"Arma" brand impeding on Arma2's success?

[BLSmith2112 0]

Right off of OFP, right onto Armed Assault.

Many who've adopted Armed Assault in its infancy are no longer with us these days, and I fear that is for the worst. If BI is relying on word of mouth (as much as OFP and its many sales), couldn't that possibly backfire?

Lets take Windows Vista for example (bad example, but just stick with me). The second it came out, people purchased it, only to not like it. Word of mouth spread about its flaws and inconsistencies and inevitability hurt Microsoft (and their image) pretty substantially. At this point, Vista may be more optimized, but most are convinced they wont put their trust into something like that again.

Don't get me wrong, Armed Assault is a great game now, but for those early adopters (a great many people), they left with a sour taste in their mouths. I don't know the ratio of how many players bought the game, then kept playing until after the first/second patch, but lets say they were a fraction of what they were when Armed Assault initially came out at 1.0.

Now OFP's sales were largely based off of word of mouth, so my worry is that, with a name like "Arma2" is sort of like naming Vista, "Vista2". I've been someone whose been playing BI's games since the first week of OFP, and I just hope that they have a strong advertising campaign (outside of their website) that will bring new attention to the game.. if they don't, that word of mouth could backfire. It's a little late in the game to go renaming anything, so what do you guys think the strategy should be?

[lockjaw-65- 0]

I think they should show the game as it is because it looks quite stunning. This would mean showing as much footage of game play etc as possible. TV adverts are really expensive but its probably the best way to show it graphicaly. Like you I have played bis games since opf came out and I know people that bought arma when it came out. They played for a few weeks then packed it in. It did have lots of faults but as it is now, its good, I have been showing some of those people the latest videos of Arma2 and they seem impressed with a definate intention to buy it. So I do think its a matter of getting it shown and maybe not mention Arma lol

[Goeth 0]

I think they should just stay at ArmA II name. Something BI should do, is to make sure ArmA II is as bug free as possible from the start so people or the game magazines won´t get flashbacks from the first ArmA 1.0.(nothing wrong in the current 1.15 version). If the first version of ArmA II is good mouth to mouth positive info is going to spread really fast. Personally i have all the confidence that BI is going to put their best effort to release ArmA 2 as bug free as possible.

[quicksand 0]

Bohemia Interactive is still plagued by the old marketing problems from the past,not as much as before but still..Look at all the major sites how slow they are to update their information on Arma 2,the fans have to send them emails to draw their attention,you would think that the publisher takes care of this but..no.

And I do agree that Arma 2 will be in a way bogged down by the Arma brand,it was a subpar game when released with a shallow,boring campaign that no amount of patches will change.Look at how Codemasters is milking the Operation Flashpoint name with every article reffering to the original blockbuster,in a sense implying they are the same people.Coddies are developing a game who has a snowball's chance in hell in evening the field with Bohemia Interactive who has been developing sandbox military sims since 1997 and working with the military since 2004.

Still they might end up selling more games because of the name(90% of buyers will think they are the creators of OF), marketing and experience with console gamers.

The best thing BIS cand do is what they do best.Let the game speak for itself.Deliver a polished,interesting game with a campaign like Cold War Crisis that people still speak of fondly after 8 years and you'll have a winner,a cult game promoted by the fanbase.

[Heatseeker 0]

I agree somewhat.

Arma brought many things that the comunity wished for but it had many problems and the game itself just wasnt as appealing as OPF:CWC (i still like Nogova more than i like Sahrani).

If you look at the game from the pov of a new player the first impression is critical, you install it, you are (or not) impressed with its presentation, you fiddle with the settings (trying) to get a playable frame rate and you start a mission or the campaign, the rest is history..

I think BIS have to convince people that Arma II is not more Arma but a better game overall, they've been showing lots of nice graphical material but that alone wont do it.

[simulacra 0]

I still prefer the name "Armed Assault", Arma sounds... daft, unintelligent.

[sabre4809 0]

Plaster: "The Original Creators of The Original Operation Flashpoint" all over it. Make it bigger than the name and in the place where the name should be. Then put ARMA2, very small in the bottom left corner, on the inside of the box, under a flap of plastic, writen in the same colour as the box.

Jokes aside. Alot of old players are probably watching Ofp2 to see what transpires from them and in seeing all the good things said about how arma2 is looking they might have a look, play a demo, who knows. I doubt most vet players that hated ARMA and dissapeared are completly out of the loop.

[Dwarden 1124]

I still prefer the name "Armed Assault", Arma sounds... daft, unintelligent.

