Flipper Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 just read that combatsim.com is now going to charge a 3.95$ monthly service fee to basically read an post on there forum's I was pretty surprised that he said he was getting hit by about 14 millon times a month an that he could'nt afford the bandwith,too bad I really liked going there too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mscano Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Good-bye combatsim, we hardly knew ya. ------------------ If it bleeds, we can kill it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Clark Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 If I refuse to pay to play a game online (Everquest, etc...) I sure as heck aint gonna pay to read a forum. Pay forums are a step in a horrifying online direction... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew Hedges Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I'm sure that BTS wouldn't charge for this forum because it's such good advertising for their products. Combatsim, of course, has no products. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Clark Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I'm sure that is correct, for this forum and hopefully all game company forums. Plus, this forum gives great free tech support, and thus makes BTS look even better. Couldn't Combatsim have made cash some other way, like through the use of ads or something, since they supposedly receive sooooo many hits every day? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew Hedges Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Mr. Clark: Couldn't Combatsim have made cash some other way, like through the use of ads or something, since they supposedly receive sooooo many hits every day?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> You'd think so, either by selling ads, or by selling their site to be part of a site that would like to have that many hits. I think their subscription based system won't work at all. It didn't work for slate, and the only site's it's really worked for -- Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports -- have fairly unique content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Authorization Required This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Dang it, where's my visa card. [This message has been edited by iggi (edited 12-30-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Madmatt Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Hmmmm....... Madmatt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte99 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Combatsim, or combatsimian, or whatever, can go to hell. It's not like there's only one place to post one's insipid opinions. If they're really hoping to survive by making money this way, they're dead already. ------------------ "Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose." - Don Quixote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manx Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 In many, many respects, this forum is unique - 1). The game's developers are regular posters on the board, relaying news on everything CM. Where else do you see that?. 2). On this board Charles, Steve, Madmatt and KwazyDog have a whole army of wargame enthusiasts that provide feedback on gameplay issues and ways inwhich CM can be further improved. 3). We are BTS salesmen!. Show us a site with a Game Poll on and we will vote for CM. Newbies are encouraged to d/l the Demo and see for themselves just how good the game is. 4). Where else would you ever get to see the "pit of depravity" that is the PENG thread?. In short - No need for BTS to employ Marketing men, Salesmen, Researcher's and Tester's. Why on earth would they ever want to charge us!? ------------------ COMBAT MISSIONS - CM News, Supplies & Resources WWW.COMBATMISSIONS.CO.UK [This message has been edited by Manx (edited 12-30-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I don't think that we should be telling people to go to h*ll just because they want to charge for thier work though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MantaRay Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I would pay $3.95 a month to read this forum. I am addicted. $48 a year. Very cheap entertainment if you look at it. Ray ------------------ When asked, "How many moves do you see ahead?", CAPABLANCA replied: "One move - the best one." Click now for shelter from the Peng thread The Red Army of the Rugged Defense Group Ladder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I wonder if it will work for them. I certainly wouldn't pay to visit even though I like the site. I think they'll end up wiping themselves out of hits in a year. They should just do the banner ad thing if they need bucks. I'd much rather put up with ads than see another monthly ding on the old credit card. If it does work for them then we are all totally screwed. It will catch on and we'll have to budget $50 per month to visit 10-12 of our favorite sites. You want to download the latest patch for some game that was rushed out for Christmas, but you can't because you haven't subscribed to the site! Geez, I could really get worked up over this if I let myself. Time to chill out. BOYCOTT PAY SITES !!!!!!!! EDIT: If you go to Combatsim.com and click on the "Contact Us" link you will see that they are trying to sell advertising space. My guess is nobody wants to