sell on Steam?

[Jargotn]

von Luck,

it's the danger you refuse to recognize. It might cost ... A lot.

[Spitzenhund]

Well, it would be different in the sense that I would have all my games on a client I always use. And I can easily uninstall and reinstall the game without worrying about losing my product due to your installation limit. I would also be able to communicate with my friends on steam which I enjoy a great deal and is one of the main reasons I use steam. It would also allow me to easier find people who also play the game and speak with them to arrange games. I also become a free advertiser as when I launch the game that broadcasts to the 330 people I have on my friends list and they may be interested in checking that game out.

[Battlefront.com]

That's the thing that perplexes me about this whole thing. Why beat around the bush? Why hasn't Battlefront done more research into this whole thing and actually tried to sell something on Steam to see what's up?  

 

I just can't take the whole "Steam is death" argument seriously...

That's probably because you do not have your own business with employees who, believe it or not, are counting on getting paid next month and the months after that.

Seriously... let's see a show of hands from all the "Battlefront is being stupid and short sighted" posters on this thread. How many of you are self employed? How many of you have a business that has employees? How many of you have business in highly competitive markets with extremely high costs and fairly low margins, yet also having enormous risks? And if you have, how may of you have been doing it for 16 years?

I'm going to hazard a guess that none of you fit all of this, and I'm going to hazard a guess that almost none of you can say "yes" to even a single one of these questions.

Trying to explain the realities of business to someone who has never done it before is like trying to explain the downsides of badly thought out sex to a 15 year old virgin boy. It just will not compute.

Steve

[sburke]

That's the thing that perplexes me about this whole thing. Why beat around the bush? Why hasn't Battlefront done more research into this whole thing and actually tried to sell something on Steam to see what's up?  

 

I just can't take the whole "Steam is death" argument seriously...

Simple - their current model and growth plan is working. They have spent what 10 years moving to CMx2 and developing their plans to move ahead with their product based on their analysis of their market and product? It has actually been despite what folks keep saying, very successful. Think about it, as the economy was sinking BF was able to grow (yes we all know and love Phil, but Phil hasn't always been here). They have developed a plan to keep all titles current and right now have 3 titles out, 2 more coming and quite a few more on the horizon (I am for arguments sake only including product that will see continued development). So along comes this 800 lb gorilla online retail outlet that was never part of their plan. They took a first look and didn't like what they saw. So they went back to work improving the game etc. and they have a portion of their base, let's be optimistic and say we have 3 dozen people here adamantly pushing steam. If it were you, would that really sway your business model if you were already doing pretty good in terms of your target goals? Keeping in mind you don't know anyone these people and other than their experience shopping on steam, none of them have any experience truly relevant for the decision you have to make and the risk you have to accept. Would you really concern yourself with their advice? No offense to anyone here but I know I wouldn't. Unless I had some really good reason FOR MY BUSINESS there is no way I'd be swayed by a handful of people I do not know and very little of the argument that can truly be substantiated has to do with a positive business plan for BF.

[Battlefront.com]

Steve,

Its the potential you refuse to recognize. It might sell ... A lot.

von Luck

I do not refuse to recognize this. I refuse to assume that it will or that experimenting comes with NO cost and NO risk. Which is your perspective, despite having absolutely no experience behind you to make such a determination.

Seriously, this is a really depressing part of the argument for Steam. It shows that there's a fundamental lack of respect for our intelligence. And that is that we are, in effect, too stupid to realize our own success. Rather the argument that has more weight is that we (so far) haven't been too stupid to put ourselves out of business.

Steve

[BlackAlpha]

 

This might require completely rewriting our multiplayer code for all I know.
 

 

Yeah, so I keep getting the impression from you that you guys never seriously looked into it! Why not do some serious research and figure out what exactly the pros and cons are? You might change your mind!

 

 

It wouldn't be very different than buying it from Battlefront except you'd be paying Steam and we'd be losing ~30% gross revenue.
 

 

Either more people will buy it than they would've using your store and you will make a profit, or you won't make a profit and you'll pull the game from the store.

Edited January 9, 2015 by BlackAlpha

[JonS]

I could start by asking you to apply your logic to air travel. How about we have no security screenings, no background checks, no baggage X-Ray machines and "treat everybody like adults". I know I would not so much as set foot into an airport that had such a policy.

I fly that way regularly, and it's glorious.