The word “arma†means "arm(s)/weapon(s)" in Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (and i also think Swedish)

tho the sense covers more like tools of war, weaponry but also force or even soldiers

i hope this help clear a bit why word 'ArmA' was choosen (as one of reason...)

and there is one key point it's short and lot of people are lazy to type or remember long names

[sparks50 0]

I like Arma more than Armed Assault. Its just shorter, simpler and IMO better.

But very many gaming sites/publications calls Arma 2 "Armed Assault 2" for some reason.

I have myself sent emails to Gamespot.com and giantbomb.com making them correct this. BI, names are important! Its what people look for when they look in a shop for a game they have seen a preview.

[Scrub 0]

One thing I really have to thank BIS for, as a common U.S. citizen (meaning rather lazy, in an internationally social way), is the awareness of the cultures in and around the middle-east of Europe.  And because of this, ArmA, spelled all caps, or with a capital 'A' at the end has many meanings for me -  Armed Assault, Arma meaning what Dwarden wrote above, and simply as an odd name that I don't REALLY get.  I'm sure people will have a number of feelings toward this name, but for those who don't know the native meaning of the word, they sure won't forget how odd Arma sounds, and may wonder where this came from.  I did, and feel just a bit more in touch, on the inside, of the way a different part of the world thinks.  I believe ARMA II is fine.  It has an opportunity to become great, standing alone, even if the person has a previous bad taste in their mouth.  I mean if someone holds a grudge like that, do you really want them of these forums?

Cheers

[tribun83 0]

if they put out a nice demo on xbox live or similar that might interest people. i wouldn't mind if the marketing is bigger for consoles... that should help to push up the number of sales and if it gets attention on consoles that will swop over to pc's!

i don't play consoles but if i'd see this on the xbox of one of my buddies i'd go and buy it for pc!

[Brendon 0]

I never played OPF but I did play ARMA when it first came out and I will say this. BIS needs to change the name to anything else. Even just calling it "Armed Assault".

Number 1, Arma is a really bad name. I don't care if it's a latin word, it's just a really poor name. A lot of games are based on impulse purchases. With a name like that, you'll get very little.

Number 2, Arma will always be associated as a bad brand, since Arma 1 was damn terrible when it came out and still is pretty bad. When a lot of people I know think of Arma, they think of AI supersoldiers and pinball tanks.

Number 3, It's a bad name! I know I said that before, but what the hell was your sales experts thinking? Do you even have any?

[Brendon 0]

I still prefer the name "Armed Assault", Arma sounds... daft, unintelligent.

The word “arma†means "arm(s)/weapon(s)" in Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (and i also think Swedish)

tho the sense covers more like tools of war, weaponry but also force or even soldiers

i hope this help clear a bit why word 'ArmA' was choosen (as one of reason...)

and there is one key point it's short and lot of people are lazy to type or remember long names

Game names should be to the point, simple, and half decent. In the end, it doesn't matter what it's latin for, it's still a bad name associated with a poor game.

[POTS 0]

I never played OPF but I did play ARMA when it first came out and I will say this. BIS needs to change the name to anything else. Even just calling it "Armed Assault".

Number 1, Arma is a really bad name. I don't care if it's a latin word, it's just a really poor name. A lot of games are based on impulse purchases. With a name like that, you'll get very little.

Number 2, Arma will always be associated as a bad brand, since Arma 1 was damn terrible when it came out and still is pretty bad. When a lot of people I know think of Arma, they think of AI supersoldiers and pinball tanks.

Number 3, It's a bad name! I know I said that before, but what the hell was your sales experts thinking? Do you even have any?

Yeah, and it's more correctly said OFP...

But whatever, just being overcritical.

[Barely-injured 0]

i like the name ArmA now, especially after learning that it is not just a strange abbreviation of "armed assault" (maybe they should get rid of the name armed assault completely).

the fact that the word have meanings in many languages is important to me because it signify an international game, which is in a way points to us the community. I dare say that maybe the ofp/arma community is one of the most diverse gaming communities around.

[mr.g-c 6]

I don't know really...

When you read comments on major spaces where the videos have been posted, you can read people saying all over the place things like "Only after a Demo this time" and stuff like that...

So there are a lot of people don't want to heave that disaster like with Armed-Assault again.

On the other Hand, there are a lot of  people (many of them seems to be also "new people" to the genre) amazed by the details and apparently by the "realism" of this game, and so those people are writing all over the place that they will buy it for sure...

Obviously, the Name doesn't has any negative effect on their buying decisions - if you can judge at all by forums-posts and comment-function posts....  