advertise there. Hardcore simmers probably don't click on banners. The truly hard core Falcon 4.0 types would probably rather pay than look at ads. Also, it will keep the spammers and trolls out. I wouldn't pay for ANY forum. This forum is worth $10 per month to me, but I would never pay it because I don't want to encourage the trend. If combatsim.com succeeds it is truly bad for the sim community. This could easily spill over into the wargame community. If there's money to be made in it others will find a way to justify it. Please, don't pay for any forums that may try this stunt. Treeburst155 [This message has been edited by Treeburst155 (edited 12-31-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monte99 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Let the laws of capitalism prevail. People want to pay for a bulletin board, fine. People don't want to pay, they quit posting or go elsewhere. My guess is, the concept of paying for forum membership is, at best, a little ahead of its time. ------------------ "Arms are my ornaments, warfare my repose." - Don Quixote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Hey snapper head, did you check out the pricing of the banners at CS? 500.00 for 30 days. at 10 people running banners that's 5000.00 a month and I would sure bet there are about 40 to 50 different sites running banners there. Now how in the hell do you explain that profit, is that not enough to keep a mom and pop web site up and running. Now after a little research I found that a web domain names run from about 40.00 a year to a few hundred. So just for conversation let us say that he pays out the kazoo at 2000.00 a year for the site name and space. Let us also say that he averages 25 banner runs a month, that's 150,000 a year, minus his 2000.00 is 148,000. Now I assume his writers are all freelance, so he pays 1000.00 a month to the writers, 1000.00 a month for titles and gear and 500.00 a month for updating the web site. That leaves a whopping 118,000 a year, that is just short of 10,000 a month profit. Now either this guy is not the sharpest tool in the shed (which I do not believe) or he is setting it up for a BIG BIG BIG IPO day opening at the market. AND those of you that choose to pay 3.95 a month are just pigs headed for the slaughter. Now I might be totally wrong, like way off key and if I am I'm sorry. And if I ruffled a few feathers, well, sorry but such is life, live with it. Steve Douglas at F4 forum (Delphi) Treeburst Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Rob/1 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Madmatt: Hmmmm....... Madmatt<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Quite guys your giveing Matt ideas! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Treeburst155 Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Sure Matt is getting ideas. I would be too if I had a busy site. That's the point. If CSim pulls it off we'll be paying for access all over the place. If there is money to be made people will do it. I don't blame them one bit. It's up to us to make sure there is no money in it. Boycott Pay Sites!! Treeburst155 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phil stanbridge Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I was thinking about subscribing to their site. I remember way back when they tried to bring out a bi-monthly magazine. I subscribed to it to be told a few weeks later that they couldn't get the finance for it. They were very professional about it all though. Hell, I even got a refund! I've been reading pages on their site for years. I have to say, I think it is (was) one of the best sim sites out there. Although lately, I'm wondering.. Their take on B17II. Hmm.. Seemed more like a plug than a non biased review. Will anyone here subscribe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tasman Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 I have to admit I was disgusted this afternoon when I hopped on over to my favourite game site and saw that I now had to pay to read the content. If I want to do that I will buy a magazine. I thought you were supposed to lose money doing anything on the Internet. You do what you do coz you want to be famous not get rich. Also, and typical of many websites, the editor assumes that America is the centre of the universe and therefore anyone not living there will have to pay by international money order only. Well screw him. It would cost me 3 times as much as the monthly fee to get a money order from the greedy scum who run our banks here in Australia so, aside from the fact that I refuse to pay to read what I can read elsewhere for free, I can't afford too as the method of payment I am being forced to use is not economical. Doesn't this guy trust "foreigners"? Obviously his plan to make money is going to fail. Noone will spend money to read the forums (which is where most of us probably spent our time in on that site) and we can just go to the numerous other combat sim type websites around. Sure they may not be as good as CombatSim but seeing as that site will be out of existence within a month or so, I imagine all the regular contributers, reviewers, etc will start offering their work to the other sites. Don't forget those guys & girls like to keep their name in the spotlight and there is not much point having your work published on a website nobody goes to. One thing I can't work out though is this. If he is getting 14 