To all of you who want something for nothing

[jakla1027]

Hi Steve,

Thanks for all your hard work, that goes to everyone at BF!!!!

Any chance we can get an update on the 3rd Module Market Garden?

Thanks again!!!!!!

[Chek]

Ah the joys of dealing with the public,reminds me of my SHORT time spent working in a music store.

A customer came in one day ranting about the latest version of Pro Tools(a multi track recording program)coming with a whole lot of extra plug ins and demanding that he be given those same plug ins for an earlier version that he owned.He refused to pay the fee for the upgrade and get an improved version of Pro Tools with the Plug Ins and it was a ****e load more than 10 bucks.

Not a lot you can say to that(well actually there were some things I really really wanted to say,but would have unfortunately resulted in termination of my then position)

I mean really... 10 bucks!!!

[slysniper]

We have a couple of whiners , but what blows my mind is the number of replies to try and rebuttle them.

If you cannot tell, you are not changing their twisted minds.

Let alone their lies. (Like I have not played it hardly at all but I need it updated for the opponants I am playing. The two do not add up.)

Anyway, I cannot beleive I wasted part of my time even reading and now responding to this post.

It is not worth the effort.

[Paper Tiger]

We have a couple of whiners , but what blows my mind is the number of replies to try and rebuttle them.

If you cannot tell, you are not changing their twisted minds.

Let alone their lies. (Like I have not played it hardly at all but I need it updated for the opponants I am playing. The two do not add up.)

Anyway, I cannot beleive I wasted part of my time even reading and now responding to this post.

It is not worth the effort.

I have to agree with that post. What a complete waste of Steve's time. Mission accomplished for the whiners.

[Macisle]

We have a couple of whiners , but what blows my mind is the number of replies to try and rebuttle them.

If you cannot tell, you are not changing their twisted minds.

Let alone their lies. (Like I have not played it hardly at all but I need it updated for the opponants I am playing. The two do not add up.)

Anyway, I cannot beleive I wasted part of my time even reading and now responding to this post.

It is not worth the effort.

Point understood, but I think the rebuttals are important for any newcomers to see. If the thread was all unanswered whine and negativity, some people might hesitate to get, or feel a bit cheated buying something that they really shouldn't even think twice about.

[Battlefront.com]

Eh, not a complete waste of time. It's important for you guys to see that we care enough to stand by our decisions. To me, it's been helpful because it reinforces my opinion that most of you aren't so bad. I mean, not "I'd be OK with you dating my sister" kinda not bad, but "I'd let you buy me a beer" kinda not bad. Heh

Seriously, it is healthy to have this sort of discussion if only to reinforce that this is the right way to go. We also don't think "profit" is a bad word, but we do think "exploitation" is. I'm sure we could have charged $15 for the Upgrade and probably only got a bit more flak and sold about the same number. But that would make us feel icky (not a typical Capitalist concern, true enough). Times are tough on the old wallet these days more than ever. We've got a lot of demands for our time and our money. For us to forget that would be disrespectful to you, our long time loyal customers, as well as short sighted business wise. It's good to see that we haven't stirred up the ire of more than a few people. For our gaming niche, that's pretty darned good!

Steve

[ForwardObserver]

Like many others I have no problem with the $10 for the code update (except for the part where I can't have it with the Mac store version). In fact I think the whole game series should be much more expensive. Wargames should cost $90 at least.

This is quite an interesting point. The only sensible - as in sustainable - pricing policy I see is that of Matrix Games. Gary Grigsby's War In The East and the enhanced version of his magnum opus, War In The Pacific: Admiral's Edition, cost just about that... and those price tags also usually entail a hell of complaints on the forums. On the other hand, without those price tags, such mega-games - and extremely complex and detailed game engines and carefully researched TOE's - wouldn't just happen.

I personally think folks should remember what our fathers did when they wanted something pricey: they saved money for it. If one can spend 20$ a month in games - which is, by the way, the price of two pints of beer here in Melbourne, for instance - I'm quite confident it's quite possible to save those 20 bucks for three months by having rather than 10 pints a week, just 8.

Steve, now that we have your attention, I'd like to ask you whether you have considered guys some sort of "subscription based" model to sustain your business model with steady income streams. It works very well for MMORPG's, which are not niche, but are insanely expensive to develop and maintain. I wonder what such an scheme might enable for BFC and its very small community.

