Why Arma 2 has a small market

[Guest]

I have been doing some research into why Dragon Rising is getting an enormouse fanbase, whilst Arma 2 is still left with a small community. I have tried as hard as i can to promote Arma 2, and i think i have found as big an audience as you can generally find. But still, dragon rising videos get way more views than Arma 2 videos.

But why? Well i think i have the answer, and i guess alot of you won't like it. It seems like BIS has made very little attempt to sell their game. We saw a few videos before release, and a few videos after. Nothing too special, nothing too bad.

There was nothing much going on in the forums before the release in the way of marketing the game, and there wasn't much after, either. We've seen a few interviews, a few gameplay snippetts and thats all.

Now i understand BIS is a very small team, so obviously i would never expect advertising on the same scales as say, CM, EA, or Ubisoft. But i think you need somebody in your advertising department.

For example, i found this on the Dragon Rising forums. If BIS did this pre release, i think they could have so many more sales.

http://community.codemasters.com/forum/showthread.php?t=371251

People like to do this kind of thing not for the shabby "free game", but just so they can say they did something for the game they love. It really does work.

Codemasters are constantly releasing video after video of their game in progress, in the form of gameplay, interviews, featurettes, movie shorts, developer diaries etc. Every time they do this they are attracting so many more players.

In contrast, it's as if BIS didn't really want a new audience, they just made the game and released it.

Maybe i am totally wrong and have the wrong end of the stick, I don't know. But from my point of view Arma 2 could be alot more popular than it is, and all it would have taken was a simple stream of pre release videos. I mean, everyone loves your stylish accents!

Regards,

Rich.

[fumo 0]

No the problem is not to less PR, i find it was a bit to much for ArmAII (all the time spent for the pre release videos could be spent in the game itself).

I think the problem with the popularity is much simpler. The most gamer simply doesn't care about this genre.

[Guest]

No the problem is not to less PR, i find it was a bit to much for ArmAII (all the time spent for the pre release videos could be spent in the game itself).

I think the problem with the popularity is much simpler. The most gamer simply doesn't care about this genre.

In all due respect, i think thats a bit of an incorrect aproach to seeling a game.

For example:

"My name is ted. I developed the most authentic tactical shooting simulation since gaming began. Unfortunately i forgot to advertise the game, so no one bought it."

And also, having an advertiser/marketing manager in your development team does not take away from development time, the advertiser/marketing manager doesn't do any developing, he just records a 5 minutes interview with a dev, edits a video and voila.

Marketing.

[Shadow NX 1]

PR online was quite good with many reviews and the constantly updated ArmA2 page.

Saddly i think the normal promotion really lacked, for example i didnt see a single tiny ad in any german game magazine.

For ArmA1 that wasnt even half as good as A2 i remember a campaign in magazines and even some park benches with promotion for it.

---

The sales seem to be ok though and even people that never played a BIS game bought it, many as you cna read here didnt understand the game and hated it but a few found out why the BIS games have such a good community, small but a very good one.

THe fact that OFP2 : DR got such a base already just tells me what i thinbk anyway, its aimed at people that want their Military games bit more casual.

From the salkes point of view i think that will work out, if i look in my crystal ball i see me buying it, enjoy it for aweek and then loose intrest quickly.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Shadow NX

[randir14 10]

Word of mouth probably wont help either. ArmA 2 has too many bugs and performance problems for most people to handle. Although I love the game I wont recommend it to any of my friends because I know they'd get frustrated with it. Dragon Rising will appeal to more people because of the advertising and because it will probably be far more accessible to the average gamer.

[CrazyAviator 10]

Good topic, I agree. I ran into this title by chance at BestBuy 2 weeks ago when I was looking for a new game. I'd never even heard of it before.

I've had my eye on OFP2 for quite some time now, however.

[Endless Nova 10]

The people who want a little more out of their shooter will go the extra mile to find a more realistic one. The CS, Quake, Cod and Co crowd can diaf anyway so I don't see the problem. Or do you want more griefers? :P

[flake 10]

I got Arma2 because of OFP1. Had waited for years for them to make a sequal and I didn't know thay already had, Arma1 lol. so obviously there is something not right.

