An interesting, if somewhat harsh analogy

[Kanonier Reichmann]

I read this piece by a very talented poster at another site devoted to wargames and felt it was so clever that it needed to see the light of day at other sites. It is somewhat controversial but I personally feel there are some useful insights within it.

One day, a small group of filmmakers sets off to make a movie. They have a small budget and are using relatively cheap equipment. Yet the filmmakers have a certain undeniable natural talent. The film they make (lets say it's a documentary about butterflies, just for the sake of argument), while clearly low-budget (think Blair Witch Project) is nevertheless a work of film making genius (stop thinking Blair Witch Project). The project is clearly a labor of love, and the filmmakers have painstaking captured the life-cycles of monarchs, yellow swallow-tails, green veined whites, and xerces blues in breath taking detail never before seen. It is a triumph of film making at levels the Lepidopteran world has never before dreamed of, much less seen.

Butterfly fans the world over rejoice. Finally, someone has made a movie that captures their interests! The rush out and see it over and over, and gush wildly about it. Sure, the production values are a bit toward the bottom of the barrel, but they hardly notice, transfixed as they are by the never before seen close up images of butterflies in action. Finally, someone has done justice to their passion. The butterfly community (assuming there is one) the world over sings the praises of the film makers. "These guys are geniuses," they shout to anyone who will listen. The film creates such a stir among butterfly aficionados that other (normal) people start to take notice. The film is given several awards. Critics love the film and wonder aloud why more such quality films aren't being made. The film is hailed as a ground breaking example of what a movie should be. People are happy.

Meanwhile, the film makers start talking amongst themselves. "Dang, we're geniuses. Isn't that what everyone is saying?" they think, managing to not entirely notice the fact that 90% of the people saying it are butterfly people. "Here we are, a few guys with not much of a budget and crude equipment, doing the final editing on our daughter's Speak 'n' Spell, and still we manage to make a film everyone says is one of the best in years. We rock. We're making better movies than these big studios with $100 million dollar budgets and such." Then they notice something - while their film was widely hailed as an amazing piece of film making, they didn't make a whole lot of money off it, being that most of the people who paid to see it were butterfly enthusiasts (which may not, technically, exist). "We make a great film, but don't make hardly a cent on it - that doesn't seem right," the film makers muse. "What we need to do is make a film that appeals to a broader market. But we need to stick to what we know. Let's make a mass-market butterfly film - then we can really cash in on our skillz. Think of how much we can make if a wider audience came to see our movie." There are high-fives all around.

The butterfly community is excited - finally, their passion is getting the treatment it deserves. "I can't wait to see what these guys do next," they think. "The best butterfly movie makers ever are going to go for round 2. It'll be just like the first one, only better and cooler and super neato and I JUST CAN'T WAIT!!!" they say to each other while skipping around and clapping their hands and twirling their butterfly nets in such joy and anticipation that they almost hop right out of their plaid pants. Meanwhile, the rest of the world (the normal part) looks on with mild interest. "These guys made a good movie, even if it was about butterflies. Maybe their second one will be cool enough to go see, especially if they drop some of the geekier butterfly commentary and make it a little more accessible".

After months of anticipation and wrangling with the Speak 'n' Spell, the film makers are finally ready to release their new movie. It is with pride and anticipation that they unveil their second masterpiece: Hairy Caterpillar and the Chrysalis of Fire. The initial reaction is a bit mixed. "That sounds...um...different," people say.

"Trust us," the film makers respond. "It's a great movie - go see it".

So people go see it. And are not happy.

The butterfly people can't believe they wasted their money on it. "That was nothing like your first movie," they say. "Your first movie was a marvel of detailed film work, exposing the hidden world of the butterfly. This one was some strange fantasy/action movie that featured a magic spell slinging butterfly fighting some sort of other-worldly red syntax challenged beast and his pet bonobo. It was nothing like the first one at all, except for the incidental (and somewhat odd) inclusion of a butterfly as a main character."

