Combat Leader: Bang for BUCK?

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Again, (seems no one is listening in Europe), the price you pay in Europe is either the price they tell you to pay in Europe, or the price a wise consumer pays.

You have no one to blame in the end, but yourself if you take it lying down.

[Arralen]

Let me see, what can I add about ..

... 30- or 60-bucks-games:
I bought

- EF2000
$30, barely playable with annoying bugs remaining

- M.A.X.
$15, really fucked up with the latest patch, unplayable

- MAX2
$2 .. just for curiosity .. worse that MAX

- Great Naval Battles 3
$30 .. barely playbable, crashes regularly, very annoying bugs eve with latest patch

- Age of Sail
$5 .. piece of ******

.. and I could continue this list quite a bit (all prices conv. to $ for convenience). And most of these games I bought quite some time ago, and not for the full release price. Today those companies charge $45 for their games, and quality and support have become worse, not better.

So I would gladly give Matrix Games some $60 for a game that is playable and is supported as long as needed - not only 'til the release of the next megaseller.

combat leader
As you can check out easily, CL isn't just a reworked Steel Panthers. SPWAW was that, and has take that kind of game to the extreme. CL goes far beyond that, internally using realistic models of the vehicles instead of "shoe boxes" as in SPWAW, which where already a great improvement over the hit-point model used in Steel Panthers 1 (IIRC) and still used in some RTS-games with a similar setting. (won't quote names here )
I could go on about CLs features but you better check them out in the CL forum and the product page.

yours,
A.

[AbsntMndedProf]

Well said Arralen!

Eric Maietta

[Bing]

UV is overpriced for what it does. CL at sixty bucks and Eastern Front only?

Lost Victories, then starting CL with Eastern Front? Appeals to the small group that thinks of nothing but WW2 Eastern Front action - if that is all they can think about, that is all we will get.

At a time when WW2 computer wargaming is centered on Western Europe - D-Day - et seq, don't be surprised if CL sells poorly. Those already steeped in EF will buy it, but they would anyway.

The rest of us? That remains to be seen. There are plenty of games out there that provide lots of realistic action for less than sixty bucks - a lot less. My price point has been exceeded. To each his/her own.

Bing

[Frank W.]

i think Bing you are right in some ways....

and i think,too that tactical level games are
really some good ones on the market. not to
forget combat mission 2 which too is set on
the eastern front. so perhaps the new matrix
tactic level games will have hard days....

but in case of great operational games on
strategic level (both maritime and ground unit
based ones) there are not much alternatives
to games like war in russia or war in the pacific.

so i see better chances for these games.

and i would perhaps buy them rather than
combat leader....perhaps a reason, too is
that i still like SPWAW too much and have not
played all camps and scens........

than i would play combat mission 1 or fulda gap
or silent hunter 2 before buying another one.

on the other hand,if you have enough time and money
and not much more games to play buy all matrix
games,of course even with 60$ price.

depends very much on your personnal prefs
and situation

[AbsntMndedProf]

Bing posted:

"Lost Victories, then starting CL with Eastern Front? Appeals to the small group that thinks of nothing but WW2 Eastern Front action - if that is all they can think about, that is all we will get.

At a time when WW2 computer wargaming is centered on Western Europe - D-Day - et seq, don't be surprised if CL sells poorly."

You could be right. However, one way to expand a business is to find an area of the market that it under-sold. It could be that the Western Front market may be saturated, and that another Eastern Front game may do well, if it receives good p.r. (Of course, it does help to know why a sector of the market receives low marketing attention; is it because noone thought to go after it, or is it because the market is too small?)

Even so, if CL Eastern Front were a 'stand alone' game, I would agree that $60.00 might be excessive. However, CL promises to be a platform for other modules to come, including Western Front and Modern modules. (One would hope that the modules would be less expensive than the original platform.)

In any case, each of us has to make our own minds up as to how much we are willing to spend on a game, or any other purchase. I hope enough people will buy CL so that there will be many other modules to come!

Eric Maietta

[Charles2222]

Bing: Don't sell short the East. I'm not sure why you'd think the West was more popular, apart from thinking that you might believe everyone wants to play the USA (which is close to last on my list to want to play). Also, if you're not a campaigner then this might not appeal to you, but to play CL properly you just might have to become something of a campaigner, but nonetheless, consider how in the West you have basically everything that is available at the start available at the end. IOW the East has a considerable amount of longevity about it, to where there's strategy invloved on just what you'll upgrade when. Also recall the drama of the East compared to the West. The West was pretty much D-Day onwards and there wasn't much potential for Gerry to succeed even locally, whereas the East was very much a front of both sides have superiority for long periods.