 

As someone versed in history you should be WELL aware that hijackings in the 70s and 80s were a commonplace, almost monthly, occurrence and throughout it all the security around air travel remained practically non-existent. It was only when you guys collectively and completely lost your **** in 2001 that air travel went all OMFGWTFBBQ TEH TEERISTS GONNA KILL US ALL!!!1!ioneone!.

 

'Land of the free, home of the brave'? Yeah ... not so much.

 

DRM protects you, the customer, from us going out of business. And yes, I am absolutely certain that if we did not have DRM we would have been out of business a long time ago. Positive of it, in fact.

There are plenty of examples across multiple types of digital content that would suggest that your certainty is perhaps not quite so certain.

Edited January 9, 2015 by JonS

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, so I keep getting the impression from you that you guys never seriously looked into it! Why not do some serious research and figure out what exactly the pros and cons are? You might change your mind!

"Serious research" of any worth takes a lot of time and energy. That comes at a cost. Why on Earth would we want to spend our precious resources on something that we don't think is going to work? Pardon me, but I think that's a pretty stupid approach.

It certainly doesn't help that Steam will not let us view their sales agreements and APIs without them first approving a product for sale.

 

 

Either more people will buy it than they would've using your store and you will make a profit, or you won't make a profit and you'll pull the game from the store.

Again, totally disregarding the costs associated with getting things to that point. Why am I not surprised?

Steve

[dan/california]

Can you just cut and paste what you just wrote every time it comes up, and then lock the thread.  There is just nothing left to say.   

[average]

Steve, 

 

I'm not trying to be difficult here. I think the point for me is that across my various devices and the whole what you would call "trial attorney" lifestyle I generally have about 8-10 days a year where I can get stuck into my old hobbies. So this year for instance, I get to a break in my schedule, I dig out CMSF and try and install it on day 1 a short domestic vacation. That involves finding my windows laptop (not my Macbook Pro because not even I will buy the same program for different platforms unless its MS Office). Then I find out I've used up my three installs. So I email helpdesk. The response was super helpful but I've lost the time I had to play. A couple of years before that I repurchased the Marines module because of a key problem. 

 

Or just over Christmas, this time I didn't take my windows laptop (my Apple is better). So I touch down in Paris and I'm left to ponder should I buy CMRT for Mac or Windows. I mostly play on Windows at home, but when I've got free time I'm often away. So the solution is I defer it until I get home by not buying anything. This matches my general dissatisfaction with the weird patches, DRM and content issues I described above. I notice that the titles I do play all have the "steam-play" feature that bridges that gap for me. 

 

So I get home and I need to install CMBN and I decide to get version 3.0. So that takes me a day to download, and then I install it - which I need to do anyway since I've changed SSDs over. 

 

Then I start playing Market Garden for a couple of days. I get involved in a what-if scenario involving the counter-attack at Eerde by Von der Heeydte. Totally enjoyed it. But very hard fought. Having just re-read "It Never Snows in September" I'm somewhat surprised that the scratch force attacking my left-hand flank (made up of training troops and stragglers in reality) are all set to crack. Probably not as surprised as I am by the amount of running armor that KG Wather has. Then yesterday I managed to spend a couple of hours in the Hunner Park Nijmegen scenario. But in the back of my mind I wonder how my PC with twin GT970s and running at about 4.5ghz, with 16gbs of ram and an SSD is running the game at a slide show pace. So again, rough edges taking the shine of what is the best game in its product class. 

 

Perhaps the other thing to note is that I do frequently change components or entire computers. That has probably come about because of ever better SSD solutions, new processors and just being a little unlucky with having high end components fail early. So while I'm exaggerating to make a point, the point is a very real one for me.  

 

So unlike many of the other posters here I have some very real time constraints that mean to me, the overwhelming imperative is having something I can pick up and play at any time without having any questions as to whether the product I've paid for will work, whether it is up to date and whether every scenario or campaign is uniformly worth the investment of time.

 

I think what is literally missing from this conversation is that I am a marginal customer who used to be completely rusted on. I like CMX2 a whole lot better than CMX1. I like modern a whole lot more than WW2. I have more than enough spare money to buy everything you publish and not blink. What is making me a marginal customer is that its become cumulatively hard to find the time to keep up to date and sort through the content. There are also ease of transacting questions and some bad experiences with DRM into the bargain. What I am prepared to pay for is a seamless digital experience and a high level of curation of your content. If you can organise that then I don't mind paying for "features." Whether I have any interest in particular modules is another question, but that is exactly why you are selling modules, some of us will buy some, some of us will buy only a few. 

