von Luck

I'm afraid I have a very different opinion than you.

Why is spotting and LOS so poorly represented in this? I have repeatedly played games where targets in plain sight fail to draw LOS to a target. I would not be as concerned about this if it didn't happen every single game I play. From LOS changing after mapped out at the pre-game deployment to men being unable to spot or fire on a hedge row (the terrain piece not the men behind it) a mere 100 meters away. The game consistently falls short of even reasonable representations of LOS. Then, my favorite, defending assets are impossibly difficult to actually hide from an opponent. ranging from PaK 40's, Bunkers, and SiG33's to tanks buried in woods the attacker never fails to spot what should have been a well camouflaged surprise. I have tried any number of work a round's from hiding behind hills to combining hills and tree's however my opponent never fails to ferret out a gun with a 600 meter spot from infantry advancing across a field. I understand this is not necessarily simple nor are the maps exact representations of terrain however I feel the current state of spotting and LOS is miserable and does no justice to what could otherwise be engaging maps and games. von Luck

my clique are now sad pandas. von Luck

Both are very optimistic sales figures for an older cm title. However sales remaining the same is miss representative of the sream community potential. Can't be certain but that's the point of sounding it out. Discovering if the enormous potential can work in your favor. von Luck

The problem is he doesn't want to look. Hell or highwater there's no point to investigate Steam because the unexplored potential is too daunting. von Luck

Steve, Its the potential you refuse to recognize. It might sell ... A lot. von Luck

Imagine if after 3 months the revenues allowed for another staff member. Think of the faster patches, releases, improvements. von Luck

Steve, We spend allot of time postulating over whether or not steam can make you money. Wouldn't it just be better to cement this in fact. Try selling a game on steam... I can't imagine selling one, older platform, is going to break the bank and what if CM sold like hotcakes. I mean all of this speculating - the uncertainty could be capped in fact. You would know the terms for potential future dealings, you would greatly expand your advertising footprint, and you could finally put to rest whether or not 100M gamers want to play CM. von Luck

Like you, Jane's, different people have different priorities. To some people the convenience of having their games located on steam is very important for a variety of reasons. von Luck

Well maybe if enough people ask for steam it will happen. Otherwise the article is putting Battlefronts name out there. I would love for Battlefront to be successful enough so that things like patches don’t cost money and they could spend the time to update their web page or better yet their sales philosophy. Granted getting engine revamps is great but nickel and diming me for every source of content delivery is annoying. Earlier in this thread we were discussing the Wargame franchise – they have delivered multiple FREE DLC’s that add content with each of their games. I don’t even care that I bought EE, ALB, and RD – each was well supported with free content DLC. I’m ultimately fine with Battlefront not being on steam so long as their product is truly top notch. But they have many fronts they could improve upon. I love playing their games however things like volume sliders, or the insanity that is their patching system, or costly minor content delivery … the list goes on … and on! Bottom line I love the games but the clunky back end could improve. von Luck

This topic has meandered far from its original path ... The Wargame franchise is a splendidly complicated RTS that offers much more depth than your average RTS. Sans base building and your left with commanding units, marshalling reinforcements and exploiting weaknesses. Wargame is not like your average RTS in more ways than it is like them. with well over 1300 units it sits rather comfortably in the wargaming genre. All of this being said you will still run into things like X being a hardcounter to Y however this is sensical. Helocopters equiped with ATGM's are certainly a hard counter to tanks - which is why you need to bring mobile AA solutions with your breakthrough forces. It draws heavily from mechanics and themes you would expect to see in a wargame not an RTS. That being said the community for that game is quite bad. The forums are open enough and people are willing to discuss but if you jump onto the lobby dont expect anything more than trolls. This complicates things as the learning curve is tremendous. Similar to CM in that the user will now have to memorize a great many differet types of units, the mechanics that drive them, and the strategys to use them. The aforementioned helocpters are an exceptional hardcounter to tanks however you can easily lose them to careless play and they represent valuble assets. If your looking to play wargame be prepared for hours of frustration - the game takes time to master. I would also disagree with Stagler in saying that EE is a better game. EE is a simpler game RD is certainly the refined course of the game - many many mechanics changed and most for the better. BUK M1's no longer represent pinical helecopter killers - instead they sit in their rightful place as huge threats to fixed wing assets. Basic values went from 0-10 to 0-30, so for example the extrapolation of an M1A1's armor in EE was 9 while in RD its 17. This leads to considerable changes to the quality vs quantity dynamic. Its much less likely your M1A2 in RD is going to die to a horde of T55's - still possible but much less likely. Wargame is a solid game but I recomend playing Multiplayer with a group of friends. The experience is 300% less frustrating. von Luck PS: Stay away from destruction mode ... unless you like being gratified with numbers floating up from kills this game mode is bad.

