Maybe time for a holiday sale?

[Redwolf]

We discussed this a bit on that other forum. Based on our own experience and looking at the patch download numbers it seems that CMFI didn't get a lot of sales. I can understand that, because it doesn't look very attractive as a base game for more modules (CMBN is currently "the" game for a modules line), the theater is a bit obscure (sounds like CMAK yet? ) and the equipment list is lower than for the mainline games.

Maybe it's time to have a two-week sale at a price between a full game and a module? I'd pounce.

(yes so far I didn't, I wasn't too thrilled with the demo)

[John Kettler]

Redwolf,

Darn! And here I thought you were first going to explain the going rate for a holiday. There goes my chance to ask how you derived the figure in the first place!

Regards,

John Kettler

[MikeyD]

I seem to recall someone posting a photo of the yacht Steve bought to chase Charlize Theron around on, so Steve is apparently plenty happy about the reception CMFI has had. You'd "pounce" on CMFI if it was for sale? You mean all this time you haven't owned a copy? Perhaps what's why your sour griping doesn't resemble reality.

[Wodin]

I'd pounce on CW if that hit a sale..

I think if an when CMFI hits the mainland and we have Anzio and Monte Casino sales will rise quickly..just the Americans in Sicily isn't that tempting for me..

[costard]

I'm grabbing CMSF2 when it comes out. Before it comes out. Look for a holiday price in 2015.

CMFI came out unpolished - CMBN worked, first up. Yes, there were areas to be worked on and around, but I had no problems getting in and involved, well involved in the game.

I found the game was a hard master, teaching harsh lessons. Holding fewer preconceptions gives you a lot when something new comes along, but many of us had exposure to CM1 and that learning curve had no doubt conditioned our expectations. CMBN was superb work, and the follow up work to the release was most of the best of it.

CMFI was buggy when it first came out. But it gave me armour arcs. I'd say that the communication out there about the game, in the base that bought CMBN, was true to this. So many in the base customer repurchase (if this idea of CMFI sales being a tank were true, after all) were communicating accurate criticisms to their peers. Peers were choosing not to buy - because money is tighter, mostly.

You can now buy unbuggy CMFI, and because of that fact, armour arcs (and heaps of other stuff) in CMBN, and all this building to the (stable) base of the next game in the series (as I understand Charle's designing). The game now has the same stability and enjoyment as the first release CMBN I received, but more playing features, all adding to the enjoyment.

These features have been available for all of one month? Holiday price - man, give the man fair Vig. Please. It's Christmas - the only time a you can count on a whim purchase needing to be important, and therefore representing a fair profit. Particularly these days.

You can't beg from Santa, you just can't.

[Redwolf]

I seem to recall someone posting a photo of the yacht Steve bought to chase Charlize Theron around on, so Steve is apparently plenty happy about the reception CMFI has had. You'd "pounce" on CMFI if it was for sale? You mean all this time you haven't owned a copy? Perhaps what's why your sour griping doesn't resemble reality.

Well one advantage of BFC not getting their own webserver for their patches is that we can see relative download numbers between games. There's nothing yacht supporting in the CMFI numbers.

I didn't buy CMFI after trying the demo, no, mostly because of the UI. Since BFC didn't address any of the game mechanics we discuss that doesn't mean much either way.

[Guest]

Based on our own experience and looking at the patch download numbers it seems that CMFI didn't get a lot of sales.

Your experience and numbers are wrong. CMFI did great. I base that on SALES numbers, which are generally more accurate regarding sales than the BFC-trashing BS from your forum. You're making some pretty fun assumptions lately, though, and then spreading them as fact. If you're going to start doing this regularly, we're going to start calling it what it is: trolling.

[Buzz]

Saw "holiday sale?" Darn...

I know nothing about BFC sales #s but I suspect Phil is correct since he does have actual "SALES numbers." Reminds me of a previous wholesale position I had where our competition tried to guess our sales on their limited retail reports. They didn't import enough product because they guessed wrong. We grew $$$. They went out of business.

"the theater is a bit obscure sounds like CMAK.."

The theatre is not going to be something everyone is drawn to. Having had family in these battles in WWII (and visited Italy and Italian friends) it is attractive to me. The fact that CMFI was CM2 made the sale for me.

Yeah, I bought CMBO/BB/AK as well. Had many days of fun with them all.

I had some Mac - QB MIX issues = note really significant and will be fixed. I am happy to have CMFI (and the expected module) and CMBN/CW.

I would really enjoy CMSF 2 on a Mac!

Everyone has their perspective.

Happy Holidays

[Redwolf]

Your experience and numbers are wrong. CMFI did great. I base that on SALES numbers, which are generally more accurate regarding sales than the BFC-trashing BS from your forum. You're making some pretty fun assumptions lately, though, and then spreading them as fact. If you're going to start doing this regularly, we're going to start calling it what it is: trolling.

