Dual Mac/PC download license

[Aldaros]

As others have pointed out, if one wants to use PhotoShop (or pretty much any multi platform app that can be named) on their PC and their Mac they will need two licenses regardless of if they ever use one at a time.

Steve

I don't know about that; a glance at the 50 most recent Mac games on Steam shows that all 50 have the "Steam play" icon to indicate one purchase gives you both Mac and PC versions, and the average price for those looks to be between $10 and $25 dollars. As a more concrete example, Torchlight was a dual version purchase, and I don't think Runic Games is a multi-million dollar developer.

Don't get me wrong, I completely understand Battlefront's position on this; Battlefront clearly put far more time and sweat into CMBN than the average Steam game mentioned above, and it's their software anyway. And frankly, CMBN is pretty much the only game I'd be willing to pay $60 for twice. Heck, I'd probably pay $120 for a single copy if I had to. I'm just pointing out that, for games, getting both OS versions in one purchase isn't as unusual as it used to be (for both large and small developers).

My question is, what will happen with the modules? If I do buy a second copy for OS X (which I expect to), would I have to purchase two copies of each module as well? And my apologies in advance if that was already answered elsewhere and I just missed it.

[Guest]

I don't know about that; a glance at the 50 most recent Mac games on Steam shows that all 50 have the "Steam play" icon to indicate one purchase gives you both Mac and PC versions, and the average price for those looks to be between $10 and $25 dollars. As a more concrete example, Torchlight was a dual version purchase, and I don't think Runic Games is a multi-million dollar developer.

Hey Aldaros.

Torchlight sold 750,000 copies. Even accounting for a massive Steam cut that's a chunk of change at an average sale price of $15. That's way, way beyond indie. They have a team of 25 people as well.

Also, they didn't use their own engine. They built the game on OGRE, which - again - is fairly easily cross-deployed to OSX and Windows.

Also also, the Mac port was done by a third party and released months *after* the retail Windows release. I'm pretty sure people who bought the retail box didn't get free Mac versions unless they registered them on Steam, which has the power to bully developers into taking very large price cuts anyway, and so really shouldn't be used as a model for the average outcome of honest and free trade.

In short, Steam Play is not a compelling argument in favor of giving away Mac copies in my opinion, and Torchlight in particular fails the "they had to do it the hard way" test as well.

[Battlefront.com]

I don't think Steam is a good thing to compare us to in any way, actually. It's like compare us to GameStop or EA. More differences than similarities.

Steve

[Redwolf]

Hey Aldaros.

Torchlight sold 750,000 copies. Even accounting for a massive Steam cut that's a chunk of change at an average sale price of $15. That's way, way beyond indie. They have a team of 25 people as well.

Also, they didn't use their own engine. They built the game on OGRE, which - again - is fairly easily cross-deployed to OSX and Windows.

Also also, the Mac port was done by a third party and released months *after* the retail Windows release. I'm pretty sure people who bought the retail box didn't get free Mac versions unless they registered them on Steam, which has the power to bully developers into taking very large price cuts anyway, and so really shouldn't be used as a model for the average outcome of honest and free trade.

In short, Steam Play is not a compelling argument in favor of giving away Mac copies in my opinion, and Torchlight in particular fails the "they had to do it the hard way" test as well.

Now you are diverting the argument again. You really need to stop doing that.

Nobody wants a free cookie. People are just asking what makes sense licensing wise and what doesn't.

The way things are now there will be more people with a Macbook (and windows desktop) not playing CMBN at all on the mac (thereby wasting 100% of the development time) than people who go and buy two versions.

It's sad because BFC had made the step to say "ok you only need one license to install on desktop and notebook" but now they added the appendix "unless you are a (smart) sucker and got a macbook".

[leakyD]

leakyD, CMSF doesn't work in any VM that I am aware of, certainly not VMware.

As mentioned it also doesn't work in API mappers such as Wine.

I don't expect it to be different for CMBN.

Didn't think, hence the question if Wine was up to snufff yet. Maybe someday...

I'm partial to Bootcamp, then making VM's from the bootcamp partition (to backup, etc).