This is an interesting impasse – Steve is confident that NASA’s margins from Steam are so slim that it’s not an attractive option. The Steam Cosmonauts swear otherwise and feel confident that the markets in Steam are a valuable resource. The problem appears to be that the venture appears fruitless and thus any time or money spent on it is a waste. What if in a grand gesture you offer to greenlight some of your older games but you crowd source the funds needed to pay for the transaction. Add some lofty stretch goals and see what happens. This is like free money and advertising. von Luck

A man can dream von Luck

FY 2014 11% of 500M is 55M is < 65M Steam GAMERS. Your total apple computer users is still less than Steams gamer following. I would say those markets are distinctly different. To add credence to this if you say the small share of computer gamers out of that number is making noticible sales for Battlefront than perhaps landing on the Steam moon is more entising? von Luck EDIT* my numbers are old

while I'm ecstatic that Battlefront is the self proclaimed NASA of grognard strategy I fervently wish that an exploratory expedition be taken to the Steam moon. I feel that comparing Steam to Apple iTunes Store is unfair. I could be mistaken however last time I touched bases with people I knew who use Apple computers and systems weren't “Gamers”. Apples vast market share comes from things like hand-held devices. . . iPhones, iPod's, Tablets and such. All of this then leads to the fact that I really don't think you can compare 500 million users that download music and play farmville on their phones to say ... 65 million users that explicitly play computer games. I think it is reasonable to assume these markets are distinctly different from each other. I have seen a lot of success in very “niche” market games recently as they seem to be reaching out to discover and build their player base. I don't see Battlefront taking significant efforts in reaching out. This makes me concerned because I don't feel like this franchise is particularly well known. I have seen strong indications that based upon the success of games that I consider vastly inferior to CM that there is a broader market on Steam that could be accessed. To sum this up I would like to suggest Apollo 11 – the Steam lunar landing. I have seen allot of aggressive posturing over “not one inch” with Steam. Maybe they're not the boogie men of yesteryear. Maybe instead of postulating over how there is presumably no significant market there you could sell an old CM title. Minimal work needed to make it Steam “compliant”, Minimal risk to sales because its already flat-lined. Wouldn't knowing more positively how your games might perform in Steam make more sense then speculating? von Luck

Would you like some assistance with this? First: Steam forums are not front and center for any game. As mentioned earlier in this very forum you dont go to steam to read through their forums. I rarely venture onto any forum as they are typically a complete waste of time but I can count the number of times I'v been to steam forums on one hand. So the important take away from this is to remember that the Steam forums are not indicitive of anything. Got it? Second: You seem to be missing the key to this problem. I'll break it down super simple. Immagine a pie - apple pie! MMmmmm ok so this pie is home made but you only get one slice! Delicious! Now immagine a pie thats approx 200,000 times larger than the first pie. Each pie is sliced into quarters - which slice is larger? Big take away here - the bigger the pie equates directly to proportionaly larger slices. Steam community is huge and represents a largely untapped market. Now for more important news here's some additional postulation over steam sales and how that affects developers. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/174587/Steam_sales_How_deep_discounts_really_affect_your_games.php