[Battlefront.com]

Having a new family come out with better features than what I already have (especially if my family is still awaiting new expansion modules) would bum me out.

I wanted to highlight this comment apart from the others. This is THE primary reason we came up with the Upgrade strategy.

After Normandy came out I did what I always do post release. I started thinking about what to do for the next game from a feature standpoint. It's always fun to see how you guys react to a game we've released and then go to the lists of feature requests to see which ones are still coming up. Then see new ideas based on the just released features. At this point not much worry about practicality, more just seeing where the flow takes my thinking.

This resulted in a pretty sweet list of new and improved features. As it should Well, guess what my next thought was? Crap, people are going to be pretty bummed out if they can't see them in the Normandy setting for another 3-4 years when we come back around with CMx3. Saying "you can enjoy those features if you play some other game" just isn't a good answer. This produced two feelings within me:

1. Because I'm an empathetic bugger, I really felt sorry for you guys even though you likely weren't thinking about this sort of stuff. I mean, some of you were probably only on your first hedgerow at the time. Which is enough to deal with

2. I don't want to be the guy that says "sorry, you can't have that for 3-4 years". It's an answer that, quite understandably, wouldn't go over well. First thing you guys would say is "I'll pay for it, just get it to me!". To which I would respond, "sorry... no can do"? Bah, that would not make anybody happy.

We had sorta thought about doing an Upgrade program for years, but CMx1 code was already too horrid to work with even for CMAK and until Normandy the CMx2 engine was still undergoing major internal changes. Even with our post Normandy timing this first Upgrade was a big deal for us because we had to rework ALL of the CMBN/Commonwealth artwork. Definitely worth doing, obviously, however still quite distracting to other development efforts.

We're happy to finally get 2.0 out and have you guys looking forward to even more cool things to come.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Steve, now that we have your attention, I'd like to ask you whether you have considered guys some sort of "subscription based" model to sustain your business model with steady income streams. It works very well for MMORPG's, which are not niche, but are insanely expensive to develop and maintain. I wonder what such an scheme might enable for BFC and its very small community.

We have thought of it, and continue to think of it. But it's... not easy to do from a logistics standpoint. It works great for a single environment that involves online play and ever evolving on a monthly basis. For a game which is not multiplayer centric and can't ever have more than periodic improvements (patches take a lot of labor to wrap up)... it's a bit problematic. I guess I'll just leave it as we generally like the idea, but from the back end we don't see a good way to implement it. Which means we'll at least revisit the idea every so often and see where it stands.

Seems beer in Oz is as expensive as it is everywhere else. The days of $1 pints does seem to be over. Not that the beer in the pint glass was worth drinking

Steve

[Mord]

And yet the mentality of some, is; they'd rather wait 4 to 10 years to play Normandy in an advanced state, paying FULL price, than spend 10 bucks for an upgrade and get the newer features, NOW. People are so friggin' blind and petty.

The announcement about keeping our CMX2 games updated throughout the various family developments was the most exciting thing BFC has ever unleashed on us. Not seeing your games fall behind and having to wait all that time to see them refreshed is a dream come true. No feature envy...and yet there's always a handful that expect it all for free...or no go. Amazing.

Mord.

[Macisle]

A subscription plan would not work for me. Due to time demands, some months I don't play at all. Others, I play a fair bit.

The current system suits me very well. I can pay reasonable prices as I go for what I want and do as much gaming as time allows without having to race against a subscription clock. And, as Mord just said, I don't have to worry about feature envy.

[herr_oberst]

No worries here. Cripes, I've bought every 'old war' package you guys have put out since the CMBO Alpha AAR. Apologies, never got into CMSF. Since my recent conversion to a MacAddict, I own the PC and Mac versions of CMBN, and no sour grapes on my part (sorry Steve, I won't be upgrading the PC version to 2.0).

The value is there for me, but maybe not for others. Guess what? That's what makes us individuals. You get to spend your money on what you want, I get to spend my money on what I want. $10 for the increased functionality is a pittance in my opinion. I just want to make sure than Battlefront keeps on doing what they're doing. Since way, way back, Steve, Charles (and now several others) are building the game that I was looking for, perhaps without knowing it. This is so far beyond "Squad Leader on a PC" that I had envisioned.

I'm just looking forward to the day when I retire (years away for sure) and can play CMxx without work getting in the way.

