Annual look at the year to come - 2023

[kohlenklau]

49 minutes ago, danfrodo said:

Yeah, I would pay a lot to have ost front 41-43 added.  And of course N Africa 40-42.  But sounds like the more modern stuff is what sells best.  I was shocked when I heard this, I thought "who doesn't love ww2 best?".  Turns out lots of people.

I guess it is the generations rolling onward?

 

[Battlefront.com]

9 hours ago, wadepm said:

There is definitely a large (maybe?) group of us who really like the early war stuff.  Something that Battlefront seem to have no interest in.  That makes me sad.  But I still love the game and pretty much buy everything they offer... 

Personally, I have a lot of interest in the Barbarossa period.  However, my interests are not relevant when I look at what to do next with our limited time and resources.  I look at what is practical, which includes a range of things including potential return on investment.  The big one is opportunity cost.

Two scenarios... someone wants a game that might sell 100 units, other wants a game that might sell 100,000 units.  The costs of making the game are identical and someone offers to cover all of those costs.  Which game would you make?  I doubt it would be the one that has the smaller market because that would be giving up an opportunity to earn a lot more money.  Businesses tend to do better if they remember money is what keeps things going

As it so happens, the costs of doing a Barbarossa game would exceed the cost of any other WW2 game I can think of.  Why?  Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.  Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

Which means someone would need to pay us not only what it costs to make Barbarossa but also pay us what we could have earned if we made something else.  I can guarantee you guys that price would be quite high and sales from it wouldn't even put a dent in recovering development costs.

Steve

[PEB14]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

As it so happens, the costs of doing a Barbarossa game would exceed the cost of any other WW2 game I can think of.  Why?  Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.

That is sound. So why not starting backwards and not onwards? Development would be diluted over time if the next game starts with Kursk, then extending back to Stalingrad, and finishing en beauté with the beginning of Barbarossa! Many vehicles and forces required for Kursk are already there, and some of those developped for Kursk would be useful for Stalingrad...

 

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

When is programming scheduled to start on this one?

[PEB14]

5 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.  Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

IMHO, adding new vehicles and forces is precisely what WW2 afficionados are waiting for... In a game that runs very nicely like CM does, you just want new toys to play with...

That's pretty much why the only game I haven't purchased for now is CMFB. If I want to play US vs. German in the snow, or CW vs. German in 1945, I play CMFI-R2V. I think that CMFB adds too little to the franchise in terms of new toys; CMFI added to CMBN tons of vehicles, the Italians, the French and so on. CMRT added the Russians, the Volksturm and tons of stuff. CMFB does not, as any new game should.

But that's just me!

[Bulletpoint]

6 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Two scenarios... someone wants a game that might sell 100 units, other wants a game that might sell 100,000 units.  The costs of making the game are identical and someone offers to cover all of those costs.  Which game would you make?  I doubt it would be the one that has the smaller market because that would be giving up an opportunity to earn a lot more money.  Businesses tend to do better if they remember money is what keeps things going

As it so happens, the costs of doing a Barbarossa game would exceed the cost of any other WW2 game I can think of.  Why?  Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.  Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

Which means someone would need to pay us not only what it costs to make Barbarossa but also pay us what we could have earned if we made something else. 

But if somebody offered to cover all the costs, wouldn't you be free to do other projects at the same time, while you outsourced the biggest expense, modelling of vehicles and forces, to some external studio?

Or hired in some extra manpower on a temporary contract, using Kohlenklau's powerball money.

[Duckman]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

As it so happens, the costs of doing a Barbarossa game would exceed the cost of any other WW2 game I can think of.  Why?  Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.  Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

Interesting about the costs, I've heard various opinions over the years. 

How would the Finns and Hungarians be easy? Because they have so little equipment?

[FlammenwerferX]

54 minutes ago, Bulletpoint said:

But if somebody offered to cover all the costs, wouldn't you be free to do other projects at the same time, while you outsourced the biggest expense, modelling of vehicles and forces, to some external studio?

Or a Go Fund Me type platform...I mean I would contribute one of my paychecks to have a KV-2 to play around with..

Edited February 24, 2023 by FlammenwerferX

[Redwolf]

8 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Personally, I have a lot of interest in the Barbarossa period.  However, my interests are not relevant when I look at what to do next with our limited time and resources.  I look at what is practical, which includes a range of things including potential return on investment.  The big one is opportunity cost.

Two scenarios... someone wants a game that might sell 100 units, other wants a game that might sell 100,000 units.  The costs of making the game are identical and someone offers to cover all of those costs.  Which game would you make?  I doubt it would be the one that has the smaller market because that would be giving up an opportunity to earn a lot more money.  Businesses tend to do better if they remember money is what keeps things going

As it so happens, the costs of doing a Barbarossa game would exceed the cost of any other WW2 game I can think of.  Why?  Because the biggest single expense is on the modeling of vehicles and forces.  There's very little in what we've done so far that would be applicable to Barbarossa.  For less effort we could make a mid-late North Africa game, which of course would make some people happy and bum others out.  Especially those who would rather see Finns and Hungarians fighting on the Eastern Front, which is something even easier to do.

Which means someone would need to pay us not only what it costs to make Barbarossa but also pay us what we could have earned if we made something else.  I can guarantee you guys that price would be quite high and sales from it wouldn't even put a dent in recovering development costs.

