Combat Mission: Afghanistan, Shock Force, etc. on GOG.com?

[tfishell]

I was just curious if more Combat Mission games could come to GOG. I understand if Battlefront isn't interested in this (having to share a cut of the profits when they can avoid it), but I came across some love for the series on the GOG wishlist, so I was curious about more games releasing on GOG. (granted it's only a few hundreds votes, but still) https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games#search=combat mission&order=votes_total

 

[Ridaz]

Added my votes to all of the series 

[Battlefront.com]

We are huge fans of GOG and have our older CM1 products on there.  We're very happy with how that is going.  However, we will not put our current games on GOG because we don't think we'd be happy with that.

The first and most important reason is that GOG does not allow copy protection.  That means our games can be freely copied by anybody and everybody.  It takes only one person, just one, to buy from GOG and post it to a download site.  One.  And once it's up there it's up there for good.  We'd likely be out of business soon after.

The reason why no copy protection works for our old games is two fold:

1.  The games are priced very low and therefore more likely to have someone agree to pay instead of download for free.  Cumulatively the honest gamers who purchase through GOG generate a nice amount of "found money" for us, which is always welcomed but it isn't very significant in terms of paying salaries and bills.

2.  The games are not even remotely part of Battlefront's survival equation.  If we received no money from CM1 products ever again we'd still be in business.  Even a relatively minor reduction in sales of our current CM2 line of games would likely spell disaster.

Notice I haven't mentioned the cut that GOG takes.  That's always a concern for us, especially if such a relationship diminishes our own sales, but it's not a problem for us if the overall relationship is more profitable than not having it.  Because the CM1 sales that GOG generates are extra revenue for us, giving them a healthy chunk of it is fully deserved.  Giving someone a cut of sales that contribute to overall lower total sales, of course, would not be such a good thing.

Customers that like and support the games we make need to value one thing above all others... us staying in business.  No Battlefront. no more CM.  Just because we've beaten the odds of staying in business year after year for 20+ years doesn't mean that we can survive making a big mistake.  Not to worry though... we are obviously pretty good at avoiding big mistakes

Steve

[MikeyD]

Awhile ago I noted the economy seemed to be transitioning from a 'goods and services' model to what I derisively call a 'parasite' model. The ideal business type these days is one that interposes itself between the product and the consumer and siphons off the profit. The producer is obliged to participate or risk being left out of the market, the consumer is obliged to participate or risk losing access to the goods. An example of the 'parasite' model at its most benign would be credit card transactions, I suppose (they siphon off a small % of every transaction for themselves). The 'parasite' model at its most pernicious would be... what? The US health insurance industry? If you're going to place yourself into a position where a parasite entity is between you and your customers you had better damn well make sure the result going to be a net benefit instead of a net liability.

[Erwin]

49 minutes ago, MikeyD said:

the economy seemed to be transitioning from a 'goods and services' model to what I derisively call a 'parasite' model.

Sad but true.  I'd say it has already transitioned to that model.  We also increasingly live in a "gotcha" economy.   Unless one is always on top of deliberately confusing rules and regulations that can change with little warning, one easily finds oneself liable to unexpected penalties and fees.  The airline industry is a great example of that with their air fares and baggage regulations and fees.

 

[Bulletpoint]

18 hours ago, MikeyD said:

Awhile ago I noted the economy seemed to be transitioning from a 'goods and services' model to what I derisively call a 'parasite' model. The ideal business type these days is one that interposes itself between the product and the consumer and siphons off the profit. The producer is obliged to participate or risk being left out of the market, the consumer is obliged to participate or risk losing access to the goods. An example of the 'parasite' model at its most benign would be credit card transactions, I suppose (they siphon off a small % of every transaction for themselves). The 'parasite' model at its most pernicious would be... what? The US health insurance industry? If you're going to place yourself into a position where a parasite entity is between you and your customers you had better damn well make sure the result going to be a net benefit instead of a net liability.

Facilitating access to a good is also a kind of service, and there's nothing new about middle men. In theory, I should buy my coffee directly from the farmer in Brazil, but there's a wholesale importer that ships the coffee to my country, and then a supermarket that makes it available to me. Both take a cut of the profits, but I wouldn't say either of those are "parasites".

[Erwin]

There are good examples and bad ones.  Trying to get work done on your house, it should be easy to find contractors on the internet, but the vast majority are middlemen who do nothing but put you in contact with contractors, and then you get charged double. 

Real Estate agents are another great example.  Despite all the opportunities for direct contact with buyers via the internet, It's made difficult to advertise one's own house for sale.  You have to use a RE agent in most cases.  So on every hundred thousand, you lose $6,000 to a RE agent/broker who other than "make the introduction" really does nothing after that (despite all their PR BS) to help the sale and in my experience is only concerned with his/her own commission (the title company does all the work).  For a million dollar house you lose $60,000.  In places like LA many house are now costing a lot more than that.  So RE agents are getting fat and greedy. I have bought and sold houses with no RE agent involved and those were much more efficient and pleasant experiences.  As mentioned, the RE dirty secret is that it's the title company which does all the work.