Let the whiners go home and suck their thumbs.

[Aragorn2002]

The value is there for me, but maybe not for others. Guess what? That's what makes us individuals. You get to spend your money on what you want, I get to spend my money on what I want. $10 for the increased functionality is a pittance in my opinion. I just want to make sure than Battlefront keeps on doing what they're doing. Since way, way back, Steve, Charles (and now several others) are building the game that I was looking for, perhaps without knowing it. This is so far beyond "Squad Leader on a PC" that I had envisioned.

I'm just looking forward to the day when I retire (years away for sure) and can play CMxx without work getting in the way.

Let the whiners go home and suck their thumbs.

Well said. Finally a wargame that has it all. And agree about the retirement thing too. Still at least 15 years to go, but against that time we will have all the tools for wargaming beyond our imagination. Even when I had to pay 10, 20, 30 dollars or more each month for the rest of my life I still wouldn't mind. Is there anything out there that can be compaired to what BF is delivering? I don't think so (apart from the Total War Series, which is a totally different game) and as far as I'm concerned, let BF make as much money as possible. We all benefit from a healthy and strong BF.

[The Teacher]

So Steve....

This sister you mentioned...ummm...well....

Is she cute ? :confused:

( Mercy.....mercy....dont ban me !) :eek:

On the other hand lets face it in this day and age $10 is nothing.

I feel $10 is very cheap for the 2.0 update.

I would have paid $11, well maybe $12. I have to save my money incase I need to take someone out to dinner.

Cheers

Stephen

[togi]

It is not surprising that we have people complaining about the $10 charge for a MAJOR upgrade to CMBN. Also not surprising that it amounts to people wanting something for nothing. Let's look at the facts...

1. We offer CMBN v1.0 for those who want it. When you make a purchase you are buying only what is included, not what is not included. Crazy concept, I know, but it's a pretty standard transaction for the last few thousand years. As such, people can either buy our products BASED ON WHAT THEY ACTUALLY HAVE or not. There is no third option.

2. No game is ever without room for game experience improvements, new features, new content, etc. But since the initial purchase transaction is based on the features included, not those imagined for the future, there can be no expectations of future improvements beyond whatever the software developer promises. We promise technical fixes to existing features and occasionally some small improvements. That's all you get for your purchase price because that's all we're offering.

3. Since new features don't magically appear out of thin air, we have to instead find people to make this stuff. Now get ready for a surprise... those people actually... stay with me now... want to get paid. Money! Yeah, WTF is up with that? Crazy stuff, but trust me it's true. If you can follow that logic so far, then maybe you can see how an Upgrade like this actually costs us a significant amount of money. Where does that money come from? You, of course. One way or another you, the customer, must pay for this work or there will be no Battlefront at all. If you're still confused, might I suggest some schooling in basic economics?

4. The traditional game developer approach is to not offer Upgrades. Instead, when they add some new stuff they call it something different. Battlefield 2 players out there... how much did your upgrade to Battlefield 3 cost you?

OK, so where does that put you, the person complaining about the $10 upgrade? In a world of make-believe world, unreasonable expectations based on absolutely no concept of our costs or industry standards. You therefore have some options going forward:

1. Do no buy the Upgrades. They are for people who want new features not originally part of their purchase.

2. Buy the Upgrade and be thankful we offer it at all. Most game developers do not offer an extension of their existing product, but instead charge full price for a new experience.

3. Don't buy the game at all until you feel it is "finished". At some point we will stop making CMx2 games, and at that point you can pick it up for one price and have ALL the features everybody else paid for along the way. Of course they will have been playing for many years and you will have to instead wait many years. But that is your choice.

4. Get so disgusted with us you stop buying our stuff entirely and instead buy someone else's highly realistic, 3D tactical combat games. Or just don't buy wargames at all. Your choice.

The truth of the matter is we probably spent more making the Normandy 2.0 Upgrade than we will receive in revenues from it at $10 a unit. Does anybody think it's a good idea for us to lose money on what we produce? I mean, really... how long do you think we'll continue supporting a small, rather whiney niche market AND lose money doing it?

The market will decide if this is a good strategy or not. The alternative is to either not make the Upgrades at all (i.e. you will NEVER see an improvement to the games you buy) or we will simply charge everybody $100 per base game and offer 3 or 4 Upgrades at no extra cost. But under no circumstances will we go out of business trying to satisfy people who obviously take great joy in being unreasonable.