 

So assuming I'm not a lone time poor voice in the wilderness I think its worth investigating whether a product like CMSF could be sold digitally (at say $20 for a complete copy) and given the chance that game deserved to succeed (which in versions 1.0 through to 1.10) it never really had owing to quality control issues. If that works then it might suggest moving to a dual track system of digital distribution and the BFC web-store.  Perhaps you could do this to generate publicity for CMBS and support for its release (as you said, many customers including friends of mine could never overcome their experience with CMSF 1.0 to 1.10). 

 

Finally, I'm not sure that Baneman and Sburke et al represent the views of the majority of customers. Their forum post counts are so substantial that no doubt they are able to keep completely up to date and play on a regular basis. That said at most they will have spent $90 more (having personally purchased every CMX1 game and everything but Gustav line and CMRT) on BFC products than I have to date. So I appreciate your willingness to explore better methods to publish your products, because when your products work, with the right user made content, then they are fantastic. 

 

Regards 

Edited January 9, 2015 by average

[Battlefront.com]

I fly that way regularly, and it's glorious.

And they let ANYBODY on those planes with you? I think not.

 

There are plenty of examples across multiple types of digital content that would suggest that your certainty is perhaps not quite so certain.

Of course I could be wrong. I'm simply unwilling to bet that I am wrong. With all that's riding on such a bet, I'm going to go with the conservative one because I KNOW it won't put me out of business. The opposite approach does not carry the same assurances.

Steve

[sburke]

lol, you are right. Battlefront.com and Steam are practically the same thing anyway. I've spent nearly $500 on Battlefront.com this year, and easily that much on Steam purchases. I'm pretty sure one is a better storefront than the other.

 

 

You don't need a forums account somewhere to read information, only if you want to interact with people who are there. Usually, I don't bother, because I run into people who will, for example, compare Steam with a subway.

 

 

Congrats on rebuilding your system twice. I'll probably be doing that a couple times myself this year, what with the Windows 10 preview, retail, and Intel's next generation cpu expected near Christmas.

You know you really are such a nice guy to interact with. It gives me such a wonderful impression of the kind of folks I will meet as BF moves to Steam. Steve can we do this right away so I can interact more with overly arrogant disdainful elitist people who seem to have a hobby of rebuilding their systems continually and then somehow think they can argue for the mainstream? Pretty please? I was gonna squeeze my n**s in a vice, but this seems like a much simpler alternative.

Dude maybe you need steam cause you spend far too much fricken time re downloading games after rebuilding a system rather than playing them. Nice handle by the way, it really fits you.

[Spitzenhund]

This argument can't go anywhere unfortunately because the only people that know BF business status in terms of profit margin and expenses is BF themselves. And the only people who understand how Steam works is people like me who helped a friend launch their game which I don't think I can mention but I will if questioned. I should note that my friend was a modder for Total War and this was his first release of a game and that due to Steam he was able to release a niche game and have it sell extremely well and get a huge amount of publicity.

[Jane's]

This argument can't go anywhere unfortunately because the only people that know BF business status in terms of profit margin and expenses is BF themselves. And the only people who understand how Steam works is people like me who helped a friend launch their game which I don't think I can mention but I will if questioned. I should note that my friend was a modder for Total War and this was his first release of a game and that due to Steam he was able to release a niche game and have it sell extremely well and get a huge amount of publicity.

Ultimate General Gettysburg? Picked that one up. Great game

[BlackAlpha]

 

"Serious research" of any worth takes a lot of time and energy. That comes at a cost. Why on Earth would we want to spend our precious resources on something that we don't think is going to work? Pardon me, but I think that's a pretty stupid approach.

It certainly doesn't help that Steam will not let us view their sales agreements and APIs without them first approving a product for sale.
 

 

Ahah, that explains everything. You never looked into it, you never considered it. And thus you do not know what you are talking about. Seriously, at this point you are as qualified to talk about this subject as any other person on this forum who has read the publicly available text on Steam's website.

 

Instead of people asking you to go to Steam, they need to ask you to do your research and consider it (after doing the research). And no, you will not go broke by doing this sort of research, a freaking intern can even do this sort of work. I'm not asking you to commit to anything, you simply gather all the information you need to come to an informed decision on whether you want to commit.

[Spitzenhund]

Ultimate General Gettysburg? Picked that one up. Great game

Good guess! 