Glad to see BFC support both platforms, but for those whining for dual license, just go get a WinOS and use Bootcamp. You'll actually save money after a couple of modules.

[Aldaros]

I don't think Steam is a good thing to compare us to in any way, actually. It's like compare us to GameStop or EA. More differences than similarities.

Steve

I agree that Steam is a store; I was trying to use the various games sold in that store as examples of why Mac and PC licenses for the price of one game isn't completely absurd these days. As far as I know, those developers don't have to sell both licenses together, but they do so anyway; presumably they feel there's some benefit to doing so that outweighs the potential loss of money. I doubt they were all able to just push a "compile for OS X" button to create their Mac version (and if they were, maybe Battlefront could look into whatever they're using? ).

There are probably several good reasons for why Battlefront shouldn't be compared to any developer selling games via Steam. Part of what I'm trying to point out is that those reasons would undoubtedly also eliminate companies like Adobe and Microsoft as valid comparisons for what is reasonable (unless of course Battlefront has a secret side project with a large development team that brings in billions of dollars each year). Anyway, I think I've said enough on that, so I'll let it go.

[Aldaros]

And, since it wasn't answered earlier and a quick search of the forums turned up nothing, will the modules also be sold for a single OS? This is a much more interesting question for me. I don't have CMSF, so I don't know how much of the typical module is new maps/models/skins, and how much is fundamental changes to the underlying codebase that aren't rolled out to vanilla users in updates (e.g. to maintain multiplayer support between versions).

[ClarkWGriswold]

leakyD, CMSF doesn't work in any VM that I am aware of, certainly not VMware.

As mentioned it also doesn't work in API mappers such as Wine.

I don't expect it to be different for CMBN.

You definitely cannot use CMBN in a virtual machine environment. Steve has said it multiple times (in the DRM thread, I believe) and I'm pretty sure I read it in the manual as well. The DRM doesn't play nice with virtualized environments.

[Battlefront.com]

From here on out, Mac releases for everything.

Steve

[ClarkWGriswold]

For what it's worth, I use a Mac at home, but I'm forced to use Windows at work. If a dual license (or maybe even discount license) was available, I'd love to install the game on my Windows machine at work to play during lunch hours and down time. It would be a value add for me. Not having this ability won't prevent me from buying the game (I preordered the Mac version as soon as it was available), but there's no way I'm going to spend another $60 for the Windows version, just so I can play now and then at work. My $0.02.

Speaking for myself, Battlefront isn't going to lose any of my money by not offering the ability to run on both platforms using a single license, but they might get more of my money if they at least offered a substantial discount on a second license. Whether or not that would be offset by people abusing the system I do not know.

[ClarkWGriswold]

From here on out, Mac releases for everything.

But the modules will presumably be Mac/Windows specific. In other words, if I buy CMBN for Mac *and* CMBN for Windows, when Module 1 comes out I'm going to need two copies of that as well (one Mac and one Windows), correct? Or can you buy one copy of the module for use with both Windows and Mac versions?

[Aldaros]

But the modules will presumably be Mac/Windows specific. In other words, if I buy CMBN for Mac *and* CMBN for Windows, when Module 1 comes out I'm going to need two copies of that as well (one Mac and one Windows), correct? Or can you buy one copy of the module for use with both Windows and Mac versions?

Woops, I was too slow. What he said. And as an aside, I'm interested for similar reasons; I have a Mac with bootcamp at home, but would like the flexibility of being able to use it with Windows. It'd be great for business trips with my work computer, which is Windows, or (more importantly) in case 5-10 years from now Apple decides that they don't want to support Leopard software anymore, but I still want to play CMBN. Which is exactly the position I'm in now my with Mac versions of CMBO and CMAK. I've held on to a 900MHz G3 iBook for years so I could have something that ran OS 9; I certainly don't use it for anything else these days. In fact, I bought it over a better G4 laptop because it was the only laptop Apple still sold that could boot into OS 9 in the first place.

[Battlefront.com]

We'll make some sort of formal statement at some point after we catch up on our sleep post-release, but I'll give you a little bit of a preview of our Mac/PC strategy going forward.