Finally the Last two Faction Videos have convinced me 100% to buy it no matter if with a demo played before or not....

So we will see this time... i think its up to the rating of the game magazines how good it will sell overall.

While all popular game magazines here in germany instantly featuring a frontpage/cover of OFP2's sucky render-pics, followed by a big article/interview with obviously false claims&promises, nearly everytime some bits of new OFP2 news coming out. i never saw this for any BIS game, despite the success of OFP1.

Im sure CM pay those magazines for that in some way...

Of course today, by spreading the word in online-magazines, in commentary functions or any modern community-like site, by suggesting Arma2 to the people there, will help in sale rates - i'm convinced!

It worked AFAIK for OFP1 also that way...

[Maddmatt 1]

I also thought it was odd that they called it ArmA 2.

ArmA itself didn't seem like a huge success and the problems would have put people off. I'm sure not everyone gave it another chance after trying version 1.00.

ArmA 2 is suppose to have a strong singleplayer (read the pdf on Team Razor...) while ArmA 1 had a terrible singleplayer that seemed like it was rushed as the end of the development stage approached. Many people buy games for the singleplayer aspect and I would guess that ArmA 1 would have put off a large number of these potential players.

Too bad it can't be called Operation Flashpoint 2

This has been commented on before though. BIS seems to like the name ArmA.

Although Arma makes more sense, if it's not abbreviating Armed Assault then having the last A as uppercase is weird  

[Placebo 28]

I like ArmA, exactly like that, has character and intrigue.

[Deadfast 43]

I too like the name of ArmA.

Short, simple and has an artistic feel when the two A's are capitalized

[jtec 0]

I honestly don't think the name matters at all. I am concerned the game will not sell as many units due to the lack of news being frontpaged by the top game sites. Its amazing to see utter tripe to be frontpaged and viewed by tens of thousands of people whilst arma 2 (although recieving a great number of comments) is viewed only by people who search for the game. Have BIS upset these so called gaming sites or do you need to throw large amounts of cash to be reconised as a great gaming company these days?

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]I am concerned the game will not sell as many units due to the lack of news being frontpaged by the top game sites. Its amazing to see utter tripe to be frontpaged and viewed by tens of thousands of people whilst arma 2 (although recieving a great number of comments) is viewed only by people who search for the game. Have BIS upset these so called gaming sites or do you need to throw large amounts of cash to be reconised as a great gaming company these days?

Thats exactly the point!

Sure they pay or confirm larger ad-campaigns to those big news sites, or the big news sites are simply brainwashed by the fact that Codemasters is a multi-billion corporation and BIS "only" a "Independent Game Developer"....

I think BIS hsould take the opportunity now, we see over all places (especially worse in "close-minded" germany), that people drastically criticize the OFP2 Failure, so BIS should make a similar "Interview-Like" Engine footage like in the Recent OFP2 Media package.

Could imagine something similar to this older one shortly before A1 was released:

But with a bit more style and in english + some nice hi-res Landscape or Unit screenshots together with some Informations about the engine, whats new, whats better, etc...

Thats what the game-magazines want to have....

[4 IN 1 0]

They used to have a good name that can be use as the new game title: "independentcy(?) lost" fits into the story line, yet the reason not using this bang on name is unknow, maybe because it's own by BIA(or even worse: Cody)and therefor cannot be use by BI?

[Maddmatt 1]

They used to have a good name that can be use as the new game title: "independentcy(?) lost" fits into the story line, yet the reason not using this bang on name is unknow, maybe it's because it's own by BIA and therefor cannot be use by BI?

Independence Lost

That would be a perfect name.

I suppose the original Independence Lost game was scrapped completely. BIS seems to want to keep the ArmA 2 name though.

ArmA 2: Independence Lost

[4 IN 1 0]

They used to have a good name that can be use as the new game title: "independentcy(?) lost" fits into the story line, yet the reason not using this bang on name is unknow, maybe it's because it's own by BIA and therefor cannot be use by BI?

Independence Lost

That would be a perfect name.

I suppose the original Independence Lost game was scrapped completely. BIS seems to want to keep the ArmA 2 name though.

ArmA 2: Independence Lost  

LOL I knew I spell it wrong

Any way independence lost is such a good name, I hope bi would think this as the name on their future title (if any that is)

[Brendon 0]

I like ArmA, exactly like that, has character and intrigue.

Don't you care that it's associated with a poor game? As others have said, when people start saying, "Only after a Demo this time" on every ArmA Video posted on the internet, that's not too good.