[JonS]

And they let ANYBODY on those planes with you? I think not.

No, not anyone. Of course not.

 

They only let on folk who've got a ticket for the flight. Just like they only let people into the cinema who've got a ticket for that showing, or onto the bus who've bought a ticket for that leg, or onto the train who've ...

Edited January 9, 2015 by JonS

[Battlefront.com]

I'm not trying to be difficult here.

I know you're not, but you are making the mistake customers make all the time... they are viewing things simplistically and not taking into consideration that their personal needs are either representational or the most important thing for us to cater to. We have to support a LOT of people doing a LOT of different things with their lives and our products. There's definitely no way we can be all things to all people. Steam doesn't chagne that equation even if it worked great for those requesting it.

What is missing from this discussion is that CMx2 is an evolving game system. We never intended products to live forever, as no game company does. But we saw that customers would much rather have a game that didn't die 3-4 months after it was released. That was expanded and improved over time. We agreed with you and so we changed our business model to first include Modules, then Upgrades, and now Packs.

These changes (improvements) have not been without hiccups or downsides. We are well aware of that and we have been, and continue, to find ways to address them. In hindsight there are things we could have done in 2005 that would have made this process easier that now are simply not possible. So some limitations are going to have to be lived with if the games are going to keep evolving. But we are trying, where possible, to make improvements.

The latest example is CMBN 3.11 and the "all in one" concept that is inherently supported with Red Thunder and will be with Black Sea and Ardennes as well. CMFI will likely be converted over to it at some point as well. Does it fix all problems? No, but it does offer improvements. And we won't stop there.

Steve

[Baneman]

Good guess! 

 

Nah, only know of one TW modder who released his own game.   Good for him.

[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

[Battlefront.com]

Ahah, that explains everything. You never looked into it, you never considered it. And thus you do not know what you are talking about. Seriously, at this point you are as qualified to talk about this subject as any other person on this forum who has read the publicly available text on Steam's website.

You continue to show you know NOTHING about this. You have also not read much of anything I wrote. We do have an idea of what Steam's terms and conditions are and working with APIs is something we do all the time so we aren't nearly as ignorant as you are about us.

 

Instead of people asking you to go to Steam, they need to ask you to do your research and consider it (after doing the research). And no, you will not go broke by doing this sort of research, a freaking intern can even do this sort of work. I'm not asking you to commit to anything, you simply gather all the information you need to come to an informed decision on whether you want to commit.

I bow to your superior knowledge and exit this "conversation". You so clearly know so much about everything.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

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

And you are now classified in my mind as a "troll". It takes a lot for me to view a customer this way and it takes 10 times more to get me to reverse that opinion. Nice going. Well done.

Steve

[BlackAlpha]

You continue to show you know NOTHING about this. You have also not read much of anything I wrote. We do have an idea of what Steam's terms and conditions are and working with APIs is something we do all the time so we aren't nearly as ignorant as you are about us.

 

I bow to your superior knowledge and exit this "conversation". You so clearly know so much about everything.

Steve

 

That is not what you said previously:

""Serious research" of any worth takes a lot of time and energy. That comes at a cost. Why on Earth would we want to spend our precious resources on something that we don't think is going to work?"

 

EDIT: Certain things you said in the past (some in this thread) about Steam seem to be simply false, which makes me think you didn't really look into Steam or you only did half the job (you only got half the facts) before making up your mind already. Bleh, I'm going to call it because you are quite stubborn.

Edited January 9, 2015 by BlackAlpha

[kraze]

 even if we did toss an older product over to Steam, guess what? It wouldn't be very different than buying it from Battlefront except you'd be paying Steam and we'd be losing ~30% gross revenue.

Right. Selling 10 copies a month at 100% revenue is a lot more profitable than 10000 a month at 70%

Battlefront.com and Steam clearly have exactly the same market coverage. Those other naive developers simply don't understand that chances of discovering a wargame by people that want to play it are a lot higher on a niche dev website than on that barely known 8.5 mln concurrent users store! And all those profits devs lose by selling to a lot more people! We are niche and that won't be niche anymore. Niche = profits. NO niche = NO profits - see?

Edited January 9, 2015 by kraze

[Spitzenhund]

Right. Selling 10 copies a month at 100% revenue is a lot more profitable than 10000 a month at 70%

 

It wouldn't be 10000 a month. More in the 100's/1000's depending on how close it is to the initial release of the game.