The film makers are incredulous. "Well," they say "clearly you butterfly wonks know nothing about the world of film making. To make big money you can't make documentaries, you have to make action flicks. But it's still a butterfly movie, which we know you like. So you must like this one. Anyway, we're not making any more butterfly documentaries, just butterfly action flicks. So start liking this one, or you won't get any sort of butterfly movies at all. Besides, we know films, and this is a good one. If you keep watching it, you'll eventually realize that this is the kind of movie you really like, and forget all about that documentary, which really wasn't that good anyway."

"But this movie was stupid," the butterfly people respond.

"Don't you remember how you said we were geniuses?" the film makers ask. "We know movies better than you. We're telling you this one is better. If you claim you like the first one better, you must be lying, because we, as the geniuses, say the second one is better. Who are you going to believe? A genius or a stupid butterfly collector?"

Meanwhile, some normal (non-butterfly) people go see the movie. "That was pretty dumb," is the consensus. "It was basically a low-budget action movie. All the special effects were pretty lame. And it looks like they did the final editing on my sister's Speak 'n' Spell or something. If I want to see an action flick, I want it to look good - you just can't pull that off on the budget they're operating with. And what's with the butterfly as a main character? That was just weird."

"You just don't get it," the film makers protest. "We are geniuses. You want to see realistic car crashes and explosions? It just can't be done. All this film making is hard stuff, what with all the cameras and wires and temperamental Speak 'n' Spells and such. Sure the end product might look a bit sloppier than you're used to, but you got to admit, we're genius film makers. And look, this movie has a butterfly in it."

"We don't care if you're geniuses or not," the normal people reply. "We just like cool special effects in our action movies, and you don't have that. We don't really care about butterflies. And if we do want to see a butterfly movie, Dreamworks is coming out with a butterfly war movie (Full Metalmark Jacket) with a $200 million dollar budget that I'm sure will be a lot more to our tastes."

And so both crowds walk away dissatisfied, the butterfly people longing for a return to serious butterfly movies, the normal people uninterested in low budget films when there are plenty of big-budget options around them.

Meanwhile the film makers begin planning to shoot their next hit, Hairy Caterpillar and the Order of the Lepidoptera. "People are really going to go for this one," they think to themselves, "after all, we are geniuses".

As I said, a wee bit controversial but I personally feel that no-one or no entity is above criticism and there is perhaps a grain of truth within it.

Regards

Jim R.

[Thomm]

This article and the whole discussion around it is built on the assumption that the dozens of people that were/are so verbal about the "mistakes" of BFC cannot be compensated for by multiple new customers each, for whom real time is more accessible, one-to-one modelling has more appeal, and the new weapon systems are more interesting. Personally, I think this assumption is wrong.

BFC has also made it clear repeatedly, that they could not sustain the amount of content (and features) of the CMx1 games commercially for longer. I do not understand what is so difficult to understand about this. Would you rather have one more CMx1 game and then have them go out of business?

Also, let me counter-balance at least one of the critics: I did not buy CM:AK when it came out as a means of silent protest against the fact that the terrain rendering failed for desert terrain (without gridlines). Only much later I picked it up from a bargain bin and played like three missions for a total of 8 hours before I decided that this is a waste of my time and deinstalled it. This is not meant as an offence, btw, just to express that the friggin' WeGo games took too long to complete. Do you think I would have bought another CMx1 game?

Best regards,

Thomm

[Thomm]

Redwolf at GameSquad suggested to look at Amazon sales ranks! An excellent suggestion!

CMBO: rank 3349

CMBB: rank 16727

CMAK: rank 21529

Do you see a pattern?

CM:SF: rank 6509

Best regards,

Thomm

[Kanonier Reichmann]

All good points certainly. I did acknowledge that the analogy is harsh and I'm fully in agreement why the future of the Combat Mission series has changed to a module basis to ensure BFC's survival from a cash flow perspective.

I'm concerned however that there still needs to be sufficient depth within each module to keep ones interest in continuing to play the game although it is taken as a given that there won't be the breadth as existed with the CMx1 series. In my opinion this is crucial to the future success of CMx2 and if there is a significantly crippled ability to auto generate battles or select forces that make sense in a Quickbattle situation then this could be a serious problem for the longevity of the new generation of Combat Mission games.