[Smuke 10]

I have to diagree a bit on the above comments, i went into gamestation yesterday, and ArmA2 was pretty much in your face, it was even on the poster. People will be buying ArmA2 a lot more over the enxt few days as it's right up in the charts at the moment, higher than i've seen it over the last few weeks.

[{sas}stalker 10]

I think a small contributing factor in it all is that the ARMA community is about as welcoming as punch to the face. People who have joined here, either before or after the game was out to perhaps make contact with other clans/people who are playing or came here because certain aspects of the game was confusing to them are, on the whole greeted with a large dose of "fuck off cod noob" attitude.

There are people here that don't want this game to become mainstream and would love it if it was just a few people playing it so long as they can remain on their self appointed pedestal where they can cast e-derision on anyone who, god forbid played a game not on their "approved" list. These people are now on a list of a different kind, My ignore list. Which sadly had come into use for the first time in a very long time.

I'm a member of a lot of forums and do a lot of promotion for our clan and this is by far the most hostile place I have ever frequented, I'll stick with it though cause I like the game and underneath I think your all made of cream :p

Edited August 12, 2009 by {SAS}Stalker

[sirex 0]

problem is pretty simple in my eyes. to codemasters you're their direct market, so they care about you. To BIS, you're not (the military is).

Then again, bis do a pretty good job for a side project, but let's not kid ourselves.

I have to diagree a bit on the above comments, i went into gamestation yesterday, and ArmA2 was pretty much in your face, it was even on the poster. People will be buying ArmA2 a lot more over the enxt few days as it's right up in the charts at the moment, higher than i've seen it over the last few weeks.

i'm willing to bet thats because shops want to shift their old arma2 stock ready for the ofp stock.

Edited August 12, 2009 by sirex

[Guest]

Satlker, i must admit i totally agree. In fact, i head on over to the Dragon Rising forums and told them my thoughts about dragon rising and arma 2. They recieved me quite well and we had a good discussion.

Overe here, all the moderators and many users are heavily biased to Arma 2. Although that is completely normal and fair enough, it's going too far when your thread gets locked, simply because a mod decides he doesn't like what you said, even if the rest of the community does.

And alot of new people get their threads locked in an agressive manor. A new guy will join and post in the general section asking about joining a squad. He is replied with:

"Use the search button, that's what its there for. Thread locked."

Fair enough, you get a whole load of people doing the same thing, but don't be so hasty. At least explain to them what they did wrong in a more polite context. And as for infractions, don't even go there. I have seen high posting members perma-banned because they quoted an embed youtube video.

Get it together, seriously.

Anyway, excuse my rant, that's not what this thread is for so let's try and keep it on topic :)

problem is pretty simple in my eyes. to codemasters you're their direct market, so they care about you. To BIS, you're not (the military is).

Then again, bis do a pretty good job for a side project, but let's not kid ourselfs.

Do the Arma 2 BIS team even develop VBS? I thought there was a specific different team who did that.

Edited August 12, 2009 by Guest

[sirex 0]

dont think so. but bis is a small company, and as far as i know, you're not even getting the whole of that pie to begin with.

[longwinger 10]

I think that the big reason is that ARMA was so bug riddeled many didn't even bother with it, and my friends won't touch this either due to the same reasons. I've spent hours trying to get the game to run something like playable on a hi end PC that most people won't be bothered to do. Have to type code in the shortcut to get the game to see multi gpu etc is not exactly user friendly. I love the game but I wouldn't recommend it even if it is one of the best games I've ever played its just to problamatic for the masses. When I picked the game in from the local game store the assistant warned me not to buy as it needed a very high end machine to play and was full of bugs. This game just like OFP pushes the boundaries of gaming and is great but its never going to appeal to the masses until the game plays out of the box. By the way I'm a PR consultant with my own broadcasting company, not a guy with a media degree and a ill fitting suit. The console generation won't touch this sort of game as its a sim but after the issues many have on here without even playing the game, well how do you sell that. I spent more on a graphic card than I could buy a PS3 for just for this game and the game now runs great but won't load my saves even after doing a revert after installing v1.03 how many people will do this for a game well about as many that are on this forum.

