Rumors a-flyin' that Der Fuhrer has been given the axe, and voted out of the bunker (how's that for mixed metaphors? Now I just have to work in a Weakest Link reference and I'll be set). It's also rumored that GI Combat is dead, the team dispersed to the winds, and TalonSoft itself no longer among the quick. I have calls in to get some confirmation (the info comes so far from private sources emailing me and from what Fatbabies has, for what that's worth).

It'd be a shame if TalonSoft became.... The Weakest Link (there's your reference). They haven't made anything overly exciting recently, but it's still a shame to see them go.

The shame would be that this was the last wargame developer associated with a major publisher. Well, I guess there's still possibly SSI, but are they working on anything in the Steel Panthers line, etc.?

This would truly mark the end of mainstream publishing of wargames with maybe the exception of Strategy First if they continue to move closer to the genre after Waterloo. That's a damn shame. I'm very glad to see the Internet allowing the genre to continue (and take the next step with Combat Mission), but I'd really like to see someone put a game like Combat Mission in the stores where the genre could find some new fans.

BTW, has anyone else noticed that Strategy First has great distribution? I found their games in K-Mart two days ago when I went to buy a shovel. (Broke mine in half, can you believe that? :) I've also seen SF games in the nearby cavernous Wal-Mart and prominently displayed at Best Buy, etc. I applaud them for plumbing a bunch of hardcore gamer categories and going whole hog to market with them. KO-HAN! KO-HAN! KO-HAN!... *cough* *ahem* :)

--Dave

I agree it's something of a downer to have reached a state in 2001 where wargames as we knew them are relegated to the ghetto of the Internet, and are hardly ever found in stores. I cut my teeth on computer wargames in the 1980s, when they were pretty common. Then again, we have to be realistic. Why aren't big publishers publishing wargames? They don't sell well enough for them to think they are worth the effort.

But with the recent resurgence in WWII films, you'd think someone would see the opportunity to tie into that and play up the history angle with a new wargame. I really think Combat Mission should be sold in stores as well as on the net. It's a shame it isn't because I bet they'd find a hell of a lot of people would love to buy it but just aren't comfortable with the web or don't even know the game exists. Now that they've got a solid sell-through, it would make sense to find a publisher and get it out there to the masses.

There's still a lot of life in the wargame I think. You just have to be dedicated to marketing the game as such and make sure it has enough of the other bells and whistles to make it appealing to Joe Gamer. Find a way to trick him into playing something like it (as Timegate has done with Kohan) and then move to the next step with a more traditional wargame setting. Sudden Strike is on the right track.

I just hate to see such a rich genre disappear from the mainstream altogether.

--Dave

I'd guess that back in the '80's you could make a nice profit on sales of 25,000 units. Games could still be made by just one or two people and didn't take as long to develop. Nowadays most publishers wouldn't greenlight a project if they didn't think it had the potential to at least sell 100,000 units.

Combat Mission should be sold in some stores, with nice blurbs from reviews on the box. I wonder if they've even approached places like EB and CompUSA which presumably have fairly savvy buyers.

I wonder too. I know that getting a game onto store shelves is very hard, from what publishers and developers tell me. Often they have to pay to get their products on store shelves, and EB and Babbages now have less room for PC software than ever before it seems, what with console stuff and action figures . I'd love to see BTS market a retail version of CM, I guess. One problem I see is that for the hard core CM player, the game looks a lot better than it does for the first-time gamer, because we have all the high-res mods. Unless BTS did a licensing deal and put those mods in the game for retail, I'm afraid no amount of jazzing it up would overcome the reactions of non-wargamers (and that's who we'd be targeting with a retail sale).

Truth be told, BTS has no interest in marketing a game that looks like my version of CM, running at 11x8 or whatever with all of the high resolution mods. Why? Because 20% of their audience runs Macs with maybe 16MB video cards max, and another big chunk runs outdated PCs, some with 4MB cards! They fully support user mods, but the base product they have to keep at a fairly low price of entry. The sequel will dump the 4MB card support at least, but you still won't get out of the box (er, shrinkwrap, there is no box, or at least, there hasn't been yet) stuff as cool as what you will shortly find on the 'Net.