Fingers crossed that I'll be proven wrong about this!

Regards

Jim R.

[hcrof]

I don't get it, if the poster is talking about CM:SF, how can he compare it to a fantasy/action movie?

I don't see how CMSF is any less deep or realistic than CMBB. Some of the armour values might still be unknown on modern tanks but with 1:1 modeling, full C2, different optics systems, better penetration modeling including subsystems and an improved air/arty model I would say that CMBB etc looks a bit gamey by comparison.

In the next game there will be a new quick battle system and better modeling for fortifications so by the time Normandy comes out, people will be able to compare the 2 systems directly and will find CMx2 distinctly superior in almost every aspect. (Assuming no F***ups )

[Moon]

I have to disagree with the subject line. It's not harsh nor is it interesting.

If this is supposed to be related to BFC then the only thing it is it's incorrect, the fantasy work of someone who, interestingly enough, remains unmentioned in the entire "story" (if the "normal people" walk away, then who is this guy writing it?).

BFC has been declared dead and buried since basically the first month it was made public. Usually for the same reasons, too ("you're not making the games I want"). Personally, it makes me yawn by now. Good that I'm on vacation right now (sort of) or I'd be p*d about the wasted time to read and reply

[Redwolf]

Redwolf at GameSquad suggested to look at Amazon sales ranks! An excellent suggestion!

CMBO: rank 3349

CMBB: rank 16727

CMAK: rank 21529

Do you see a pattern?

CM:SF: rank 6509

Best regards,

Thomm

Unfortunately since I looked last these games have fallen out of being offered by Amazon itself, and not all variants of CMx1 are offered anymore. The above sales ranks are achieved with third part sales through Amazon. That distorts the numbers heavily. You will notice that CMSF is offered much cheaper than the CMx1 games, the CMx1 games are "joke priced" and people will probably go to ebay or whatever instead.

I posted earlier numbers here and at GS/WFHQ.

The Amazon numbers have one use, though: they support that CMAK was selling much worse than the other two, and always has.

ETA: just to clarify, I am not the author of the above main writeup, I think it came from a non-regular contributor at GS, although some regulars received it warmly.

[Skinnedpuppy]

Redwolf at GameSquad suggested to look at Amazon sales ranks! An excellent suggestion!

CMBO: rank 3349

CMBB: rank 16727

CMAK: rank 21529

Do you see a pattern?

CM:SF: rank 6509

Best regards,

Thomm

Not sure what your point was here, other posters might not undrestand what the sales rank shows.

To claify this clearly shows CMBO is still popular followed by CMSF (in the eyes of Amazon)

From Amazon's site:-

What Sales Rank Means

As an added service for customers, authors, publishers, artists, labels, and studios, we show how items in our catalog are selling. The lower the number, the higher the sales for that particular item. The calculation is based on Amazon.com sales and is updated each hour to reflect recent and historical sales of every item sold on Amazon.com. We hope you find the Amazon.com Sales Rank interesting!

For comparison here are the rankings from Amazon UK (i assume the rankings posted are from Amazon in the US) makes interesting reading. (There are muliple entries for CMBO beacause of the way it was relaesed in Europe under mulitple publishers this does skew the figures here) Also as Redwolf suggested the prices are variable which must also have an affect, interestingly CMSF at £10 seems to be doing well, and cmak is more popular than CMBO and CMBB which show's the opposite of the previous figures

Anthology 10,774

CMBO 15,888

CMBO (Explosiv) 13,694

CMBO (Explosiv) II 13,700

CMBO (CDV) 15,188

CMBO (CDV) II 18,490

CMBB 10,764

CMAK 5,219

Shockforce 7,823

[c3k]

I will always fondly remember the OP due to the inclusion of "Lepidopteran". Sheer genius, that. I agree that CMSF needs more butterflies. Based on the screenshot of CM Normandy with the Tigers in the flower filled field (say that fast three times), I believe that CM will finally be modelling butterflies.

Or, did I misread something?

