Wargamer has interview with BFC Steve

[nachinus]

YES! Look here, all the East Front Goodness you could want;

http://www.battlefront.com/community/showpost.php?p=1380311&postcount=214

Mord.

Brilliant!

So we're going to play backwards in time, interesting...

[Battlefront.com]

It is interesting to look at CM:SF mods as an indicator of how played with it might be compared to CM:BN.

Mods show how much interest there is from guys who Mod to make Mods, not much else. But you seem to know that so I'm just saying

You note how I said CMBN appeared more "played with" as I am not claiming necessarily more games are played based on the mods numbers but it does seem to indicate that more people are getting involved.

Correct. Of course a game that isn't very interesting won't have much in the way of Mods, but it's not directly relatable to popularity of the game itself. Let's face it, artists practically worship German WW2 stuff. I'm sure the same can not be said for contemporary Dutch uniforms and vehicles

CMBN has over half the number of threads 6877 and posts 115063 that CMSF 11235/205103 accrued in in 5 years so there appears to be more evidence of WW2 being a more interesting arena to players.

Sales and interest (best exhibited by the Forum) cycles are something we pay a lot of attention to. All games, regardless of initial popularity, follow the same sort of interest curve. Build up of interest before the game releases, spike for a few months, plateau for more months, then decline. Which means one has to look at comparable periods of each relative to their game launches. Also with the Forum be careful about when the Forums were opened. CMBN opened in January 2010, a bit over 2.5 years ago.

WW2 will always have a wider draw for wargamers than Modern. Western Front WW2 has the most draw of all, Normandy probably the most within that theater. So saying CMBN is more popular than CMSF, by a good margin, would be like saying helium is lighter than air. Don't need fancy math to prove what is elementally obvious

The interesting thing is how the other (non Normandy) games will rank against each other. We don't even know since we've never had Modern going up against Eastern Front going up against Italy etc. My prediction is they are all going to be in and around the same ballpark, with Bulge leading the pack, followed closely by Eastern Front 44/45 and Modern.

Steve

[kgsan]

I'm not sure about that article. They mostly asked him what BFC wasn't going to do. "Destraex: Are going to be shipping chocolate frosted cupcakes with each CD you sell? Steve: No, we haven't considered that for this release."

I was rather struck by that too. Not to be too cynical, but is the Wargamer perhaps owned by a competitor of BFC's?

[sburke]

Sales and interest (best exhibited by the Forum) cycles are something we pay a lot of attention to. All games, regardless of initial popularity, follow the same sort of interest curve. Build up of interest before the game releases, spike for a few months, plateau for more months, then decline. Which means one has to look at comparable periods of each relative to their game launches. Also with the Forum be careful about when the Forums were opened. CMBN opened in January 2010, a bit over 2.5 years ago.

WW2 will always have a wider draw for wargamers than Modern. Western Front WW2 has the most draw of all, Normandy probably the most within that theater. So saying CMBN is more popular than CMSF, by a good margin, would be like saying helium is lighter than air. Don't need fancy math to prove what is elementally obvious

The interesting thing is how the other (non Normandy) games will rank against each other. We don't even know since we've never had Modern going up against Eastern Front going up against Italy etc. My prediction is they are all going to be in and around the same ballpark, with Bulge leading the pack, followed closely by Eastern Front 44/45 and Modern.

Steve

You guys know far better than me what to expect, but I think there is another curve regarding CMSF versus CMBN. There are folks (myself included) who are particularly intimidated about discussing CMSF. I have not served and there are plenty of folks here who have. I feel pretty stupid trying to discuss tactics or weaponry with those folks with what little knowledge I have and even a bit disrespectful. My total post count pre CMBN - 1

However once we jumped back to ww 2, well I have a decent library there and a little better understanding..and there aren't too many ww2 vets here to tell me I am talking s**t.

So my post count has changed. Does that reflect a difference in my regard for CMSF vs CMBN - no way. I still play CMSF and I really really like it - I am just not as active about it. I guarantee I will be buying CMSF2 or whatever it is called and am looking forward to it just about as much as any of the WW2 game families planned.

[JonS]

I'm not a WWII vet, but still; you're talking s**t.

[sburke]

I'm not a WWII vet, but still; you're talking s**t.

You know I really do need to finish stomping your stormtrooper wannabees into the mud when I get back. Now THAT is talking s**t.

[Battlefront.com]

heh.. Well, there is that and there is a tradition in WW2 gaming of haranguing/obsessing over minute details in exhaustingly long threads. These traditions don't exist in Modern gaming because a) there are plenty of people in uniform now that can give solid answers, many of the things people argue about in WW2 have to do with who had what tanks in such and such a place at such and such a time. Not much of that in Modern. c) Modern tanks and AT weapons tend not to have much gray area when they fire at each other compared to WW2. Which means 20 page threads about whether x round can penetrate the driver's side hatch of a particular tank if the driver doesn't have the handle in the full lock down position don't happen. Plus, much of the modern info is classified so there's fewer people that are so sure of their positions that they will keep that thread going for 20 pages.

In short, WW2 guys like to yammer about things the Modern guys don't feel is important to their gameplay. We're happy to have both, which means this only matters if one starts using post counts as tealeaves

Steve

[JonS]

your stormtrooper wannabees

Two world wars and a world cup too, doo dah, doo dah.