Also, if you go retail, you get only a small portion of the sales price. Out of that, you'll have to pay your distributor--and you'll need a distributor, because you couldn't ship directly to all EB stores by yourself, much less handle warehousing and returns.

It's a better economic model to sell at $30 a box to 10,000 people than to sell at $10 a box to 25,000, especially when you realize that you'll have to do a larger print run than 25k to realize that many sales. . . perhaps a 50K run or more.

And, if they did get into stores, their loyal fan base might well turn on them for going too mainstream.

If I were doing niche games (or, err, well, games that were meant to be niches :) ), I would stick to a direct/internet model. The difference lies in being only a developer, versus being a developer plus publisher plus distributor.

KP
Standard Disclaimers Apply

Which is why I wish Battlefront would release sales stats on Combat Mission. It's a great game, a great experiment, it seems successful... god knows we press have sure been pushing it hard. I'd like proof, if only for the sake of only companies, that the experiment worked.

-Andrew

Substitute "other" for "only" and that last sentence makes more sense. Unprecendented sense, in fact.

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Which is why I wish Battlefront would release sales stats on Combat Mission. It's a great game, a great experiment, it seems successful... god knows we press have sure been pushing it hard. I'd like proof, if only for the sake of only companies, that the experiment worked.

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My guess would be that the graphics on the old wargames didn't much matter, since players were used to hex maps and cardboard counters anyway. All that I've really seen (and I freely admit I haven't seen it all) is just updates of the old system. How is that supposed to fight with modern super-enhanced graphics and 3D effects? So far as immersion goes, I don't think the mass market (and I do mean "mass" market. when did you ever hear of something selling a million units before Myst? How about 500,000?)is able to suspend their disbelief over this type of game the way people who are naturally drawn to historical wargames can. They just don't have that background. I mean, there might be a lot of new WWII movies coming out, but really where is the visual link between them and wargames for the average consumer?

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I mean, there might be a lot of new WWII movies coming out, but really where is the visual link between them and wargames for the average consumer?

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The draw of wargames is not graphics, though graphics are valuable and even essential for making the experience deeper and more entertaining. The draw of wargames, and the reason wargames will NEVER be mainstream, is a powerful combination of history, data, and process. Wargamers want games that give them historically valid, technically detailed recreations of the intellectual dynamics of warfare. We want recreate the circumstances of Normandy with the limitations that the actual commanders had. We want to have to think out an attack by an infantry company against a town held by Panzergrenadiers, knowing we only have one battery of light mortars to support our GIs. We want to make the decision to send Pickett against Meade's line, or not--and live with the consequences. These sorts of things don't appeal to most gamers, and never will, no matter how cool the game looks.

I mean, Combat Mission (which out of the box is not that good looking, in 3D game terms) has an appeal that is enhanced by graphics, absolutely, but the core of its appeal is intellectual. The 3D element makes it more immersive, true, but it also makes the connection between higher concepts of tactical warfare and their implementation more real and more direct--that's it's real charm for wargamers. Yes, you might snag a few sales based on looks alone, but in the long run wargames will appeal to wargamers, and none others.

Which is why I think any attempts to "broaden" the market are doomed and are wastes of money, beyond removing obvious and arbitrary barriers to entry (terrible graphics, obtuse manuals, etc.). The boardgame side of wargaming went through this in the 1980s. We called wargames "adventure games," and tried to gussy them up to appeal to the adult version of the Chutes & Ladders crowd. Didn't work, and many companies went belly-up. Now, boardgame companies focus largely on small runs of high-quality hardcore wargames, and they are thriving.

I suggest that in computer wargaming we are looking at a similar evolution. Companies like HPS and Battlefront are not only the present, but the future.