I'll stick with the numbers that I have instead of free floating statements, thank you.

So you are saying that CMFI users are statistically less likely to download their first patch, than CMBN users are likely to download the 1.11 patch?

[Battlefront.com]

I'll stick with the numbers that I have instead of free floating statements, thank you.

Hah... that's FUNNY! So you also thought the world would end today, didn't you? C'mon... you can be honest with us.

So you are saying that CMFI users are statistically less likely to download their first patch, than CMBN users are likely to download the 1.11 patch?

Nope. I'm saying that we know, down to the last unit, how many of each product we sold because (so far, anyway) nobody else is selling them. How many people have downloaded patches for any particular game? I haven't a clue. There's more than one place to download a patch and the v1.01 patch came out way sooner (proportional to initial point of sale) than v1.11 did. Which means a larger percentage of CMFI customers didn't have to upgrade because what they bought is still the current version.

Sheesh... do you program with that sort of unsound, self serving, self selecting logic? I hope you don't write control programs for anything that could get people hurt.

Based on what I've seen you say in the past, and people you at least used to hang out with, I'm not surprised to see you extending yourself out on a limb of doubt. You guys love to prognosticate about our fiscal health and the popularity of our products. Can you please tell the class, how many times has it been said that we are about to go out of business? That we're shedding customers? That we haven't a clue what we're doing? I'm sure it's on a par with Microsoft fanatics' comments about Apple in the 1990s. Piles of crow still need to be eaten for that

For the record, CMFI sold more units than we predicted when we made the decision to go forward with it. Since we decided to go ahead with it based on lower sales numbers than we've so far received, I think it should be pretty safe to assume that we're pretty happy with sales. Unless you think that we deliberately go about making products which we think will lose us money.

What wargamers sometimes fail to remember is that there aren't many of you out there. The interest in any one particular title varies wildly depending on the topic covered. Western Front is #1 for us, Modern #2, Eastern Front #3 (might tie Modern, we'll soon see), and everything else falls in behind at a significantly lower level. Some, like 1940 Fall of France, would probably be at the bottom of the heap. Unless we thought of doing Poland or Yugoslavia/Greece

Bottom line... spend more time talking about things you have at least somewhat of a clue about. Unless you enjoy looking foolish.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

As a sidebar for Mr. Redwolf. Since there are NO numbers, even wildly silly numbers, available to you for the Upgrade... here's something for you to chew on. Normandy 2.0 Upgrades sales are doing quite well. Within the 3 days we were nearly at our 12 month minimum sales goal.

It is kinda amazing to think that after being in business for 14 years, which is longer than most game companies, that we might ACTUALLY know what we're doing. Shocking concept, I know.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

I'd pounce on CW if that hit a sale..

Under the old sales model, where products decreased in value over time (and therefore price), sales weren't a regular part of our vocabulary. People who wanted a bargain would eventually get it through the natural phase out process. Not as quickly or as steeply as the retail bargain bin mentality, but our prices always dropped over time.

By keeping our CM games updated we won't be discounting our games over time any more. Instead we will offer the previous version at a $10 discount which means people can "buy in" cheaper and sooner than under the old system, then upgrade for $10 to the current version if they decide the value is there for them.

Because our games will not decrease in price as they once did, this does mean we have an incentive to offer periodic "sales events". We're still mulling over various options for such things. But for sure, there will be opportunities to purchase current version product at a discount.

I think if an when CMFI hits the mainland and we have Anzio and Monte Casino sales will rise quickly..just the Americans in Sicily isn't that tempting for me..

This is our thinking as well. We knew when we started out that CMFI would be a little odd in that for many players the most desirable content would likely come in the 2nd release instead of the 1st. CMFI's current customers are the more adventurous types who enjoy the lesser explored parts of the war, which is always a smaller chunk of the whole market.

I know nothing about BFC sales #s but I suspect Phil is correct since he does have actual "SALES numbers." Reminds me of a previous wholesale position I had where our competition tried to guess our sales on their limited retail reports. They didn't import enough product because they guessed wrong. We grew $$$. They went out of business.

Fun story, and good that you weren't working for the competition

Unfortunately for us, people who consistently make ill conceived, uneducated guesses about our business model aren't punished by market forces for being dead wrong. Instead, they can cocoon themselves in denial (about how bad they are at it) and make some ill informed prognostication again some other time. Even Darwin's laws don't apply. In the natural world they would starve to death or be eaten by something else if they guessed so wrong about their environment. And then there's their ability to reproduce despite the odds saying they shouldn't. Hmmm... I wonder how many are married and have children? Maybe I should make a statement on this based on the facts I have? I bet my predictions would be more accurate than the predictions of our sales

The theatre is not going to be something everyone is drawn to. Having had family in these battles in WWII (and visited Italy and Italian friends) it is attractive to me. The fact that CMFI was CM2 made the sale for me.