You are hereby charged with being guilty of underestimating the power of the dark front.

[Paul Vebber]

I paid $59.99 for SP1 over 5 years ago. The original PACWAR cost me $79.99 ten years ago.

THat "mass market games have come dow to the 30-40 dollar range has little bearing on wargames, since we have found that the "computer gamer" is not the best market to target for computer wargame - the history buff who owns a computer is.

What else out there sells for teh same it did 5 to 10 years ago?

And I think you will find the quality of CL and WITP far above what the predecessors delieved for similar price long ago. The new Combat Mission is going for 45 - depends on your strategy, you can sell each game for 45 or can sell the "original for more, and then discount the add-ons. Heck Advanced Squad Leader is 60 bucks just for the RULES...

Game sales are relatively inelastic. Frank Hunter tells the tale of offering a game for 15 dollars and it didn't sell any better than one priced higher. one data point, one data point, but a telling one.

The price reflects not just "what the market will bear" but the cost of doing business. That puts the price for games between 40 and 70 bucks, depending on the effort put in. If you have 6 or 8 people working on a game, youhave to make evnough to make it worththe while of those contributing. It sure isn't enough for them to quit their day jobs...regardless of the price. There just aren't enough wargamers anymore...

[Belisarius]

THat "mass market games have come dow to the 30-40 dollar range has little bearing on wargames, since we have found that the "computer gamer" is not the best market to target for computer wargame - the history buff who owns a computer is.

Right on.

C'mon, how many of you guys wouldn't cough up 60 bucks for a good book on WWII stuff? :p And you would consider it cheap, too!

[Bing]

"The original PACWAR cost me $79.99 ten years ago. " - You got hosed, Paul. I still have my sales slip from buying PacWar at the same itme - it was $39.99 - they must have seen you coming, or you just liked the vendor a whole lot. Never heard of anyone paying that kind of money for Grigsby's PacWar - that IS Grigsby's PacWar, isn't it?

Bing

[campekenobi]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber
I paid $59.99 for SP1 over 5 years ago. The original PACWAR cost me $79.99 ten years ago.

WHERE the HECK were you buying from??? I got SP1 for like 20 bucks, and then I got II and II in bargain bins for like $9.99!!! Is it because I live in the US or something????

[Frank W.]

i got SP1 for 60 DEUTSCH MARK (not that fuckin EURO) together with PG2 and 8 other games. it was a compilation.

SP2 cost me about 70 DM and SP3 80 DM. i think the half would be roughly the $$$$ price.

i think you should take into consideration "special prices" for older games or games in compilation which are much cheaper....

Originally posted by campekenobi


WHERE the HECK were you buying from??? I got SP1 for like 20 bucks, and then I got II and II in bargain bins for like $9.99!!! Is it because I live in the US or something????

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

"The West was D-Day onwards", ok guys get him....

Lets have a pile on in support of all those blokes that fought up the boot, not to mention the damned desert.

If anyone wants obscure though, how about Marita-Merkur?

D-Day is only popular due to americanocentric history, and hey there were yanks in Italy too eh. Forget D-Day, why not something more different entirely, like Southern France.

It's a myth though, that the Russian front mob is small. Some of the best wargames in history are great because they picked the right theater.

D-Day makes a nice subject on TV, but it's not nearly as interesting as numerous other parts of the war from a wargame perspective.
And to often its the same old tired American contribution, with little of no mention of the British or Canadians.

As for modern...yeah modern has a vocal minority. But they are truely a minority.

[Charles2222]

PacWar: 53.99 from CompUSA on 12/21/92. I know I paid 70-80 for one of the War in Russia titles, but the one I have doesn't have the receipt for some reason. In addition there was another 70-80 game I'd given to Goodwill a few weeks back.

SP1: 39.99 from CompUSA on 11/03/95.

Les the Sarge 9-1: I didn't mention Italy because we were talking West and East, right? Italy would be south. Besides, how many wargames do you know that model Italy, Allied invasion onwards? Sure if I was playing the Western Front, I'd hope the Southern Front would be included, since both feature the Western Allies, but it is an entirely different front. Somehow, many including myself have little regard for that front, given how it was so stalemated and over such difficult terrain. If you asked me to name all the country's Germany conquered, by the same token I'd forget Greece (and probably Luxembourg and probably even Belgium), and though it was tough terrain, it was forgettable for the opposite reason, that it was over with quite quickly and wasn't directly enroute to somewhere else. It isn't helped either that it's given short shrift in documentaries either. I guess that makes me an inadequate historian, but then I can't imagine that if CL is confined to one front at a time, that you would be seeing Greece, Belgium or Luxembourg as salient selling points to warrant their own version. OTOH, since Greece is EAST (map-wise southeast), but then maybe GE will be able to fight there as well in the first module.