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I mean, Combat Mission (which out of the box is not that good looking, in 3D game
terms) has an appeal that is enhanced by graphics, absolutely, but the core of its appeal is intellectual. The 3D element makes it more immersive, true, but it also makes the connection between higher concepts of tactical warfare and their implementation more real and more direct--that's it's real charm for wargamers.
Yes, you might snag a few sales based on looks alone, but in the long run wargames will appeal to wargamers, and none others.

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I do mean "mass" market. when did you ever hear of something selling a million units before Myst? How about 500,000?

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>>Mags have never been as brutally honest with regards to game sales as websites and usenet.

That's because companies normally didn't share that information. PC Data didn't start tracking sales until about 1993 or so.

Mark said:

"I wonder if they've even approached places like EB and CompUSA which presumably have fairly savvy buyers."

I dunno--my understanding is that it's really not that easy. I interviewed Karthik Bala at Vicarious Visions once, and we talked a lot about selling games. I found this quote to be very sobering:

"It�s a huge eye-opener for me, as a developer, when I find out stuff like �how does a sales call work?� Like when a sales guy from a publisher goes to see reps and buyers. They say �let me look at the box, and then tell me a little bit about this. I�m not interested in taking a look at the game�I�m not interested in seeing any video, even�just tell me about it.� So you say �Oh, it�s like this game, and this is what it�s going to be, and this is what we�re putting into it.� Then they say �Well, how much can you give me for market development funds, and how much are you going to pay up front for us to stock this product, and we�re going to need a guaranteed 100% return on it.� Then it�s like �Okay, we�re done,� and literally it�s like two or three minutes per product."

Three minutes to sell Combat Mission. Do you think you could do it? I doubt I could.

Interesting anecdote, Ben.

Well, Derek Smart has managed to get EB to sell his game. They have an exclusive on it and are probably getting a healthier cut of the sales also.

Once Combat Mission sales have petered off, they might want to talk to EB about doing retail distribution in a similar manner. They'd make less per unit, but it might give them some new sales they otherwise wouldn't have.

Actually in CGW recently Charles Moylan figured that sales (and this a few months back) were enough that to make the same money in retail it would take 250,000 units. Do the math :).

I am sure they have been approached by the chains. I know we have been approached by EB and Babbages as well as being approached by several large publishers (including one who just went belly up ;)). It all comes down to the deal, and I am sure that is why BTS is not putting CM in stores. Plus once the games are in stores your internet sales will go down to zero overnight making you have to make your money on the piddly amount you get per item from retail.

I think the perfect model for a US based wargame publisher is to setup shop in the US and sell through the mail and Internet there. Entertain small stores as they buy your games in bulk (ie we sell through a few mom and pops in some areas as they approach us). Next setup a distribution network in Europe to allow you to build your e-commerce and mail ordered games there and avoid VAT taxes and the like by shipping locally. Finally work with a distributor to put the game (once Internet sales wane) into primarily European retail. The competition is much less there and you will gain a lot of business from folks who will not order your games overseas due to cost.

Another smart way to do it would be to setup an exclusive with a true computer game store like Babbages or EB and use that exclusivity to get a good deal from the store in question.

In either case some of the above are things we are currently working on.

"Plus once the games are in stores your internet sales will go down to zero overnight making you have to make your money on the piddly amount you get per item from retail."

Yeah, you'd have to be careful with the timing. You'd want to get the most from your direct sales before trying to get the game into retail stores.

Still, a game like Combat Mission would probably sell a few copies if they could get it into EB and other outlets this coming holiday season.

"Another smart way to do it would be to setup an exclusive with a true computer game store like Babbages or EB and use that exclusivity to get a good deal from the store in question."

Derek Smart worked out something like this.

"Still, a game like Combat Mission would probably sell a few copies if they could get it into EB and other outlets this coming holiday season."

Yeah, it's not surprising EA/Firaxis/Breakaway did this with Antietam. They sold it online for about 8 months, then - boom - it's on the shelf at EB & Babbages.

I'd be interested to find out if Antietam moved after they did that.

-Andrew

I'm thinking in terms of the wargame genre in general needing a game like Combat Mission on the shelves. It proves that there's still something going on in the genre and might bring in some new fans that can keep it going a lot longer.

