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Looking for feedback on my WIP CMx1 course


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On 5/19/2022 at 10:07 PM, nathan1776 said:

Lindybeige to promote the course to try to reach those casual players

Does Lindybeige play the Combat Mission games? I thought he was more interested in large board games. But as the Combat Mission games are based on a board game (or even more than one) it's of course possible that he does play at least one of them.

I like the few videos that I've watched on his youtube channel. But I have never watched one where he talks about Combat Mission or any other video game.

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On 5/19/2022 at 5:59 PM, chuckdyke said:

As long as you enjoy it. I am 72 now and the games I have on CM2 are enough to last the rest of my life. I only just started to toy with editing. I thought about writing a manual of how to play on Iron against the AI. I just started to understand the soft factors in the game and that is after playing for something like 20 years. Only a few people on YouTube know what they are doing IMO. Two of them from whom I learned a lot a no longer active. 

CMx1 reminds me of how Roblox looks these days... so there is that! Spin it as CM:Roblox maybe!!!

Sorry, carry on!

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I don't think I would ever "pay" for a course for a game. If you are hurting for some spare change, no offence intended, focus fully on the current system where you make youtube videos and if you kick butt with a watchable product then the money slides in by sponsors and ads. Right? The entire tracking of who payed and they have a password or get the link? That sounds like a hassle to me. Word of mouth will spread here easily for maybe tons of free views of your girlfriend or other female actor hotty reading her CM tips. Trying to get forumites to spread your message of "pay me $2 and I will teach you..." I think people will not be motivated to spread that message. If you follow me. 

again, best wishes to you and your interesting project.

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CM is very niche, CMx1 is even more niche, and people who would pay money for a CMx1 tutorial is like a niche inside a niche inside a niche. I think your best bet would be to create a YouTube channel and upload guides there, and then maybe start a Patreon for generous people who would like to donate. I agree with kohlenklau in that I can't ever imagine paying money for a course on how to learn to play a game, especially when there are already free resources out there for people like this very forum.

Edited by Codreanu
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I understand what you're all saying, but you guys are not the target audience.  And the sales pitch wouldn't be, "Learn to play CMx1".  The sales pitch would be something like, "Do you admire Captain Miller of Saving Private Ryan or Captain Winters of Band of Brothers?  Would you like to learn to command like them?  This course will teach you to be a company commander.  We'll be using the realistic game CMx1 but you can apply what you learn in this course to any other realistic wargame game you play, or even to business.  The course's learning curve will be so gentle your grandmother could do it.  Buy it for your kid as a present."

 

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Does Lindybeige play the Combat Mission games?

Yeah, I emailed him about doing a sponsored video and here's what he said: "As it so happens, I used to play this game.   For a while I played it as a PBM sending text files of instructions to friends of mine."

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You might want to double check the BFC end user agreement. CMX2 has this. I’m pretty sure CMX1 had same or similar. 
 

“You shall not, in any way, modify, enhance, decode, or reverse engineer the Software. User- created scenarios and other materials like graphics or other mods may be distributed free of charge, but shall not be sold, licensed, or included as part of any package or product that is sold or licensed, without the prior written consent of Battlefront.com, Inc. You may not rent or lease the Software or related materials.”

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18 minutes ago, George MC said:

You might want to double check the BFC end user agreement. CMX2 has this. I’m pretty sure CMX1 had same or similar. 
 

“You shall not, in any way, modify, enhance, decode, or reverse engineer the Software. User- created scenarios and other materials like graphics or other mods may be distributed free of charge, but shall not be sold, licensed, or included as part of any package or product that is sold or licensed, without the prior written consent of Battlefront.com, Inc. You may not rent or lease the Software or related materials.”

Thank you for the warning, but I mentioned in my original post that I got approval from the CM devs.

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Nathan,

I created a lot of tutorial materials for games back in the day.  I don't think there is much of a chance in selling training videos.  Why?

* Niche market

* Outdated game

* People still regard knowledge via the Internet as free unless it has been produced by a real production company with qualified instructors

* CM never was mass market or held the global and historical stature of chess

* Bad economy

Chess is about the only game people will spend lots of money on learning, and even those who create and sell courses must be highly ranked and known.  So ...

* I would just focus on the pleasure of promoting your favorite game

or

* If it is money you want, then pick a mass market game like a few of the Paradox titles or TW titles.  Then, you should spend time learning about marketing and promotion via social media.  Also, how you can make money?  YouTube affiliate, sponsors, selling merchandise, being and influencer.