Bottom line here is if you don't value the features we've provided for $10 then don't buy it.

Steve

Hello Steve,

Thanks for your detailed explanation,

First, I'm not native English speaker so sorry if I can't express clearly myself

You have closed my original topic so I have to write down on this

I'm your customer from the CMBO- I hadn't got CMBO directly BFC instead via retailer - till now, I'm from Turkiye and I think there aren't too many customers from here. Because I can't find anyone to play in Turkiye :-)

As I said before, my thought is if you don't upgrade CMBN to V2.0, it will decrease your sales so it is a must for your company to sustain open this channel, people will not to buy old fashioned product with regards to the CMFI with same prices.

So upgrading is a favour for you not only for your customers.

So I was expecting to be distributed v2.0 via new module with no price in order to sustain in this channel, but you are calculating every penny that I understand. Are you following game markets? that' bad question, I'm sure you're following. The prices are declining day by day. I'm steam subscriber, I have grabbed one popular game - I don't want to give name - 9.99 usd only after 5 months later after release with a 49 usd price tag. So for getting more customer game developers also give something from theirs and not expecting all from customers.

As I said before, I'm happy with BFC products and playing so I don't disregard this truce

but my option is to wait MG module because I think you're not saint with your choice against your respectfull customers in this case.

finally as a customer, I want only one time, MG module price has to be lowered such as 25 usd and V2.0 upgrading price as 5 usd while distributing MG module.

P.S: if you promise to lower MG module price as 25 usd, I can buy today V2.0

one reminder today is my birthday :-)

Regards

[Lt Belenko]

Just a few more questions:

When will 3.0 come out?

How much?

Will there be fire?

[verulam]

I don't care I will keep on buying your products. They are THE BEST wargames out there, no question.

Good luck to you.

[John Kettler]

Lt Belenko,

Fire! Can't believe I keep forgetting we have only static fire when something blows up, but no dynamic fire and no flamethrowers. Do we have napalm? Somehow, I doubt it. After seeing that PanzerGrenadier training film, I have a hankering for one of those dragons. The one with three heads!

Regards,

John Kettler

[togi]

I don't care I will keep on buying your products. They are THE BEST wargames out there, no question.

Good luck to you.

off course , I will keep buying their games and backing them but I'm not company owner or sharer so I have think after of my benefits too. this is typical and original customer behaviour, I start to think that many of these game players has company shares after reading all comments :-)

Regards

[Fuzee]

I purchased the upgrade almost straight away since I love what you guys are doing with CM but the opening post still left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Was the attitude really necessary? I deal with customers face to face on a daily basis so I know how frustrating it can get, believe me, but I wouldn't get away with it. The core fanbase may be cool about it but it could put off potential customers and newcomers from joining the community.

Anyways, thanks for the continual effort you put in with CM. Merry Christmas and the best of luck to you guys for the future!

[togi]

I purchased the upgrade almost straight away since I love what you guys are doing with CM but the opening post still left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. Was the attitude really necessary? I deal with customers face to face on a daily basis so I know how frustrating it can get, believe me, but I wouldn't get away with it. The core fanbase may be cool about it but it could put off potential customers and newcomers from joining the community.

Anyways, thanks for the continual effort you put in with CM. Merry Christmas and the best of luck to you guys for the future!

good point :-)

[Lawrence]

Point understood, but I think the rebuttals are important for any newcomers to see. If the thread was all unanswered whine and negativity, some people might hesitate to get, or feel a bit cheated buying something that they really shouldn't even think twice about.

Too true! Some of the stuff on here is extraordinary. It isn't as if people cannot try it before they get to choose whether to buy it.

Highly recommended and happy to pay a few quid now and then. Cheers, Lawrence.

[cargol]

I m happy to support BFC and in this way help them to improve and produce new wargames,after all is only 10$.

I had endless hours of fun playing their wargames and that saved me enough money as

it is way back the last time i bought a game that wasn't what it was advertised to be.

For some serious CM gaming you can visit http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/

[c3k]

togi,

Happy Birthday!

[para]

As usual I have purchased and supported BFC. My only gripe and I have mentioned this previously, is their keep us in the dark attitude.

Months and months pass without even a morsel, but as soon as anybody criticises BFC you can't get them off.