I think the fear with internet sales is that unless your game is of the calibre of a Combat Mission, you're only going to get a niche of a niche and that will be hard to get enough support from to keep going. However, if you get Combat Mission out there where the general public finds out about it and can buy it as easily as Black & White, then you build a larger niche on top of the smaller one and potentially expand your sales.

Otherwise, there's a very real possibility that as board wargame to computer converts grow old, lose interest and even pass on, there's no one left to carry the torch of introduction to that genre and it eventually goes away for good. With a game like CM on the retail shelf, there's a very real chance that the genre not only survives, but thrives with a whole new group of fans.

Or is it maybe that the wargamers like it like this without the interference of Joe Q. Public in their historical games? I really have to question that stance and it's one of elitism that I think pervades the genre and turns off a lot of new fans. It's ok to request realism and to instill an understanding of the genre in others, but most wargamers seem to take that to the level of antagonism. Flight simmers should probably own up to similar behavior.

--Dave

Every non-wargame fan I've shown Combat Mission too has liked it. Ok... I'm only talking 5 people or so here but still, these are die hard RTS/FPS fans. Combat Mission transcends wargaming by offering exactly the sort of realism only a turn-based wargame can do but making it fun and immediate to the people who glaze over when they look at charts, graphics and grids.

To my mind, that's what makes it brilliant and that's why everyone should check it out.
-Andrew

I'm against elitism as well, Dave, but after spending the last (nearly) thirty years in wargaming, I have come to the conclusion that wargaming is a niche, has been a niche, and always will be a niche. There is no such thing as expanding the appeal of the genre, nor any hope of mass popularity. Wargames, or at least games that are properly and legitimately called wargames as opposed to military-themed games of other persuasions, require a level of intellectual engagement and particularist interest, not to mention knowledge, that is simply not present in the vast majority of gamers. Not a value judgement, just an observation--hell, I spend far more time playing shooters or RPGs than I do wargames, largely because I don't always want that sort of engagement--sometimes I just want a good game, damn it :-).

Games like Combat Mission won't bring in too many new wargamers. But, getting CM on to store shelves might well turn a proto-wargamer, someone with an interest in military history and a good mind, who has hitherto either not been exposed to wargames, couldn't find them, or simply thought they were unappealing, into a real wargamer.

Mr. Mayer is spot on. I have also come to believe you are either a wargamer or you are not, and there is no way to convert someone who does not already lean that way. It isn't elitism, it's just difference between people. Pre-PC, wargamers were the same ones who were playing Avalon Hill games while everyone else preferred Yahtzee or Monopoly. Milton Bradley always killed Avalon Hill in terms of unit sales. Heck, Monopoly always killed Axis & Allies, too. Why wouldn't that pattern continue into computer games?

Also, don't forget that wargaming is broken up into several even smaller niches. I wouldn't bother showing Combat Mission to a hardcore Civil War grog.

"Games like Combat Mission won't bring in too many new wargamers. But, getting CM on to store shelves might well turn a proto-wargamer, someone with an interest in military history and a good mind, who has hitherto either not been exposed to wargames, couldn't find them, or simply thought they were unappealing, into a real wargamer."

The value I would see in getting a Combat Mission on the retail shelves would be at gift-giving time when someone might be strolling the mall looking for a gift for a dad, uncle, or brother who enjoyed military history or at least biographies of military figures. There might be a few impulse buys and subsequent converts if a game like CM got a bit more exposure.

Agreed, Mark, the emphasis being on "a few." Wargaming is a self-limiting hobby by its very nature.

I agree with Robert's comments, but I think (I've *seen*) games like SMG and Combat Mission transcend the niche and attract people who aren't the "turn based wargamer" type.

Both SMG and CM allow for twitch gaming. The kind of people who don't look at stats. They think: "He's got a gun, I'll send him over there and make him use it".

It isn't nearly as good a playing style as the grognard who pores over the manual and mentally calculates odds, firepower, experience, terrain and morale et al. but it does work often enough to not overly frustrate the casual gamer. The action gamers I've turned on to CM (and my brother-in-law onto SMG) play exactly that way and they're happy if they win or lose... just because it looks, plays and feels cool.