Anybody that thinks that we can make, distribute, and support two platforms with the same costs as one platform is nuts. Just downloading both versions costs us 2x as much. Not to mention a customer having a problem with his PC install and then tomorrow his Mac Install. Keeping the code synched up between both platforms and the costs of making sure the Mac version runs as well on a Mac as the PC version does on a PC are significant. Therefore, Person A purchasing a PC and a Mac License costs us more than Person B purchasing a PC license for 2x PCs. It's a fact and it's not open for debate any more than whether the sun revolves around the Earth or the Earth revolves around the sun.

OK, so there's the economic reality. What about from the customer's standpoint?

Well, it's obvious that people would like to have the convenience to use their license on any platform of their choice. I'm sure if we had X-Box and PS3 versions people would want to have one license to cover those as well. "I bought a license and as long as I don't try playing on two platforms simultaneously, then I should not have to buy separate licenses for each". It's an understandable position for the customer to take and we have taken the UNUSUAL step of allowing customer 2 installs for every purchase they make. We are sympathetic to our customer's real world use habits even though most other companies are not.

What we have here are two extremes. We'd really like to meet customers somewhere in the middle. Meaning, we're willing to allow customers a way to play CM on 2 different platforms instead of 2 different PCs or 2 different Macs. And we're willing to do that without forcing the customer to make two entirely separate full price purchases. But we're also not willing to do it at a loss, which is what would happen if we just made a license key work for both systems. Therefore, what we're going to work towards is a way to purchase a "hybrid bundle" at a discount from what it would cost to buy the two versions completely separately from each other.

There's some technical things that prevent us from doing it now (which incidentally come at a cost to us in terms of time and support), but sometime before the first CM:BN Module is out we will have something like this in place. How much will a hybrid bundle cost? That is yet to be determined, but it will be significantly less than buying both at one time.

Steve

[Aldaros]

Therefore, what we're going to work towards is a way to purchase a "hybrid bundle" at a discount from what it would cost to buy the two versions completely separately from each other.

There's some technical things that prevent us from doing it now (which incidentally come at a cost to us in terms of time and support), but sometime before the first CM:BN Module is out we will have something like this in place. How much will a hybrid bundle cost? That is yet to be determined, but it will be significantly less than buying both at one time.

Steve

That sounds great to me. And thank you for the answer; it's always nice to know what's going on. Back to waiting quietly for CMBN, then.

[DaveyJJ]

From here on out, Mac releases for everything.

Steve

I have been waiting so long to hear those words from you.

We will never again mention RAVE.

[Sixxkiller]

I would hardly call the MAC version a port yllamama. If you do most of your gaming on a Mac, I would think thats probably your best bet here as well. Ask Steve and Charles which platform they prefer.

[poesel]

I'd like to say that I'm very happy with how BFC handles the licensing issue. An extra OS causes extra costs and if I have the need for that I have to pay for it.

I'm no fan of DRM but can see the economical reasons for having one. If its not annoying then I can live with it.

I, too, would like to know if the exapnsions are OS specific or not. My guess would be they are because they change the game engine, too.

[squatter]

Therefore, what we're going to work towards is a way to purchase a "hybrid bundle" at a discount from what it would cost to buy the two versions completely separately from each other.

There's some technical things that prevent us from doing it now (which incidentally come at a cost to us in terms of time and support), but sometime before the first CM:BN Module is out we will have something like this in place. How much will a hybrid bundle cost? That is yet to be determined, but it will be significantly less than buying both at one time.

Steve

That sounds like a reasonable compromise. You're likely to get more than $50 out of me that way. There was no way you would have got $100

Just to check: the dual license will be retrospective? Once you have paid $50 on one platform, you will be able to buy a second platform license at a later stage? I ask this as dual license is obviously not going to be available at release.

[Redwolf]

Actually I think it makes more sense to make the modules hybrid bundles.

I can see how potentially added support cost would make the owner of a Win+Mac combo base game more expensive to the developer (never mind that two windows installations on desktop and laptop are probably almost as different as macos and win are from each other).

I'd rather buy two base games if I could get the modules for both at a reasonable price. I don't want to sit there with two platforms and think about spending full double bucks every time a module comes out. Only to then sit there with one version having a Jagdpanther and the other one does not.