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Lol we need that in CM. It is one thing that weirds me out a little when my AFV knows exactly when an enemy vehicle is no longer a threat. I get the game needs it to function. Still it would be kind of interesting to have that doubt.

Funny, mord is a very active positive force in this community. He and I have had disagreements at times on stuff but in all this time we have agreed to disagree on those subjects and developed a friendship based on mutual respect and a mutual love of this game. However the steamie-krishnas (yeah I like that Mord, it fits) or at least significant members of that view seem to only participate on this subject essentially harassing Steve to do what you want him to do. Wanna see a troll?, look in the mirror. As to this proof that steam has worked because matrix and slitherine are there, that is not exactly accurate. Yes they are there, however the jury is still out as to whether that will end up being a positive thing. Real evidence is based on tangible proof. I doubt even Matrix would be ready to say yet for sure what the long term effect will be for them. Personally I wish them success. Regardless of Steam, this community needs more developers. Despite the predictions of those who believe BF is doomed for not jumping on the steam mall bandwagon, there is obvious evidence accessible by all of us with very little effort that they are establishing themselves quite well and growing. This in what was an economic downturn. I don't have to just trust Steve's word, I have tangible evidence that BF is doing well. Not only that I have, thanks to BF's commitment to maintaining the game families, a comfortable view of where they are headed. No I don't think they are getting rich, but I think they probably have hit a point where they feel they have a healthy self sustaining enterprise 100% under their control. I envy them. I am betting I probably make more than even Steve or Charles, but they have a satisfaction that I can not compete with. Kudos to you guys at BF. Thanks for doing what you do and know that you have a solid loyal customer base to allow you to plan another 10 years down the road. At that point I should be hitting retirement and I expect a new engine, a Fulda gap game, a Vietnam game and a France 1940 game or I will start whining at you. Seriously thanks for the best damn game out there bar none. Now if you could just add that little kid doing the paper delivery route to the AI triggers, I bet you could grab a whole new audience.

Actually I don't think that is quite accurate, there has been a lot of demand from MAC users for BF to port CM to MAC and it is no small effort on their part to do so. Is that base as large as PC users? Doubt it, but it is also not insignificant. * Note when CMBN was released in 2011 a big part of the announcement was MAC support. Helps to know some history.

Maybe, what the heck though, it's a new feature let's have some fun with it, and welcome aboard. Nice to see new folks on the forum.

they are breeding like rabbits. Pink Rabbits. Pink Rabbits about human size.

Thanks Astano and Raptox7. I appreciate the attempts to make this more of an informed discussion versus what seems to be the only reply I am getting otherwise which is essentially- Steam is the big mall. you have to sell there cause it is the big mall. I hate friggin malls and the Apple pie there is lousy. I have been looking at the matrix site. Command Air and Naval has a very active forum, some 4500 threads. CMRT in maybe half the time frame (not sure when threads started on that game as original release was Sept 2013) hit just under 1700. The one interesting thing to me on the Steam community hub for this game is, the actual game had been out for a while. Most of these people knew it, they were simply hoping that when it hit Steam it would be discounted. That to me doesn't mean a large untapped market. It seems more a market that simply wants a lower price. That becomes a whole other discussion as now you are talking a discounted product that BF doesn't even get 100% of. As to Matrix selling more than they thought they would, that is somewhat ambivalent. I don't know what figures they started with. They might have assumed that hitting Steam would start out abysmally slow. They also may be getting sales that might have gone to their own website with 100% of revenue, but folks are simply buying it because they'd prefer getting it on Steam. As Astano noted, really hard to get a good read on what any of this data might mean. One bit of info that is in your list Astano struck me. BF has another avenue to understand what Steam may or not do for them. Theater of War. It seems Battlefront may potentially have a much better source for what Steam could do for a game in the same genre than just vague pronouncements of "go to the mall, everybody goes to the mall". Thanks that was actually a really good find.

okay continue to be snide and argumentative. I tossed a bone in the hope that one of you guys might help me find information that would lend credence to your argument that somehow moving to steam was going to introduce Combat Mission to this "millions" strong audience. I asked for some assistance finding some possible numbers, your response, I don't need it and besides millions of people are on steam. Millions of people translates to 209 threads on a comparable game. Color me unimpressed. Hey good luck convincing BF. Millions, countless as the stars in the sky, oh lo and behold the vast multitude that will converge upon ye through the magical portal of blessed riches. yeah sure.

Then of course there is always Bored of the Ring. In the eastern sky, Velveeta, beloved morning star of the elves and handmaid of the dawn, rose and greeted Noxzema, bringer of the flannel tongue, and clanging on her golden garbage pail, bade him make ready the winged rickshaw of Novocaine, herald of the day. Thence came rosy-eyeballed Ovaltine, she of the fluffy mouth, and lightly kissed the land east of the Seas. In other words, it was morning.

actually haven't seen it. As soon as I heard it was going to be another trilogy I wondered wtf he had done to it. Maybe someday, but I am in no hurry.

heh heh the best of Tolkien, let me see them make THAT into a movie.

Shock force is a very old license version. None of the games since have an un-license option. The helpdesk is not going to stop helping you. Not sure where you got that impression. I have had CMSF for a very very long time and have reinstalled more than a few times in that period. I have never had to ask for a new license so I am not even sure why you are doing that.

So you don't actually know if steam is gonna work out for the long term for slitherine or matrix, that they are now is all that counts? That wasn't particularly helpful. Millions of people get on the nyc subway everyday so BF should buy advertising there? Of those millions on steam how many give a rat's a** about tactical war games. I am trying to be helpful here, if the only argument for steam is going to be hyperbole, Steve is never gonna hear ya cause he hates that.