No one casual thinks Op Art of War or even Rising Sun (both excellent wargames) looks, plays and feels "cool".

-Andrew

But if it's self-limiting, wouldn't you want to find ways of attracting more to the genre any way possible else you lose the ability to get anything in the genre at all?

I just really hate the idea of history fans (kids or adults) not being able to find these games in a store when the mood hits. The Internet is great for distributing the games to those already in the know, but I think it's really tough to find new audiences that would really like this genre if you don't put the game in stores.

You guys make it sound like you're born a wargamer or you're not. I disagree with that assessment.

--Dave

Dave, I don't think you are born a wargamer; wargamers are made, through their choices of intellectual stimulation and activities. And yes, you can certainly "make" a wargamer out of someone--if they are interested in military history, and are interested in games that play to this interest. So of course games can bring people in to the hobby.

All I'm saying is that the number of people who are potentially interested in a historically based game with fairly complex rules (or rules concepts) which requires a serious degree of thought and committment is quite small compared to the number of people who just want to have fun with a game. Sure, a lot of people will play Medal of Honor, but far fewer would want to play Combat Mission, largely because to MoH is a game with a WWII theme while CM is a World War II sim in the form of a game.

I too hate the idea of not having quality wargames on store shelves. This has pretty much happened in the board game world as well. Unless you live near one of the few full-featured game/hobby shops left in the country, your selection of wargames comes via the Internet. And yes, the lack of retail sales outlets for games like Combat Mission limits the number of possible wargamers that might be enticed into the hobby; no doubt about that. I just don't think the number is that large, nor do I think you can "grow" the number of wargamers much. Our society is not one that privileges intellectuals, and wargamers are about 90% intellectuals :-).

As for games like SMG or N:WLB...it's a toss-up in my book whether playing those games qualifies as playing a wargame. You can certainly play them as non-wargames, i.e, as "twitch" games, in which case you are definitely not playing a wargame. You can, however, attempt to play them as wargames, with mixed results depending on your pickiness. I personally have nothing against them, I just don't really get into the time periods that much. I don't consider this series of games to be serious wargames, either, though, as they make far too many compromises with simulating things I think need to be simulated. Just my $.02.

In short, I guess I think that by their nature true wargames will only appeal to true wargamers, and that it's impossible to make a true wargame that will appeal to the casual gamer and the real wargamer at the same time. I could be wrong; I'd love to see it.

Steel Panthers series? That had wide appeal and yet it's a serious wargame at its core is it not?

--Dave

What do you guys think of the PC versions of Axis and Allies and Risk?

And have any of you played Samurai Swords, the game that I believe inspired the PC game Shogun?

Heh... you mean the board game Shogun?! Samurai Swords is a reissue of a gamemaster series game called Shogun. Funny that they called Shogun the computer game that name later on. I've only dabbled in the computer game but what I saw was decent if a little rough around the edges. The battlefield sequences are unique. Anyone else have Fortress America? I'd love to see that board game translated also or a computer game with its fictional setting.

Axis and Allies is a disaster on the computer. Risk II is a triumph. I pull it out about once a month. Risk II also has a bunch of cool unique play modes too.

--Dave

Yeah, I noticed on the box that it was formerly sold as Shogun. I just figured a lot of people would have played it as SS. One of my friends and I used to play that a lot.

Steel Panthers? Well, it would be interesting to see how "wide" the appeal was. The game is still alive, actually, with not one but two remakes being shopped around as freeware by licensed modders. AFAIK the game never penetrated beyond the wargamers anyhow though. As for how good a wargame it was, that too will get you a lot of opinions. The reason there are so many mods of the game out there is that most wargamers were dissatisfied with the accuracy and realism of the original game (not to mention the brain-dead AI). Still, it was a blast to play, and I'm sure its look drew in some folks--after all, when SP debuted, it was cutting edge graphics.

I feel so intellectually inferior because I don't like wargames.