I've heard this a number of times. I think more than I have for any other game.

Steve

[slysniper]

All I can say is those who have not bought CMFI are missing out.

Plus with time more fun coming, with the modules.

I am not a big fan of the theater. But after playing a few games, I learned, what a perfect setting to see how the armies were in 1943, I can see the differances of the make up and the different challenges that they had in comparison to the later 1944-45 units.

Plus playing with the Italians is a art of its own. Still working on that, but I have managed a couple of upsets so far in HtoH. So what a satifying feeling.

So I am glad they are making the amoiunt of sells they were hoping for , that sounds like to me, more good things down the road.

[Redwolf]

I fail to see why the fact that CMBN users have a choice between 2.0 and 1.11 somehow boosts the 1.11 downloads (especially since 2.0 sells so well) whereas the CMFI patch downloads somehow suffer from it.

And that doesn't begin to consider how long those patches were up.

[ASL Veteran]

I fail to see why the fact that CMBN users have a choice between 2.0 and 1.11 somehow boosts the 1.11 downloads (especially since 2.0 sells so well) whereas the CMFI patch downloads somehow suffer from it.

And that doesn't begin to consider how long those patches were up.

Because someone may not have wanted to get CMBN since it didn't have the features in it that CMFI had. Once those features are found to be backported they then decide to go ahead and get CMBN because of the 2.0 upgrade. People who didn't have CMBN prior to the upgrade would then purchase CMBN, download the patch, then purchase the upgrade. It seems pretty straightforward to me.

I'm not really sure why BFC's sales figures are such a big deal. I'm sure we are all curious to one degree or another, but why the sales figures would be the central focus of a lengthy forum discussion is beyond me. You should have just stuck with "Hey BFC, why don't you have a Christmas sale for all of us fence sitters? I want to get CMFI but the price point is just too high for me at the moment and I would love it if Santa Steve and his elves gave me a big fat Christmas discount." Trying to justify a Christmas sale because of a perception of bad sales figures is bound to rub certain individuals the wrong way, especially when your motivation for wanting that sale is because you want to pay less.

It comes across as "See, your sales figures suck because your price point is too high - now you have to lower your price and beg me to buy your product in order to survive. I told you guys that you were charging too much and that your product sucked - neener neener neeeeener."

[altipueri]

snipped/edited

Plus playing with the Italians is an art of its own. Still working on that, but I have managed a couple of upsets so far in HtoH. So what a satisfying feeling.

.

Is that a variation the old line about the tanks having one forward gear and nine reverse?

[sburke]

Wow the audacity is just simply amazing. Arrogant and incredibly conceited while also being outstandingly stupid. I think someone missed a career in politics.

[Buzz]

BFC's offering functional demos of the game and "updated" sales model are both intelligent.

If you can't run / enjoy the demo the game is not for you at this time. That should save plenty of business hassles right there.

Offering "updated" sales model increases value to customers while extending product life cycle is just good business plain and simple.

Periodic "sales events" is smart. A modest markdown on a bundle(s) is not a fire sale blow out of your profit and keeps customers eyes on the store. Eyes on the store is a good thing that often means an eventual sale. Sometimes folks just need that little economic incentive to "get game". Once you have a CMXX and one module another module and engine upgrade is not a big financial leap if you enjoy and play the game. From a business perspective it supports a more steady cash flow over time.

You can't hide from market forces if you are a survivor in a real business.

Don't get me started on "legislated monopoly."

I digress....

I was much, much younger when I learned how international wholesale worked. This was well before internet … back when we actually traveled to make product decisions, container purchases, came back to the USA, took our own photos, typed up our own copy, literally pasted our catalogues together before getting them printed, then mailed and traveled to national sales events to sell our products. I worked the loading and unloading of containers in the warehouses. I was on the phone daily with retail customers making sales and packing their orders to get out ASAP. We all (small sales crew of 6 people) did everything from sweep the warehouse floors to international travel. It was a business university for me. I did very well financially (great sales bonuses after quota) and learned on the job. A good time in a good job making good money with like minded guys. I was lucky to have had this experience in Life.

One of our competitors who failed slacked off and guessed what he could sell based on what he thought we were selling. We even told him he was making a mistake! He ended up with only X units to sell and didn't have anything of Z to sell. Hard to make money if people want Z and you don't have any. Do that enough times and customers stop calling…. the bank says… We want our money back now. He goes out of business. I felt for him as he thought he was being smarter cutting corners by guessing but in the end he just destroyed his own business.