UK has been somewhat better with brokers taking only 1.5%.  But, I have noticed UK agents now starting to creep up to 2.5% or more - obviously trying to emulate the US model of charges.

Oooops this is waaaay OT.  Sorry for the rant...

Edited February 20, 2020 by Erwin

[Battlefront.com]

There isn't a middleman service out there that doesn't think they are providing a service to someone, often the supply side.  For example, a small town doctor's office COULD hire their own person to handle billing, but due to the volume and complexity of the US insurance system it's far better to "farm it out" to someone else.  That is a service of value to the doctor's office, which unfortunately gets passed along to the patient.  Same thing with collecting the unpaid medical debt that comes from the idiotic US medical industry.  The fault lies in the complexity of the system and the costs of being a part of it, the provider is simply responding to market forces when they farm out something.

The traditional games industry was beholden to the power of publishers and distributors who had the muscle to get products onto retail shelves.  I started my career back in those days and I can tell you it was brutal.  If you didn't have what it took to get their attention you might as well not have made a game at all.  There were a few printed catalog companies that offered games direct to customers and they were more open to niche games than traditional retailers.  From there we got niche online sellers that replaced the printed catalog companies and eventual full on online stores (Steam, Apple, Amazon, etc.).  Within these models are publishers and distributors using muscle to convince the gatekeepers to make the products available to the consumer.  If you're a game maker, and aren't huge in your own right, you have to live with everybody taking their large pieces of the pie.  It's the way it always has been.  The difference now is that a game maker can get themselves onto one of these big platforms without a developer or publisher, but chances are they won't do well because of the difficulty of getting attention.  So the details have changed but the overall picture hasn't.

In parallel to this has always been the independent direct-to-consumer avenue.  From disk swaps at early computer shows and computer clubs, to the beginnings of the Internet (Shareware), to online options which exist either explicitly for a specific product (like our store) or to service a niche (like GOG).  The success of the independent model has always been rocky and rarely produces any success stories equal to the low end of the retail model.  But, when done right, it can provide a steady flow of product to a niche audience and compensate the makers enough to stick around to make more products.

GOG is a positive example in all of this.  They have worked very hard to establish a niche means of connecting customers with producers.  Most importantly to us, they've done so in a way that has made BOTH sides very happy with the arrangement.  Whenever a Battlefront product is a good fit for GOG you'll find it there.  Otherwise, you'll find it here.

Steve

[tfishell]

On 2/19/2020 at 10:28 AM, Battlefront.com said:

We are huge fans of GOG and have our older CM1 products on there.  We're very happy with how that is going.  However, we will not put our current games on GOG because we don't think we'd be happy with that.

The first and most important reason is that GOG does not allow copy protection.  That means our games can be freely copied by anybody and everybody.  It takes only one person, just one, to buy from GOG and post it to a download site.  One.  And once it's up there it's up there for good.  We'd likely be out of business soon after.

The reason why no copy protection works for our old games is two fold:

1.  The games are priced very low and therefore more likely to have someone agree to pay instead of download for free.  Cumulatively the honest gamers who purchase through GOG generate a nice amount of "found money" for us, which is always welcomed but it isn't very significant in terms of paying salaries and bills.

2.  The games are not even remotely part of Battlefront's survival equation.  If we received no money from CM1 products ever again we'd still be in business.  Even a relatively minor reduction in sales of our current CM2 line of games would likely spell disaster.

Notice I haven't mentioned the cut that GOG takes.  That's always a concern for us, especially if such a relationship diminishes our own sales, but it's not a problem for us if the overall relationship is more profitable than not having it.  Because the CM1 sales that GOG generates are extra revenue for us, giving them a healthy chunk of it is fully deserved.  Giving someone a cut of sales that contribute to overall lower total sales, of course, would not be such a good thing.

Customers that like and support the games we make need to value one thing above all others... us staying in business.  No Battlefront. no more CM.  Just because we've beaten the odds of staying in business year after year for 20+ years doesn't mean that we can survive making a big mistake.  Not to worry though... we are obviously pretty good at avoiding big mistakes

Steve

Interesting, so currently the games on your site have unbreakable DRM, or are they online-only? (I apologize for not knowing more.) Most games' DRM (like Denuvo) is broken pretty quickly, even the "AAA" titles, so I find this surprising!

Would you mind if I shared this thread on the GOG forum to see what insight they might have, or would you prefer I just keep it here?

[com-intern]

 

10 hours ago, tfishell said:

Interesting, so currently the games on your site have unbreakable DRM, or are they online-only? (I apologize for not knowing more.) Most games' DRM (like Denuvo) is broken pretty quickly, even the "AAA" titles, so I find this surprising!

The CM games are simply not popular enough to have cracks released for them. To even pirate a game you need a certain number of seeders to actually share the game and CM would be hard pressed to actually have enough seeders to do that.

If Battlefront had unbreakable DRM they would not be in the niche wargame business.

Edit:

Essentially its security through obfuscation.

Edited March 21, 2020 by com-intern
elaborate