I don't think SPWAW ever threw GE to Greece though.

In any event, it's doubtless that a lot of effort has already been put into the nations of the East, and it would be a colossal waste of time to start all over and use the nations of the West instead on that front. I would say the time to lobby for any particular front was many months ago, but I think a lot of us thought it would be like SPWAW in that it goes to every front.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

It is a mistake to automatically think the big pond down south was not part of the West.

When we talk of historical context, we think of Russia's war in the East, the Allies in the West and the War in The Pacific (which was also the war into the India Ocean).

To subdivide further is just being fussy.

On the subject of games isolating the lower sections of the war in the West though, I would likely have to mention mostly board games.

Like Europa's Western Desert, or Marita Merkur.
Then there is Rommel in the Desert by Columbia Games, which also did Mediteranean Front for the line started with East Front.
Also I have Race For Tunis and Salerno both magazine wargames.
I had a Southern Front game from magazine, but the designer mangled that game.
I have the Avalon Hill game Anzio.

Those titles were to me at least, all part of the war in the West even if to some, the theater is thought of as the Southern Front or the Mediteranean Front.
They involved the British led forces and the American led forces after the fall of France meant that you no longer had cause to make mention of the other major or minor powers that had been conquered.
To say that being south a bit means they are not part of the war in the West though, is like claiming the war outside of Lenningrad requires special distinction from the war in the Caucasus.

Something though had to be picked. You need to have something for the game system to employ initially.
Combat Leader is just to richly detailed a possibility to do everything all at once.
This isn't 1995 and computer games are not the same as they were then. I don't think you can always expect a game to cover all the bases just because a predessesor did.

They released Squad Leader with Russians Germans and Americans. It was everything you needed for everything outside of having the Pacific represented.
It was missing British though and French (which seems odd considering they were fighting a lot earlier than the Russians and the Yanks).
It was a great game though.
But the game gave you only basic gear for a reason. You can't have it all, all at once. Just to expensive.

Just imagine trying to sell ASL the whole deal in one purchase.
That is what asking for all of WW2 and Post War up to Modern is doing when saying the game is segmented unfairly.

ASL has NO peers because ASL leaves nothing out.

I think Combat Leader may soon have no peers if it can do equally well.

I will buy several component Combat Leader games that add up to a tidy sum if each one is on par with the thorough treatment ASL is in its own way.

If Combat Leader's first component is just Russian Front, then it's just the way it's going to be.
ASL was massively successful, and it cost a great deal more, and was also just the Russian Front.

Sometimes when all the squeaky wheels are counted, the truth is the world has more of us that WANT the Russian Front.
And you sell to the largest market with your introductory items if you expect to stay in business.

[Orzel Bialy]

the theaters of world war two in much the same way SL & ASL did.
Hopefully we will see the component for the war in the East (Poland/Finland/Balkans/Russia) then the next for the Western European front, the third for North Africa/Italy and the fourth for the Pacific. (just my opinion on the break down)
If they break it up as such I would be willing to pay for them all. However, if the theaters of operations are "dribbled" out in a more numerous and area specific fashion then I might be a bit more picky...and not as apt to make as many purchases.

As stated by several people already...if CL lives up to what I've heard and seen thus far, it will be well worth the wait and money to own the CL series.

[young turk]

Originally posted by Paul Vebber
And I think you will find the quality of CL and WITP far above what the predecessors delieved for similar price long ago. The new Combat Mission is going for 45 - depends on your strategy, you can sell each game for 45 or can sell the "original for more, and then discount the add-ons. Heck Advanced Squad Leader is 60 bucks just for the RULES...

Game sales are relatively inelastic. Frank Hunter tells the tale of offering a game for 15 dollars and it didn't sell any better than one priced higher. one data point, one data point, but a telling one.

Uh oh. looks like the end of matrix games to me.

I think you are deriving the wrong conclusion from the $15 game example. I think the proper conclusion is that nobody would buy a $15 game because priced at that level, it's a blaring signal to the consumer that something is seriously wrong with the game.

Instead, Paul draws the conclusion that wargame sales are inelastic (i.e., the same number of units will sell regardless of price).

Healthcare and food might be inelastic, computer games certainly are not. Here's an example: me. I would never pay more than $50 for a game.

Jack up the price on the core model, in order to decrease the price of the addons? This is insane. You are going to lose a third of the market because of the initial price hurdle, and the marginal cost of each unit is a relatively minor component of the total cost.

Just my two cents.

[Charles2222]

Les the Sarge 9-1:

To say that being south a bit means they are not part of the war in the West though, is like claiming the war outside of Lenningrad requires special distinction from the war in the Caucasus.