Ken

[Ron]

Hardly interesting or harsh methinks, and not even a relevant analogy except to those disenchanted 'few' I guess.

I wonder about all this fascination and speculation about sales etc. Unless you're privy to insider material, the only facts to consider are what BFC says and does. I would take them to be reasonably intelligent people who know what they are doing and the direction needed to be taken; nothing that has occurred since CMBO has contradicted that.

Just as the facts speak for themselves in regards to many of those at the site where this came from.

[Thomm]

I did not put too much energy in my Amazon research, I openly admit. I apologize if the results are skewed as a result.

Best regards,

Thomm

[General_solomon]

I dont know about you folks but i cant go back to abstracted Infantry. I am glad that BFC finally went to 1:1 infantry modeling.

1.10 and 1.11 is playable now and it can only get better.

This engine is amazing. I challenge anyone of you to find in the game industry a comparable game that also has a editor built in.

[Redwolf]

The reason why I disagree with the "movie" analogy that is in the first post is very simple:

I think that execution of a plan and taking care of the details is more important that the initial plan.

CM:SF isn't fun for me, but it has nothing to do with 1:1, lack of vehicles, lack of more theaters or the modern setting.

It only has to do with little things that are deadlocked in "no fun" mode. None of them have to do with the fundamental decisions about where to go after CMx1.

Insofar I think the movie analogy is invalid (although I realize for some the modern setting is just right out).

[MikeyD]

Another false analogy involves the imagined film makers imagining themselves 'geniuses'. If the 'film makers' had instead imagined themselves avante garde artists not chasing box office stardom then the analogy would be more apt. I can think of a lot of popular successful film making that I would never want to be associated with (a.k.a. everything produced by Adam Sandler). Would you REALLY prefer BFC to be the Adam Sandler of computer games? There's already plenty of Adam Sandler gamemakers out there.

[MehMan]

I dont know about you folks but i cant go back to abstracted Infantry. I am glad that BFC finally went to 1:1 infantry modeling.

1.10 and 1.11 is playable now and it can only get better.

This engine is amazing. I challenge anyone of you to find in the game industry a comparable game that also has a editor built in.

Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault.

Guessing that games that use editors as 3rd party applications are excluded.

I think Homeworld has one too.

[Drusus]

I would like to know where this was posted originally. Google doesn't find anything else than the battlefront.com post...

[Field Marshal Blücher]

Operation Flashpoint, Armed Assault.

You think those are comparable to CM:SF? They're a completely different genre . . . they're excellent games, but I wouldn't call them comparable to CM:SF. They do certain things that CM:SF doesn't and can't possibly even attempt to do, and vice versa.

[MehMan]

Well, somewhat comparable. But, yes, a different league all together.

[flamingknives]

I will not be as verbose as the initial analogy, but picture a similar situation about a slightly different subject, say automobiles. A small company decides to build a car in a fashion that is somewhat controversial. Many decry the approach while others are avid supporters. After some time the car is produced, to much critical acclaim and the supporters rejoice whilst the naysayers continue to gripe and moan about "selling out" and other such comments.

The company goes on making automobiles based on the same chassis, but as time goes by, mistakes made in the initial design means that it is harder and harder to extract any more from it, and even the standard equipment changes (new CD player, speakers etc) are harder and harder to implement. The company takes the only logical course of action and decide to start from scratch. By this time they've had enough of say, coupes, and decide to do open-top sports cars as a bit of a change, with an eye to making the architecture of the car more modular and easier to upgrade, using the skills they learnt on the first cars.

When this is announced, the room is once again filled with those who are supportive and those who are negative, just like before.

Oh to heck with it. I haven't the energy to argue with the willfully intransigent. Rewind this scene ten years and the people complaining now are the people who were complaining about it going 3D with live action phases. It might not be the same people but they occupy the same position.

[MikeyD]

Wait wait, I have another analogy. Say BFC sells pudding...

[BlackMoria]

If the analogy is a direct reference to BFC, it is neither clever nor interesting and it is devoid of useful insights because the analogy misses the mark.

