General_solomon Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Heh, your view is wrong. Which it often is from the outside We signed a deal with Paradox because they made us an offer we could not refuse. We decided to do it knowing full well what the implications were, including the inevitable retail budget sell-offs that occur anytime between 1-3 months after the game is out. It's part of the whole plan. At first it was a good plan to make money quickly, now it's what retail has to do because people are expecting it. Since our Modular approach to the series was already fully developed and coded at the time we knew that biting the bullet on $5 budget bin sell-offs for the main game will be balanced out by increasing our customer base for the Modules. This is precisely what we've seen happen with above-expectiation Marines sales, and I would not be surprised if we'll see just the same thing happen again with the Brits does this mean that we are not going to see a bundle offered by paradox? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Correct! As Martin said, we went into this with eyes wide open. Remember who you guys are talking to here... the ones who broke from retail and went exclusively to the 'net long before it was fashionable The reason was the retail arrangement wasn't a good way to go as a main source of income. Starting soon after CMBO we found that retail could be a very good source of income if properly planned for. Which is why most of our games have been put into retail despite us knowing full well what would happen. Still, we always take these things on a case by case basis. As retail gets to be worse in terms of what they can afford to offer, we expect to do fewer retail deals as time goes on. Steve Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
futon river crossing Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 I recently bought the Paradox version for a few quid, I'd avoided buying CMSF for so long because I'd heard it had some problems, but for a few quid, it was a no brainer. I patched it straight away - and boy I was impressed!! - I bought the marines module and am now eagerly awaiting the Brits along with everyone else. I'm also pestering a mate to get CMSF as it's so cheap........ so the strategy certainly works CMSF outshines CMx1 by so much that it's now painful to play it. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Excellent! Good to know that we weren't wrong to theorize that people like you exist Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sequoia Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 You know, it's kind of like the way a crack dealer works. They give you the first hit really cheap to get you hooked and then hit you the going price from then on. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricochet67 Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 You know, it's kind of like the way a crack dealer works. They give you the first hit really cheap to get you hooked and then hit you the going price from then on. I'm not addicted. I can walk away anytime I want. Honest. So, when are the British coming? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrocles Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 hopefully, this low price on CMSF will drag in folks to also buy CM Normandy when it is released this year! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GSX Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 hopefully, this low price on CMSF will drag in folks to also buy CM Normandy when it is released this year! Turning to CM Normandy. Without a retailer how does the message get out there to the target audience that a new game is available. CMSF I would imagine is being played by a lot less guys now than actually bought the original game. I also imagine that a very high proportion of guys who bought it upon release, stopped playing before they even got to the 1st patch for various reasons, thats just what most guys do (I have countless wargames that were pleayed for a few days/weeks and then never thought of again). I saw CMSF in stores where I never seen it advertised on the web. BF stated that wargamers alone werent the audience required and so how do they repeat the process of the initial bulk sale to the 'soapless masses'? Or does BF see CMN as a return to the wargamer niche market? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 hopefully, this low price on CMSF will drag in folks to also buy CM Normandy when it is released this year! Well, unless it turns them off. What patch CM:SF version comes with that Paradox CD? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 GSX, Turning to CM Normandy. Without a retailer how does the message get out there to the target audience that a new game is available. A good question, and one which we've been asking ourselves since before we even started Battlefront The primary benefit of retail is it exposes a game to more eyeballs in more places than the Internet does. At least that's been the case for mainstream games up until this recession. At some point retail will go away completely. Probably not for a very long time, though. So even though retail is already on a downward trend for the software industry as a whole, it's got quite a long way to fall before snuffing out (nearly) completely. The problem for us is that at some point the cost of doing business with retail outweighs the benefits. We're not there yet, however we are adjusting our strategy for using retail as a tool to benefit us (and by extension you) instead of the middlemen. On the surface it looks like Paradox is hurting us by "shovelware" sales tactics, but we think it is helping us. Not because we