What perplexes me today is how few really understand that a long term business is not static if it plans to survive. A long term business must be organic, modify and adjust to the market forces to survive. Markets forces change and you either adjust or get eaten.

People can guess business works like XYZ but since they have never actually run a profitable business over years, they could be mistaken.

Everyone has their perspective.

"We knew when we started out that CMFI would be a little odd in that for many players the most desirable content would likely come in the 2nd release instead of the 1st. CMFI's current customers are the more adventurous types who enjoy the lesser explored parts of the war, which is always a smaller chunk of the whole market."

You are correct. I knew from the start CMFI was going to attract a smaller audience. Knowing about some of the fighting stories from family (and my travels) made the title attractive to me. It is an enjoyable game as is and the 2nd release will give it the broader appeal (sales) as well added value to me.

"The theatre is not going to be something everyone is drawn to. Having had family in these battles in WWII (and visited Italy and Italian friends) it is attractive to me. The fact that CMFI was CM2 made the sale for me."

I've heard this a number of times. I think more than I have for any other game.

Steve

Another adapt move as well putting CM2 out on a smaller scale product before the CMBN/CW v2.0 upgrade. I bought this and must say (despite my b'ak'tun bunker humor banter about end of times & The Road Ahead modules ) I have more than enough game to keep me entertained right now.

Apologies for my protracted get "Squared Away" post.

Back to regularly scheduled CM2 game play.

[Guest]

Redwolf isn't stupid. Bull-headed would be more accurate. He's trying desperately to find a correlation that doesn't exist, so he can justify saying that we've failed. Most folks fall prey to something like it at one time or another. And the nice backhanded question about a Christmas sale was very subtle... no, he's not dumb.

We've got every relevant fact, and we characterize our sales as good. He's got no facts, and he characterizes our sales as bad. I'm pretty sure one of those can be called a "free floating statement"... and it ain't ours.

[sburke]

Redwolf isn't stupid. Bull-headed would be more accurate. He's trying desperately to find a correlation that doesn't exist, so he can justify saying that we've failed. Most folks fall prey to something like it at one time or another. And the nice backhanded question about a Christmas sale was very subtle... no, he's not dumb.

We've got every relevant fact, and we characterize our sales as good. He's got no facts, and he characterizes our sales as bad. I'm pretty sure one of those can be called a "free floating statement"... and it ain't ours.

Fair enough, I take back stupid. Just a bit annoyed, I'd probably have been better off skipping the whole thread.

[Wodin]

BF, I wasn't complaining about the price..just I very rarely have money for myself and even worse over Xmas so would have been happy if there had been an Xmas or after Xmas sale..still I will buy as soon as I have the spare cash, if not when you have a sale at some point I def will buy then..

[Michael Emrys]

The theatre is not going to be something everyone is drawn to.

Which is a trifle sad. The campaign was challenging and exciting. It also was a bit adventurous as it gave the Allies a chance to test out their amphibious doctrine on a larger scale than they had before. But most importantly, it was—for the Western Allies at any rate—one of the most decisive of the war. It resulted in the downfall of Mussolini and led directly to the Italian capitulation. Just as importantly, it meant that convoys could now travel west to east through the entire length of the Mediterranean resulting in a saving of an estimated million tons of shipping. This in turn greatly facilitated Operation Bolero and Overlord.

Anyone who thinks it was a mere sideshow or a sop thrown to the British should think again.

Michael

[Redwolf]

Redwolf isn't stupid. Bull-headed would be more accurate. He's trying desperately to find a correlation that doesn't exist, so he can justify saying that we've failed. Most folks fall prey to something like it at one time or another. And the nice backhanded question about a Christmas sale was very subtle... no, he's not dumb.

Just like you interpret every piece of information not fitting your current state of mind as somebody's desire for BFC to fail.

I'm also not sure what "plot" you suspect behind a suggestion that CMFI is priced like CMAK was, which was priced lower than the mainline CMx1 games for good reason, and similar reasons.

The nastiness only came in later when people started to play hard numbers against well, no numbers really.

Overall it would be more important to clean up some MG mess or any of the others.

[Guest]

I don't interpret every piece of information that way... just your information on occasion, and that of a few select others. I do think it's nice that you decided to try and work out our sales numbers. An interesting thought problem, certainly, no?

I would suggest that our characterization of those sales numbers should carry more weight than the one you came up with, if you're scoring your results. Just start from "I'm categorically wrong" and try to work out why. You don't even need to believe it, just try and work out why it *could* be. I'm sure you'll get there in the end. Here's a hint: it's not as simple as you think. Again.

[sfhand]

Man, I'd much rather see BF commenting on things like upcoming releases or possible tweaks than to see them/you guys engaged in this type of banter. I'm not asking for a Christmas sale, I'm asking for a Christmas information dump!