The war in the Caucasus and Leningrad were indeed very different, however the profound difference between that scenario and Italy and the West is greater still.

Firstly, there's a very large gap of enemy-controlled territory between Italy and the West (taking the Allied perspective). The importance of this was further demonstarted by the Allies themselves, by the landings in S. France. Secondly, at least for a while (and given the trouble the Germans had in N. Africa getting across the M. Sea, that makes another sountern front, but of course what it really was, was the original sounthern front, then shifted after defeat to Sicily and later Italy) Italy was in the picture, including their equipment, fighting the Allies as opposed to the West not having that. Thirdly the terrain is vastly different. Fourthly the commanders in the GE case were very different.

I'm not so sure the GE Leningrad and Caucusus commanders were very much different, but their assignments couldn't possibly be more different. The Caucusus were a grab territory/try to secure oil/and try to cut off the southern part of Russia. Leningrad was believed to be mined like Kiex was, so GE encircled it without occupation. I'm not even sure they seriously entertained getting beyond the immediate encirclement area, whereas the Caucusus was the familiar GE mobile attack.

Even those 2 southern fronts for GE were very different (N. Africa and Sicily/Italy). In N. Africa everybody blitzed each other pretty much, and then in Italy it's all tough old gut.

I was speaking of computer wargames, as board games do not concern me. I assume it takes a lot more money to construct software and it's support, as opposed to board games, so naturally board games would cover every little ant hill that ever seen war (yeah, there's probably an "Ants at War in Stalingrad" board game somewhere). I'm not a board gamer, but I have seen in some of my minor glancing about, that even in this day and age they're making all kinds of microscopic titles, so I'm not too surprised here. If CL were a board game it would've been finished by now, and it probably would've had all fronts, as best as my limited vision can see.

Orzel Bialy: Hmm, assuming the war has to be split up that much (why not just make an East one, then make the rest of the fronts altogether. Unlikely they will do it, but more desirable perhaps), I agree to the letter with not only which front, but even the order you have them in. 3 cheers for Orzel!

[NaKATPase]

Originally posted by Charles_22
Les the Sarge 9-1:

"Ants at War in Stalingrad"

This was a great title, but I really liked what they did with "Advanced Ants at War" and "Cross of Insect".

On a less nonsensical note...
I would say to young turk that Paul's assertion about inelastic wargame sales is probably true if you take a different view on it...
the view that there are only "X" number of wargamers, and that lowering the price of a game is not going to increase that number "X". I agree with you that every gamer though probably does have an upper limit for any game purchase (although that limit is different for everyone)

It seems to me that Matrix is making CL to appeal to wargamers, not to "computer" gamers... being a wargamer myself, I think that it is a good idea, and if I have to pay a bit more because they're making a product for a niche market, then so be it.

Anyhow, after we get our hands on CL we will see whether it was worthwhile or not... perhaps everyone who is hesitant about the cost can simply wait a month after it's been released to hear about how awesome the game is from those who purchased it immediately...

Oh, and if Matrix provides some sort of online opponent matching and especially some sort of massive multiplayer online campaign... then the $60 will DEFINITLY be worth it... heck, WCIII costs $60 (or at least it did when it first arrived)

[Paul Vebber]

I have sales figures for several years out of teh last 5 (retail anyway) and the sales are all about quality and subject matter - price having almost *ZERO* correlation.

You can not believe the figures if you want, but the data says that subject matter and quality drive copies sold. Not price.

There are x number of wargamers with computers.

There are A%*x wargamers with computers interested in a given era.

There are A%*B%*x wargamers with computers interested in a given era that are interested in a given game scale (Tactical, operational, strategic)

There are A%*B%*C%*x wargamers with computers interested in a given era that are interested in a given game scale (Tactical, operational, strategic) who like the game mechanics (IGOHUGO, WEGO, continuous time, etc)

There are A%*B%*C%*D%*x wargamers with computers interested in a given era that are interested in a given game scale (Tactical, operational, strategic) who like the game mechanics (IGOHUGO, WEGO, continuous time, etc) who are not scared away by negative "buzz" about a game.

There are A%*B%*C%*D%*E%x wargamers with computers interested in a given era that are interested in a given game scale (Tactical, operational, strategic) who like the game mechanics (IGOHUGO, WEGO, continuous time, etc) who are not scared away by negative "buzz" about a game who are not scared away by the price.

There are probably a couple of other factors involved, A, B and C are the dominant factors that limit the potential market of a game. The price point is not nearly the factor to potential sales numbers that era, scale and mechanics are.

Games that significantly cross era, scale and type boundaries are few and far between (and unable to predict until they are "hits")