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Back to CMx1.  I think there are 2 distinct learning curves.  Ground combat concepts and game UI and mechanics.  I think it might be best to do 30 minute episodes and split them at the 15 minute mark; so people could focus and what they want.  The first 15 minutes should cover what combat tactics or strategy is to be illustrated in todays episode.  Then, you break at the 15 minute mark (or you could do 10&20 minutes) and the remainder you illustrate via the game teaching the UI and control.

Lastly, I think your pitch regarding the fictional Miller and the real Winters misses the mark.  Both characters are memorable for who they were, and only in part due to their expertise.  I have forgotten Band of Brothers, but Miller has a nutty mission, is overqualified, and loses half of his men.  Both might be good characters for an RPG, but their personas are totally irrelevant with regards to CM proficiency or most war games.  And after making the pitch, you don't really plan to teach the psychology of team management and command.  Your pitch should align with your product or content.

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No offense regarding my comments, but I thought you wanted critical feedback.  I don't regret not charging for any of my game materials I circulated.  I became a better player for it.  Teaching always forces your skills to improve; and that is worth your time especially if you MP, because you will have more fun.  First, you must break it down, and then put it back together so that it can be analyzed and improved.  So, I gained by giving away freely, and I had fun interacting with those who were interested.

Money and having fun are two different things.  There are plenty of cases of YouTuber's who enjoyed something like a game, but became a slave to it, and stopped enjoying it or worse went into a panic as the community moved on to the next hot title and new content producers.  Some really crashed and burned, others just felt burned out.  Read up on the case of Arumba, CK2 and EU4 and his history with Paradox.  Whenever, you listen career YouTubers, they live in constant anxiety about THE ALGORITHM and being demonitized.  Make the wrong observation about COVID or Ukraine, and you too will be history.

Good luck.

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Niche market

The idea is to expand the market.  I was obsessed with OFP when I was in high school, to the point where my friends made fun of me for it, and I thought for years that it would always be a niche product.  But then I saw it become one of the most popular games in the world (in the form of DayZ and then PUBG).  I've met several beautiful young ladies who were amazing at the game (way better than me); seeing this "niche" game become so popular was an eye-opener for me.

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Outdated game

The graphics may appear outdated to some people, yes, but as I said before, there are people who don't consider old-style graphics to be a deal-breaker.

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People still regard knowledge via the Internet as free unless it has been produced by a real production company with qualified instructors

Some people may think like this, yes, but many others don't.  Again, I'll point to Udemy.

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CM never was mass market or held the global and historical stature of chess

Yes, but again, the idea is to expand the market.

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Bad economy

I'm going to be asking something around $10 for the course.  It's not an outrageous amount of money.

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Chess is about the only game people will spend lots of money on learning

I'm not asking people to spend "lots" of money; I'm asking them to spend $10.  Here's an example of a $20 CS:GO course on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/counter-strike-global-offensive-play-like-a-pro/

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I think there are 2 distinct learning curves.  Ground combat concepts and game UI and mechanics.

Yes, I agree.  I intend to create lessons that teach how the game/UI works, then lessons on each weapon system (its purpose / strengths / weaknesses), then simple combinations of weapon systems, and then go up in complexity from there.

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Both characters are memorable for who they were, and only in part due to their expertise.  you don't really plan to teach the psychology of team management and command.

Yes, of course, but I suspect that knowing what to do goes a long way towards being held in high regard by your soldiers.  I would need to find it, but I read an account from a company commander in WW2 who had been in the Army for years before the war started, and so he knew proper tactics, and when he was given a mission to take out a series of bunkers he was able to do it quickly and without any casualties, and his battalion commander was astonished because the other (less experienced) company commanders had taken horrendous casualties.  He had adopted the simple tactic of focusing on a single bunker at a time, having everyone in the company fire at that one bunker, and having a single(?) person go up with some explosives to destroy the bunker.  Whereas the other company commanders had their companies rush all of the bunkers at once (each company had its own list of several bunkers they needed to take out).


And when I played OFP a lot back in the day and played some platoon vs. platoon engagements (all humans), I was blown away by how our experienced military leader was able to win consistently.  Unfortunately I don't remember what he had us doing.

 

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All of the problems that you're all bringing up are very obvious ones; I'm well aware of them.  I think these obstacles may very well prevent this from being profitable, but I am pursuing this idea because I think that I might be able to make it work in spite of them.

And I'm not hurting for money; I work as a programmer and I'm paid pretty well for my time.  But I have many ideas for things that I wish existed, and if I can get paid for creating them, then I can spend more of my time working on them, bring more of them into existence, and spend more money promoting them via things like sponsored YouTube videos.

Edited by nathan1776
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