get *any* money from these sales (effectively we don't), but because of the exposure it gives us. Bottomline... if one understands the beast, and one isn't locked in the cage with it, one can do quite well by retail for some time to come. We're not in the cage and we definitely understand the beast Redwolf, Well, unless it turns them off. Lower prices have never, ever turned off customers. Just look at Wal-Mart Most of what they sell is not only cheaply priced but complete and utter garbage. Yet people snap it up so much and so fast that Wal-Mart is the single largest employer in the world IIRC. What patch CM:SF version comes with that Paradox CD? Quite old, I'm sure. The retail product was built a long time ago and, like our own physical product, tends to last for years after the initial rush of purchasing dies down. Their online version, however, should be up-to-date. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 What patch CM:SF version comes with that Paradox CD? From what I recall Paradox did produce a second batch of CDs on top of the original 1.0 release at least once (perhaps twice). But it's still probably quite old, like 1.0-something. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Redwolf Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Hmmm, don't you think that's a problem? No matter what you think of CM:SF today, the older code versions were really not that great advertising for future CM products. And people who jump on $5 deals are probably on average not patch-downloaders. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pad152 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 WARNING !!! Beware of GamersGate ! They use a third party for credit card transactions that adds charges to your credit card. I purchased an a game for $1.99 then got charged a $10.00 cash advance fee and another $15.00 fee from my credit card company for the cash advance. $25.00 in charges for a $1.99 item! I had a heck of a time getting the charges removed because the third party biller is also used by gambling sites. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pandur Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 steve, would that possibly mean or include, that CM:N could be published by "any" published in retail, similar to CMSF, in order to get a base for the game through low price and so hook em for the modules? i mean i can see it worked quiet well with CMSF 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fancykiller65 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 WARNING !!! Beware of GamersGate ! They use a third party for credit card transactions that adds charges to your credit card. I purchased an a game for $1.99 then got charged a $10.00 cash advance fee and another $15.00 fee from my credit card company for the cash advance. $25.00 in charges for a $1.99 item! I had a heck of a time getting the charges removed because the third party biller is also used by gambling sites. Use Paypal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Redwolf, The problem with physical product is it is almost always out of date, whether by one minor fix or lots of major ones. I think most people are well aware of this fact and therefore most check for patches before they use whatever they bought. I know I do that, and have since the Internet became a viable means of updating. Would it be better if the physical product were completely up to date? You bet. But unless the product is shipped using an on-demand system direct from the source (which most of our product now is, but not all), there's no practical way for the disks to be the same as the shipping version most of the time. It's not like everybody in retail is going to chuck what they have just because a new patch came out Pandur, Each year that passes our requirements for retail deals becomes more strict. Partly because we can afford to be fussier, partly because retail publishers are requiring the ability to sell online like Gamersgate from Paradox. This means we have less to gain from a relationship unless they offer us other things we want. Due to the economic downturn (which started about 2 years ago) those sorts of offers have been getting worse, not better. Therefore, we don't know yet if we'll have a retail partner for CM: Normandy right off the bat. Eventually, almost certainly we will. That's because as the product ages our requirements become less stringent since our risks are lowered. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrocles Posted July 25, 2009 Author Share Posted July 25, 2009 Well, unless it turns them off. What patch CM:SF version comes with that Paradox CD? Yeah, that is a distinct possiblity. I think this is what happened when BF was "caught with its pants down" and had to release CMSF a bit early (assuming this initial release disaster was not intentional) and in a buggy state. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pad152 Posted July 25, 2009 Share Posted July 25, 2009 Use Paypal. Using Paypal does not protect you. You can get charges on credit cards removed but, not if you use Paypal. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bentley004 Posted July 26, 2009 Share Posted July 26, 2009 Using Paypal does not protect you. You can get charges on credit cards removed but, not if you use Paypal. The point is that there will be no additional charges when you use paypal, it's not another sketchy third party pay service like the other options on that site. PS, just bought it Modern combat doesn't interest me that much, but I figure I should get used to the new engine before CM:N... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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