Battlefront has been “assessing steam” for a very, very, very long time. Each time a compilation of old arguments or reaffirmed nebulous umbrella statements are used. For example the argument that Steam would require additional backend work. We covered that earlier here Battlefront appears to be Steam compliant with its practices. Or Steam would create a competition to the Battlefront.com sales by putting their product on sale without their permission. Battlefront has the option supply steam with permission to put the product on sale. Or Steam won’t increase our sales or revenue because this is such a niche game that nobody will buy it. Who actually believes this? Honestly … Or Steam would pocket too much of the proceeds to warrant sales over its service. The sales floor would have to stay the same and all the purchases would have to go through Steam. Steam takes what – 30% this would require that Steam then increases the sale of the game by that much to justify its use. As seen in my previous article if different sales mechanics are used this can easily increase flash sales which in turn have a respectable chance of increasing your sales floor. Not to mention that simply being on Steam is likely to increase your sales floor because again – it’s a huge community. OK – so Steam is many things however it is first and foremost an enormous community of gamers whom log into it every day browse its store every day and purchase from it. The Steam community is certainly NOT the end all be all – however it is a huge resource that WOULD CERTAINLY increase visibility of this product. There are a great many niche games released on steam that find their way into customer library’s because of a variety of marketing techniques. Growing the base of players is a monumental task that requires a multifaceted approach. The reasons for avoiding this MASSIVLY POPULAR venue appear old and tired. So what is it that makes going to Steam such a game losing proposition? von Luck

Yes there is a backend to working with Steam – I’m positive it has been cited before as one of the many reasons they have decided against entering the Steam community. The crux of this being that Battlefront has had hideous patching issues in the past. With the advent of things like the master installer, thank GOODNESS for that, Battlefront is slowly creeping toward a more modern model. There are still some awful choices in how the “patching” is executed however as Battlefront changes some of that backend support that Steam requires becomes easier. von Luck

If your grasp of what that graph indicates is weak you should certainly read the article that comes with it. Perhaps then you can better understand the context of what your looking at. As for BFC marketing to their customers - thats great! How about growing the customer base through a common media outlet and using their tried and proven marketing techinques. Steam has huge number of gamers which represents a market. I'm merely encouraging that market should be tapped into. von Luck

For those less interested in reading the article these graphs are an interesting look at Sales data. Initial Sales: Midweek Madness Sales: Humble Bundle Sales: Total Revenue: von Luck

Sburke, I have played CM for a very long time. I have been involved in this franchise since its early inception. I am posting this because I find it genuinly consternating that the game isnt marketed on steam. von Luck

So I have an interesting article that discusses an indy company creating and selling a game over Steam and several other mediums. http://hitboxteam.com/dustforce-sales-figures This article is an interesting glimpse at a company looking back at some sales data and reflecting on what it means. The graphs speak volumes about sales and the mentality of gamers in terms of buying into a product. They also discuss the affect of having the player base increased to such an extent that the base sales rate increased due to having a greater visability of the game. Obviously this game is nothing like CM however I think there are enough commanalities in terms of a game attempting to build a larger player base. Despite what many of the nay sayers proudly discourage - having greater visibility of a game is a huge boon which translates into the company making more money which means more and better products. Steam is a fantastic tool for advertising and selling games and I heartilly agree with people who suggest it should be used. von Luck

All of this snobbery is so disappointing. You know the Earth was flat before it was round .... the Sun revolved around the Earth before the Earth revolved around the Sun. I see so many misconceptions when it comes to having a title added to Steam its like a history lesson of ancient beliefs. But apparently Steam is a money losing proposition ... Moving on! If BF is going to stay the course and steer away from Steam then they should seriously look at updating their business model. There are some dramatically better systems out there and improving/streamlining would certainly help sales and customer retention. As things stand now I am a reluctant customer for many of the titles due to unwieldy product management and poor support. Surely improvements here could translate into a better product and more sales! von Luck

Yes because selling 11,000 copies (at just one peak) of a game means your not adding weight to sales. von Luck

So Steve assessed steam sales in 2010. Its 2014 perhaps the equation has changed? Sales of Garrys mod. How could this be a losing proposition? I don't understand what the interaction is on the back side that makes steam so unappealing - it must be grievous to prevent millions of gamers from looking at and purchasing your product via Steam. von Luck