mill hits (or whatever it was) I would have thought that the advertising revenue from banner ads alone would keep him in beer and cigarettes. A shame but that's business I guess. Happy New Year to you all. Regards, Tasman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wesreidau Posted December 31, 2000 Share Posted December 31, 2000 Hmm....it seems a lot of you are missing the point Combatsim.com are trying to get across gentlemen. CombatSim.com generated 14 million hits last month, which is amazing! BUT, it also means they have to pay for the bandwidth for those impressions, including downloads etc. Thats gotta be a hell of a lot of data - which will cost a small fortune. Its got nothing to do with domain name registrations, and less to do with salaries - its pretty much all to do with paying the hosting company. However, I noted that they organise all the banner ads themselves, maybe this is where they fall down? ie Not spending the enough time on the business-end of the marketing of the site. One thing doesn`t sit right with me though, and actually prompted me to be quite concerned about the net industry as a whole. This is the fact that if 14 million impressions cannot generate enough ad revenue to cover a 2-person business then what is the future for home-based sites? Gulp...hmm, this cannot be right? Or is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flipper Posted January 1, 2001 Author Share Posted January 1, 2001 I hope these guys are making money hand over fist, sure there are other site's that deal with cmbo,but with cm2 coming down the pike they could literally hold us hostage with previews etc...and I for one would have to pay. it's out of the goodness of their heart that they would'nt consider it i hope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pzvg Posted January 1, 2001 Share Posted January 1, 2001 Nice observation Wesrei, And on target, my guess is that less than 1% of site visitors hit a banner, And you know what? the price of bandwidth keeps going up as the host companies realise what a cash cow they have. But no, I think CombatSim may have just received a self-inflicted wound, I hear too many folks nowadays complaining about the price of MMOG's,how do you think they'll react to paying for a forum? (hint, the word is...INCOMING!) These are my opinions,not the opinions of anyone else,I do not work for a computer company nor do I own stock in one,(but I do have some nicely matured oil futures) Sorry for the disclaimer, but life on the World wide weird is getting a little too interesting. ------------------ Pzvg "Confucious say, it is better to remain silent, and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
von Lucke Posted January 1, 2001 Share Posted January 1, 2001 CombatSim.com is deluding themselves if they think they are so indespensable that content on their site can't be had elsewhere for free... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Col Deadmarsh Posted January 1, 2001 Share Posted January 1, 2001 I wonder if it's possible for companies like Combatsim to make it a necessity to click on the banner ads to access the forums. Maybe this way, everyone would win. Sure the user would have to go through an extra step to get to the content but this would make it possible for the advertisers to pay for ads and know for certain they are being clicked on. I'm sure the advertisers would be much more willing to pay if this scenario were to be introduced. You can't make the consumer buy the product but you can make him pay closer attention to what is being said about the product. ------------------ Youth is wasted on the young. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Andrew Hedges Posted January 1, 2001 Share Posted January 1, 2001 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Colonel_Deadmarsh: I wonder if it's possible for companies like Combatsim to make it a necessity to click on the banner ads to access the forums. Maybe this way, everyone would win. Sure the user would have to go through an extra step to get to the content but this would make it possible for the advertisers to pay for ads and know for certain they are being clicked on. I'm sure the advertisers would be much more willing to pay if this scenario were to be introduced. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> I'm not sure that the advertisers would like this that much -- I think they want clicks from people who are actually interested in their product, not clicks from people who see them as an impediment to getting somewhere else. But I also think that charging for content, except in a couple of special circumstances, will be a failure. It works for WSJ because they have unique content not available anywhere else. It works for Consumer Reports for essentially the same reason; also note that CR doesn't sell advertising even in their print mag. It didn't work for Slate, though, and I don't think it will work for Combatsim either; they are just not unique enough, and it's easy enough to get their content elsewhere. Charging has the effect of removing a site from the web, since it can't be linked to from anyplace else (productively, I mean). I do have to wonder about the viablity of places like combatsim, as banner ads alone may not be enough to support a site. I think most people get immune after a while and barely notice them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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