Steve

But the question is - don't you have to cover some new area/timeframe? If you already did all the attractive ones you can only do them again with a CMx3 game. As long as it is CMx2 engine v5 you have to move [i]somewhere[/i], no? Is there a 100,000 copy theater left?

[Artkin]

Lets gooooo Fall Blau

[CarlXII]

12 minutes ago, Artkin said:

Lets gooooo Fall Blau

That's the spirit ! go, go ,go 

[wadepm]

All we really need is a Vehicle Pack like the one for CMBN.  We can take it from there...

[CarlXII]

2 minutes ago, wadepm said:

All we really need is a Vehicle Pack like the one for CMBN.  We can take it from there...

I would buy such a pack day 1 but this has been requested before and i think BFC have rejected the idea stating that it is the development of the TOEs that is the main timesink when it comes to their workload.

Scenarios and campaigns are not the problem. 

 

 

[kohlenklau]

This all reminds me of that time back in high school when I tried to get my buddies' sister to take off her bra. She just would not listen to reason of how good it could be.

[PEB14]

15 minutes ago, CarlXII said:

Scenarios and campaigns are not the problem.

Sure, they're not done by the same people (not even by BF people?) and don't require hardcoding...

[CarlXII]

21 minutes ago, PEB14 said:

Sure, they're not done by the same people (not even by BF people?) and don't require hardcoding...

There you have it....Unfortunatelly the others guys can't make any campaigns or scenarios if they don't have the neccesary units ...

 

[kohlenklau]

[CarlXII]

Yeah...where's all the friendly rich guys when you need them. Some are willing to spend 5-10 billion dollars on a soccerteam....How about throwing BFC their fair share ? 

[Kevin2k]

6 hours ago, PEB14 said:

IMHO, adding new vehicles and forces is precisely what WW2 afficionados are waiting for... In a game that runs very nicely like CM does, you just want new toys to play with...

That's pretty much why the only game I haven't purchased for now is CMFB. If I want to play US vs. German in the snow, or CW vs. German in 1945, I play CMFI-R2V. I think that CMFB adds too little to the franchise in terms of new toys; CMFI added to CMBN tons of vehicles, the Italians, the French and so on. CMRT added the Russians, the Volksturm and tons of stuff. CMFB does not, as any new game should.

But that's just me!

You write "as a NEW game should". Some years ago it was the other way around. Released April 2016. Vehicle wise Final Blitzkrieg was the most bang for the buck. Mainly because it included so many German vehicles. Like the German vehicles from CMBN base + Commonwealth + Market Garden (Flak vehicles) then maybe some from CMRT like the Hetzer. There are still two  CMFB exclusives: Flammpanzer38t and Sturmtiger.

But later the releases of CMFI Rome to Victory and CMRT Fire & Rubble could benefit from that growing library of vehicles as well. Though like CMBN that does require the investment in modules. 

Also CMFI terrain engine is a bit of an odd one, in regards to buildings, also regarding trees. So while it can do winter, it cannot show more northern europe as well as CMFB/CMRT.

 

[wadepm]

1 hour ago, CarlXII said:

I would buy such a pack day 1 but this has been requested before and i think BFC have rejected the idea stating that it is the development of the TOEs that is the main timesink when it comes to their workload.

We don't need them, we can make that up ourselves.  What we can't do is make the models...

[Lethaface]

4 hours ago, Redwolf said:

But the question is - don't you have to cover some new area/timeframe? If you already did all the attractive ones you can only do them again with a CMx3 game. As long as it is CMx2 engine v5 you have to move [i]somewhere[/i], no? Is there a 100,000 copy theater left?

CM:YK, Middle East '73?

 

[kohlenklau]

1 hour ago, CarlXII said:

where's all the friendly rich guys when you need them

A funny sad story I learned last night. I recently started enjoying playing VASL with a CM PBEM opponent forumite buddy. He is very learned in ASL history and has old ASL magazines from way back. One article from 1990 something was about my buddy's favorite niche German AT weapon, the "Bufla" which was an 88 on a big half-track, like 8 were made and used in France 1940. The article was written by a guy named Curt Schilling. Curt loved ASL and also happened to be a professional baseball player. Boston Red Sox pitcher. Long story short, he lost his entire baseball career fortune of $115 million creating/investing in a video game company in the early 2000's. Went bankrupt and lawsuits drained him dry.

DAMN I WISH HE WOULD HAVE MET STEVE!

[Vacillator]

34 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

the "Bufla" which was an 88 on a big half-track

You have to get these into France 1940 Phil.  Now that won't be easy...

[Erwin]

41 minutes ago, kohlenklau said:

Curt Schilling. Curt loved ASL and also happened to be a professional baseball player. Boston Red Sox pitcher. Long story short, he lost his entire baseball career fortune of $115 million creating/investing in a video game company in the early 2000's. Went bankrupt and lawsuits drained him dry.

I remember that as well.  He bought out The Gamers and IIRC Avalon Hill for cardboard games as well as he was a big fan of ASL.  "Multi-Man Publishing" was also his company.  Really sad...  

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/28343/curt-schilling

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/09/years-after-bankruptcy-curt-schilling-settles-rhode-island-gaming-loans/ 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Erwin

[Bulletpoint]

3 hours ago, kohlenklau said:

This all reminds me of that time back in high school when I tried to get my buddies' sister to take off her bra. She just would not listen to reason of how good it could be.

She was likely worried about the opportunity cost.

[massi9797Dz]

steve any news from slitherine guys about the updates ??