of German law. That means, effectively, that German law is dictating what CDV sells to the rest of Europe. This is what we like to call REALITY, and therefore fighting against it is dumb. And ruining the whole arrangement with CDV over this fact is beyond dumb. It would be downright moronic. Q - German law does not dictate that Waffen SS, the term, can not be used. So why must it be changed? A - Because Germany has lawyers that work on the same principles of legal paranoia that all lawyers do. Oh sorry, "prudent assessment of potential liability" or some other such mumbo jumbo. The fact is we argued, and argued HARD, with CDV's legal council. The creative contacts at CDV also argued on our behalf. But in the end their legal department stood firm. Their opinion is that the potential for blacklisting by the German software rating board did exist, and therefore including one term (Waffen SS) was not important enough to risk risk the financial health of the company and its shareholders. As much as we disagree with the laws and the decision, we can not argue with the logic. We would not risk potentially millions of dollars over a couple of ASCII characters, so why should we expect them to? Only someone who is either totally unreasonable or completely nuts would fail to see that this is a sound decision. Doesn't mean it has to be liked. Q - I think CDV sucks and am concerned that the translations will suck, tech support will suck, and patches will suck because CDV has its name on the box. So I have a reason to bitch about stuff, don't I? A - No, you don't. The localizations for CMBO and CMBB were done by us, not CDV. If the translations suck, it is a reflection upon us choosing the wrong people to translate the game for us. CDV has nothing to do with this. And any problems that CDV customres might experience with the game will be experienced by all customers, so obviously CDV customers will not be treated any differently than the rest of CM's customer base. As for patches, there is absolutely no reason to fear this. We are the only ones that make patches because we are the only ones that have the code. CDV has no ability to make patches even if they wanted to. So if we release a patch that sucks, CDV would be the wrong party to yell at. Q - But I want to find some reason to yell at CDV. OK, copy protection... I hate their copy protection!! What about that? Q - Blame software pirates, not CDV. The software they use is rapidly becoming an industry standard. It will soon be difficult to purchase any software that does not have this or another software encryption method on it. In fact, we looked into do this for our own CDs, but found we did not like the pricing. However, when it becomes less expensive and universally found on other games, it is entirely possible that we will also use such software. Again, blame the &%*$ing $*#@offs who have made this necessary in the first place. I speak of the hAkeRz who are just too KoOl I can't possibly describe them accurately enough in a public forum. They steal billions of dollars worth of software every year. And if you think that this doesn't affect us or you, think again. Nothing in life is free, and therefore there is a price to be paid for this. Inconvenience to the honest user is that price. There, I think that addresses the major points. I hope so, because typing this up probably means at least one tank model will not be in CMBB. As I just said, everything has its price. Mindless bitching and badmouthing us on our Forums is not an exception to the rule. Steve [ July 10, 2002, 04:24 PM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

I'm locking this thread up and starting a new one to hopefully STOP all the disinformation that people have been inventing in this thread. This is a horrible waste of our time, but I will post a new thread in a few minutes. Steve

Hello SturmSebber, I outlined the differences in my previous post. This is not true. Nobody can alter this sort of information, no matter what the version is. It is not going to change for CMBB because German law has not changed. I don't know if we will make a patch. For one year the German version of CMBO has been available and nobody has asked for such a patch. Yes, I am sure people might like it, but it hasn't been a huge issue. Most people know what the units are and don't care that the name is not exactly the same. The German and French CMBO versions have the same intro movie as the US version. There is, however, an additional CDV intro AVI which is played. It is very short and is just their logo from what I remember. I answered this in my previous post. Note that ALL versions of Combat Mission, since the very first one shipped, came without Swastikas. Originally the reason was that German law is VERY clear that this is an arrestable offense for the customer and an international legal issue for us. Since we only had one version of the game we had to remove the Swastikas from it. After CDV took over sales in Europe we did not change this because, believe it or not, a lot of people do NOT want the historically correct version. In fact, I bet that if we had a poll there would be more people who say "keep the symbol out" than would say "put it in". This is not something we expected, but it does appear to be true. Sales for CMBO in Europe were excellent, making both CDV and us quite happy. Which is why we have agreed to work with each other again. It is more difficult for us to sell directly to Europe than it is for CDV to sell through retail. Some day this will likely change, but for now retail is still a viable option for us in Europe. This is not true in the US where our direct distribution is much, much stronger. Our sales to other countries are good, but could be better with the right partnership. But so far we have found nothing which would offer us or the customer a better arrangement, so we happily continue to sell directly to countries like Canada and Australia. Steve