Question for quantifying this subject. One big item that is the core of a Steam argument for BF is the size of the Steam community. I have not really seen a large number of people coming here saying I heard about this game from another discussion group on Steam, wondered why that might be considering we are comparing CM to other games a fair amount here. I tried to find a way to see if there was some type of quantifiable numbers we could at least agree to. So far this is all I have. Can someone who is more familiar with data collecting at Steam maybe fill in some? Battlefront forum membership as of today 36,253 - Granted that is more than just CM folks, but everyone here sees all the same forums so they'd at least have CM exposure. CMBS Thread count as some kind of indication of activity - now this is a game announced last year but not yet released. 139 topics Red thunder 1,675, CMFI 2013, CMBN 10.920 On Steam Steam- Close Combat - this is a released game on steam looks to be about June of last year, thread count 209. Slitherine group which covers all their games - 959 members it is a new group started only November last year. Matrix games forum 8,834 active members (not sure what defines active) I don't think this is representative, but not sure where I might find something showing a better perspective. What am I missing? What I am trying to do is show some quantifiable way of making this not just another argument that goes no where and recurs every 6 months with no real progress to it. Steve states his reasons for not wanting to go to steam, other folks say those are old tired arguments and that there is this huge potential in steam, but no ones seems to really be able to prove anything one way or the other. The numbers above at face value say, sorry this community is already larger and more active than a comparable community on steam. Maybe that is true, maybe it isn't. Can a Steam aficionado point me in the right direction for better numbers?

Sorry, the paradox version has specific items I am not familiar with. Open a ticket with helpdesk and they'll get you sorted out.

See I would use expressions like that, but in my case the following turn I'd likely lose 2 Abrams to mines, a 3rd from a close range RPG another to a long range ATGM and my last would pop smoke running away screaming. The last sound in my ears would be that shout that went up from Ken Watanabe's men in Last Samurai after they killed all the Ninja's. Only it would be Russians shouting it. Yeah, this one https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZAbEOCFlfU

This was Steve's response last time to some of the same arguments by some of the same posters. http://community.battlefront.com/topic/114499-combat-mission-and-steam/?p=1525279 I dunno what to tell you guys. It isn't the forum you need to convince. Start a signature campaign, do a poll, send a marketing guru over to Steve's house (make sure he brings some nice Belgian ales). Otherwise we are all just talking in the wind.

You missed the beers comment. He's probably so hammered he hasn't turned the PC on yet, different kind of chaos. Oh wait, no that was my New Years I was thinking of.

I have had some decent success with TOW mounted Strykers. Most of the things that killed them would have killed. Bradley as well. As an all round support vehicle though in the typical CM scale battlefield you are gonna want Brads over Strykers. Still they are fun to play around with.

Fair enough. My only problem is this isn't really a discussion per se. The only folks whose opinion counts is BF's. They have stated that position quite recently and to be honest they were quite blunt in their reply. For folks who really really would prefer BF to sell on steam, why don't you try a forum poll. You don't even have to make it a yes or no. No votes honestly don't really matter as the point of the poll is just to give BF some possible numbers. I know looking at steam, the CM community is really tiny, just over 200. Granted that is folks who already know the product and are undoubtedly already on this forum. It might be useful for them to be able to get some perspective on others. Just a thought because again I don't think these threads sway their opinion at all. There just isn't any data here that gives them any pressing reason to revisit it. BF does also have as others have noted different marketing tools in media that has an even wider audience than steam- youtube. I have seen Chris's twitch videos pop up in some interesting searches. To say BF eschews more modern advertising approaches ignores I think the efforts Chris has done. Honestly the change in the last year as to how much info you get in advance about the product is pretty amazing. We used to have to wait months for a bone and nowadays Chris tosses them almost every week. Things do change.

And so are a lot of other things as I have found out the hard way. CMBS will present a challenge in learning how to use all your toolkit properly and in a supporting manner. Combined arms is still there, just a lot more varied. I need to go back and read that manual in more detail.

Fine so the OP posted his question, he was told BF's reply at which point by your argument is this thread should have ended with the exception of folks who could then jump on and say yeah BF change your position? Am I understanding that correctly? I see things a little differently. What I see is folks trying to share with the OP what BF's currently stated position is and then a bunch of responses essentially saying we are a bunch of decrepit old hacks who do not understand the modern business world and preventing Steam from saving Battlefront from certain doom. And so the cycle on this discussion goes the same way it always does. So I repeat, if you want to convince BF, it would need a much more cogent argument than just saying I like buying games through steam, I buy all my games through steam and BF is just backward. They aren't stupid and they aren't averse to trying something if it fits what they want to do with their business. Apparently Steam does not fit that requirement at the moment. My reply above was a direct response to an insulting post and yet you responded to my post, not the original. I believe that reflects a bias. Why is mine rude, but stagler's was not? Don't pretend to be the voice of reason and politeness if you can't be objective.

So now only folks who want BF on steam are allowed to post here or respond to posts that are in fact insulting those of us who see no reason for BF to move to steam for their "survival"? Nice.

Fixed that for you. We don't hate steam (at least I don't). It is simply BF has stated their position, repeatedly and recently. It is after all the owners of Battlefront's right to chose what to do with their company.

Sorry, what I meant by 1943 was summer of 43 to late spring 44. I think that is how BF is breaking it up. Mid year to mid year.

damn sitting here watching Black Hawk Down and I am thinking, you know with triggers, I could actually do this in a scenario and it would be able to have variable locations for where the chopper(s) goes down etc.... dang. Chris tell Steve he needs to push this up the priority list.