As a rant, I give it 3.5 out of 10 because most people are going to miss the point the rant is painfully trying to get to unless they are very long time members who discourse in certain forums. I certainly didn't make any connection to BFC because the analogy is so poor. I thought it was a poke at the industry as a whole but a poor one at that because it is both verbose to the point of offputting for me and the analogy is so poorly constructed that I still don't see it, despite other posters saying it a commentary about BFC.

[Battlefront.com]

Hmmm... verbose, not clever, not interesting, insulting, detached from reality, and full of egotistical chest thumping... I think I know who wrote it Fortunately, unless someone cross posts something of his here I don't have to be subjected to the diatribes any more. It's as pointless as trying to argue with someone in a padded cell who says he's Napoleon.

Ron,

I wonder about all this fascination and speculation about sales etc.

I don't either, except to surmise that some people are obsessed with trying to find fault with our strategy that sounds better than "I'm a spoiled brat and I want everything without having to pay for it".

The fact is they are correct that market forces are important. Their problem is that the market forces, and results, don't support the flawed argument they've presented. And that argument is that we made some massive mistake moving away from the CMx1 game system for CMx2. So when I say things like CM:SF (including Marines) sales revenue dwarfs CMx1 sales revenue since CM:SF was released (with the gap widening each month), or that TOW (a game they despise, by and large) sold VERY well, they have to start inventing an alternative reality otherwise their arguments fall apart very quickly. The reality is the type of person who believes the tripe written on other Forums is not our prime customer. Never has been, never will be. Game companies that cater to that customer either go out of business or have low production standards in order to remain a viable business. Alienating the most irrational of this crowd doesn't concern us in the least since there is no way to please them no matter what. Why bother?

Unless you're privy to insider material, the only facts to consider are what BFC says and does.

True, but every time we do state the facts (and they are very much facts) we are called liars. Which speaks far more about the problems of the person saying that than it does us. To think that someone can look at the ranking on Amazon (or any other place) and find information sufficient enough to claim we're wrong is... well... interesting.

In the end it doesn't matter because the only people that need the accurate data have the accurate data. And that's us Why is this important? Because gamers don't have to plan their futures. They see a game, decide if they want it, and then make the decision to purchase or not. There's nothing beyond that. For us, we have to plan on staying in business in order to make those games. Big difference.

And the facts are as follows:

CMBO sold way more than we ever guessed it would. CMBB was a sales disappointment compared to the effort that was put into it. CMAK was about what we expected, however our expectations were fairly low. CM:SF has sold about what we expected, despite the initial problems with it. CM:SF Marines sold more than we expected (and I mean more than we expected before CM:SF was released!). We expect British Module to do about expected, but it's too early to say. Also too early to say about any of our other games not-yet-released.

We've explained our strategy and why we've adopted it. Ultimately the customer will decide if we made the right decisions or not. Early results (and CMx2 is still very young) show that we made the right move. It amuses us to no end that our most vocal critics are also the most demonstrably clueless about what's really going on. Which is why we don't care about what they say. They're as irrelevant as they are wrong.

I would take them to be reasonably intelligent people who know what they are doing and the direction needed to be taken; nothing that has occurred since CMBO has contradicted that.

You would think that, but the small flaw in the theory is some people are reasonably intelligent but not emotionally or psychologically stable. That kinda colors their judgement a bit. Again, not that it matters... they aren't able to run our company into the ground because they aren't in control of it. Which is the underlying problem here. They want to be game developers but don't have the skills, courage, or fortitude to do it. Easier to be a bitter, twisted complainer than to actually put their money where their mouth is. I know that personally since I faced that choice back in 1992 and decided to go for it. It certainly hasn't been all cupcakes and icecream since then

Steve

[MikeyD]

some people are reasonably intelligent but not emotionally or psychologically stable.

I'm reminded of an old buddy of mine who at the ripe old age of 21(?) had found himself sitting at the same table as a bigwig from "Consumer Reports". My buddy then proceeded to spend the whole evening bending the poor guy's ear about EXACTLY what was wrong with his magazine. Ohmygod, I can only imagine what it was like to sit through that. The saints preserve us from being button-holed by self-appointed "experts".