ParaBellum The Waffen SS are in the current CDV release of CMBO and will be in CMBB. However, we can not call them Waffen SS. Trust me, I know the German laws like the back of my hand, and so does CDV. The problem is that the German software ratings board can, without any recourse, black list any product that it feels is in violation of its own standards. These are based on German law, but are not held to German law. From what I understand it is very arbitrary and unclear. If they blacklist a game, it is as good as dead. Why risk it to put two tiny little letters ("SS") in the game vs. what we put in there ("WG")? It is a stupid risk to take when hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been invested. As I said above, we have principles. But we are not stupid. If you ran your own business, I would be very surprised if you took idiotic risks with your future What games to you know of that had SS runes or Totenkopf symbols in them? We honestly tried to find some sort of preceedent to show the ratings board that we were not the first. We also tried to find a game that clearly labled units as Waffen SS, but failed to find anything of that sort distributed in Germany (or by a German company). If you know of any, it would be good to about them. To be clear, CDV had nothing to do with the translations of CMBO. That was done by people we hired. This is the first we have heard about sloppy translation work, yet the game has been out for over a year. But in any case, we are using a different translator for the German version this time around for completely unrelated reasons. Juha, For the most part, yes. The only differences within the game are the same as the current UK CMBO and US CMBO. And that is in the US version they are called "Waffen SS" and in the UK they are called "Waffen Grenadier". This is shortened to "SS" in US version, "WG" in UK version. The US version also uses a "SS runes" BMP for the Load Game dialog while the UK version uses "WG". This can, of course, be altered by the player. There are no other differnces beyond that. Just cosmetic changes which do not affect the historical accuracy of the game one itsy-bitsy bit. Fred, It is true that this is your choice to make. Copy protection software is becoming the norm for computer games. You can thank the pirates for that. Oh spare me the crap, wouldja? This is overall a very good move for everybody concerned. We can't please everybody, so if you want to get your knickers in a twist about two letters being changed and one BMP being different than the US version, knock yourself out. If this is your definition of selling out, we sold out before we ever started because we ALWAYS have been a for profit company interested in making a good living in a very difficult industry. If you seriously think we have compromised our quality and indepence so much, do us both a favor and boycott our products for ever more. Or you can keep your soapbox speaches in context of reality. Now, would we have liked to still sell directly into Europe? Sure. But is that a reasonable thing for us to request? Absolutely not. We don't let CDV sell into North America and Canada, so why should they let us sell into their territory? It makes absolutely no sense. So what were our choices? Walk away from a very good deal, not just for Battlefront but also for CM customers (past and future), just because German law and software ratings ar ridiculously strict and at the same time horribly vague? I doubt anybody put in our shoes would walk away from such a positive relationship. However, I have NO doubts that most people in our shoes would have signed a horrible deal that would have driven them out of business. CDV is still the only publisher we have been in contact with that we have any interest in partnering with. That should count for something. Gustav, As long as we are shipping to a non-Western European address, it is none of our business where it eventually winds up. Steve

Hof, The UK English version will not have SS stuff in it. I thought I had explained this to you before. CDV is a German company. If their name is on *anything* that is in violation of German law they are comitting a criminal offense. It does not matter if the product is generally sold outside of Germany or not. CDV is simply obeying German law and therefore should not be looked down upon for this. The CDV guy we work with directly is the son of a Wehrmacht officer and thinks the laws are as dumb as you and I do. He even tried to get CDV's legal council to sign off on us including some "gray area" stuff, but thanks to the nearly unquestioned authority of the German software ratings board that got nixed. As much as we REALLY dislike this we are not going to piss away a very good deal for us and the CM Community over something we have NO control over. Only an idiot would have made this a "deal breaker" issue. An idiot with principles, true, but still an idiot Steve