[Redwolf]

I would like to know where this was posted originally. Google doesn't find anything else than the battlefront.com post...

A forum currently named "gamesquad" (unless I lost track), a poster named "The Coil".

Note that "The Coil" is not a regular over there. People should not take his opinion as representing "the gamesquad crowd" if there is such a thing.

[Battlefront.com]

To get back to something Thomm said,

This article and the whole discussion around it is built on the assumption that the dozens of people that were/are so verbal about the "mistakes" of BFC cannot be compensated for by multiple new customers each, for whom real time is more accessible, one-to-one modelling has more appeal, and the new weapon systems are more interesting. Personally, I think this assumption is wrong.

You are correct to think it is wrong. There is not a product out there that doesn't have its detractors. Same thing for companies. I've asked this question of such people hundreds of times (feels like it anyway) and they NEVER answer it:

"were the Steel Panthers and Close Combat people correct when they said CMBO wasn't any fun, wasn't realistic, wasn't a good game, looked like crap, wargames needed to be 2D top down, needed to be IGOYOUGO (SP crowd) or realtime (Close Combat crowd), etc?"

They can't answer this because if they do they basically admit that some people hated CMBO/BB/AK and still do. This causes problems for them since now they find themselves on the outside looking in. They have as much authority to claim CMx2 is a waste of time as the SP and CC people had to say CMx1 was a waste of time. And since SP and CC are basically dead products... it doesn't give their position much credibility, does it?

BFC has also made it clear repeatedly, that they could not sustain the amount of content (and features) of the CMx1 games commercially for longer. I do not understand what is so difficult to understand about this. Would you rather have one more CMx1 game and then have them go out of business?

They would rather us go out of business. Their mentality is very much the same as SP and CC... "if I don't personally it, it's crap and therefore has no right to exist". Not a very rational or reasonable line of thinking, but then again we're not talking about reasonable or rational people. We're talking about overly emotional people with problems that most likely have nothing to do with CM, Battlefront, or gaming at all.

Also, let me counter-balance at least one of the critics: I did not buy CM:AK when it came out as a means of silent protest against the fact that the terrain rendering failed for desert terrain (without gridlines). Only much later I picked it up from a bargain bin and played like three missions for a total of 8 hours before I decided that this is a waste of my time and deinstalled it. This is not meant as an offence, btw, just to express that the friggin' WeGo games took too long to complete. Do you think I would have bought another CMx1 game?

This is another thing which the fringe vocal opposition fails to address when it is presented to them. I've seen many posts state that CMBB must have sold better than CMBO because it was a much better game with even more stuff. I agree with the statement that CMBB is a better game than CMBO, but I'm more informed and therefore know that my opinion doesn't count for much since CMBB sales were quite a bit lower than CMBO. When I explain that some people just don't like the Eastern Front, I'm told that I'm insane because obviously everybody loves the Eastern Front. Then other customers post and said how they skipped CMBB and went right to CMAK or played CMBB a little bit and stopped and went back to CMBO or just bought CMAK and have no interest in the other two. Since this does not fit their preconceived notions... it's ignored and/or dismissed because in their fragile concept of reality what they want is equal to what everybody else wants.

This fringe is incredibly self centered and irrational... which is why we are more likely to listen to them and do the exact opposite on purpose than to listen to them and follow their advice. In fact, if they really want us to go back to a CMx1 abstracted system they should start posting everywhere about how awesome CM:SF is and how brilliant they think we are. If they did that we'd be petrified that we're on the wrong path and switch back to the CMx1 system out of fear we were catering to the wrong crowd. You know, the old reverse psychology trick Trust me, it has more of a chance of working than unbalanced, unfair, untruthful, vicious, emotionally unstable tirades

Steve

P.S. A message to the ones I speak of... I'm sure you'll start on a fresh round of "find a new name for genitals and call Steve it over and over again" over at your clubhouse of exiles. If you really believe your positions you'd post them here instead of posting to places where you know I'll not respond or (as of the last 3 months) even read. It's much easier to hold a position when you aren't required to defend it, so I expect you'll keep the status quo going.