Tom, In the Publishing world this is normal. Plus, in case people have forgotten... this is how the deal with CDV is currently set up for CMBO. We can not sell any versions of CMBO into Europe, except for the Macintosh versions (which were not covered in the agreement). In general, it is a good thing. More people will wind up playing CMBB (i.e. more native speakers to battle against) and the chance to purchase and play the game in the SAME day. The only possible downside is that the first batch of gamers might, and I stress MIGHT, have to wait a few days or a week or two. But after that, there will be nothing different between our current CMBO and this new CMBB relationship. We understand that gamers who know they want to buy it as soon as it is available are only looking at their own personal short term interests, but we have to look at the long term best interests of us as well as the community as a whole. That is not to say that the guys itching to buy now had their needs ignored. I assure you that the complete opposite is the case. Complete opposite This is assuming that we do not have a simultaneous, or nearly so, release. I don't see anything that would suggest that this is not the plan, so why jump to conclusions? People should not assume that it will be out directly from us sooner than in Europe. It might be that that happens, but then again... it might not be Steve

Gyrene, Nobody is teasing you. You guys want information about a game that is not ready for release? Well, you got it. If you want to hear NOTHING about the game until a week before we ship, that is your right. And as you suggested, easy enough to do by not becoming involved in it. Honestly, what are we to do? You guys hound us day and night for more and more information. Then when you get some you hound us even more. This explains a) why we release information in the first place (i.e. because it is demanded of us) and why we release it so slowly (i.e. because releasing it all at once will not stop the demands for more info). Again, it is easy enough to withhold more info from you guys. Piece of cake. Finishing the game sooner than when it is ready, that isn't possible. We deeply appreciate the support and loyalty shown to us. And that is why we give you guys peeks at it as we go along. If this has the unintended effect of "teasing" it is just that... unintended. The main purpose is to give you guys a little bit of what you are after, but in a way that is healthy for us to do. Life is all about choices and tradeoffs. There are no exceptions for highly anticipated games. You want information, you got it. But it will likely make you want it more. So if you don't like this, don't follow the game's development. There really is nothing more to it than that. Steve

ASL Vet, Rune showing or not showing anything has no impact on our release date. Me having to come here and try and calm down a few people who are getting hot under the collar does. And remember, while you guys have been sitting around waiting for CMBB to release, we who are working on it have had pretty much no lives. Come to my house, see the broken front door, the busted back screen door, the 3 foot high grass around my driveway, the craphole that is my office, and me sitting alone in my house on the 4th of July while my family is sun tanning themselves at our family camp while I put in yet another 20 hour work day and then perhaps you will understand that you have the easier job here. I'm not looking for sympathy because when the game is done I will be rewarded. But I am looking to have things kept in perspective. Nobody wants the game to ship more than us. Steve

Guys, We have our own reasons for keeping some aspects of the game, SPECIFIC aspects, close to our chest... perhaps it is because we don't want EVERYTHING about your first play with it just a recounting of what was said on this Forum or in articles. For your own good we are keeping some of the DETAILS away from general public viewing. Now, if you don't want to hear GENERAL views of the game from fresh eyes, we can easily NOT host things like this in the future. However, I think the majority of people are thrilled to hear about some first impressions. You guys have been waiting a long time and thus far have only had our word, your faith, and a few screenshots to go on. Think of this as the start of the process of putting our money where our mouth is. And why don't we just spill the beans about when the game will ship right now? Because we know what happens when we announce things. And because of that we have to choose our timing carefully for our sake as well as yours. No, we aren't your parents, but we have a bit of experience as to how things work Also think to yourselves... "if they are showing the game to a few non-testers, might they be coming near the end of the development cycle?". You're a pretty smart bunch, so I'll let you answer that for yourselves. And no, you will not have to wait for Thanksgiving to see if the wait is worth it, no matter how much Michael wants to compare us to WKRP Steve

If you had an OUNCE of respect for Hubert, us, or even yourself you would not have stolen what does not belong to you. Do you have ANY idea how angry this makes us? And then you have the gaul to come around here, HERE of all places, blabbing about how you did it so that others could do this as well. You should be ashamed of yourself. Steve P.S. I have edited the above post to more accurately reflect reality and so you can get a taste of what it feels like to have someone mess with your intellectual property rights. Unfortunately, that is about the best I can do to even the score. [ July 05, 2002, 02:24 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ]

If you are going to steal what is not yours, kindly do not rub it in our faces. Piracy hurts the developer who makes the game and the publisher who makes it available to the customer. If you don't care about that, you should. Hard to pirate something if there is nobody to make it in the first place, eh? Steve