SL

Ste Lea

[nominesine 0]

There are people here that don't want this game to become mainstream and would love it if it was just a few people playing it so long as they can remain on their self appointed pedestal where they can cast e-derision on anyone who, god forbid played a game not on their "approved" list.

The elitist aproach to BI games sometimes seen on these forums is indeed annoying, as well as extremely childish. But I doubt that it has affected sales or the size of the community that much. The fact that Codemasters (being a multinational worldwide corporation) gets more attention when they promote an upcomming release, than a smallish and independent czech company with limited budget do, isn't really suprising in my opinion.

If I google my own name I get 745 hits. If I google Brad Pitt I get 23 900 000. Admittedly I don't have the nicest personality in the world, but I'm quite sure that Mr. Pitts status as a world famous actor is the explaining factor here. Not my own shortcomings when it comes to social skills.

:)

[-GLT-Sarge 10]

Codemasters fail big time when it comes to support a game.

You might have a look a the Race Driver Grid forum to get an idea of what I'm talking, speaking about Patch 1.03 (which's due date was last years october!!) and the DLC.

No matter how they advert a game or how many free copies they give away, Dragon Rising will get the same crappy patch support like any other CM game has get before.

and yes, they may spend more time in developing, but after all it still its just another PS

Edited August 12, 2009 by [GLT]Sarge

[Guest]

The elitist aproach to BI games sometimes seen on these forums is indeed annoying, as well as extremely childish. But I doubt that it has affected sales or the size of the community that much. The fact that Codemasters (being a multinational worldwide corporation) gets more attention when they promote an upcomming release, than a smallish and independent czech company with limited budget do, isn't really suprising in my opinion.

If I google my own name I get 745 hits. If I google Brad Pitt I get 23 900 000. Admittedly I don't have the nicest personality in the world, but I'm quite sure that Mr. Pitts status as a world famous actor is the explaining factor here. Not my own shortcomings when it comes to social skills.

:)

I get 83,000,000 for brad pitt, and 23,100,000 for me :P

[NoRailgunner 0]

Some questions to richiespeed13:

How many developers working for CM and how many products CM have?

How many people like casual or mainstream games?

How many people like to learn and practice (new) things and play simulations?

Imho BIS + publishers loose some important sales because they release the game with too many bugs. We all dont know why this could happen - only speculating on contracts with publisher, betatester, game development, time and money.

The advertisement of Arma2 was much better than for Armed Assault!!

Hope that BIS is keen on turning Arma2 into a GotY or at least stable platform for modding and editing/scripting. Nothing is impossible! :)

[cnickcj 0]

arma2 is pc only while OFDR is xbox ps3 and also pc , yes for sure there would be more exposure for OFDR. and if you look at the forum of OFDR you will find many many console owners ...

[Guest]

I think its completely unfair to try and justify Bohemias lack of advertising. Me alone, a random guy in england, nagged up over half a million views for these guys, that's more than any ofp video, and way more than any of theirs.

Obviously i do not ask for anything in return, that is pure stupidity, but i do expect them to aknowledge that if some random guy in england can advertise their game to a bigger market than they can, they are doing something wrong.

[{sas}stalker 10]

snip

That's true but its also a tad dismissive, If Brad was a small time actor and you went to see his films, you liked them but some of his fanboys verbally abused you in the foyer when you asked one of them to explain a plot thread your not really going to be that positive towards it are you ?

I agree though it wont have affected sales directly but if it put just one person off repeating the experience and they in turn told mates to not bother then that would equate to lost sales.

[SaOk 112]

Big gaming publishers have just different style to sell games. They buy all the space in media, buy good rates for their games, mislead customers with thundering prerendered game trailers and ensure that smaller games dosent get much publicity. That way they can sell games that most of the people only play few days or two weeks.

With money you can sell anything - like we also see in music industry with all the idols and other hollow stars/bands.

[JonasRC 10]

Big gaming publishers have just different style to sell games. They buy all the space in media, buy good rates for their games, mislead customers with thundering prerendered game trailers and ensure that smaller games dosent get much publicity. That way they can sell games that most of the people only play few days or two weeks.

With money you can sell anything - like we also see in music industry with all the idols and other hollow stars/bands.

Game publishing and review industry is corrupt. That's nothing I can prove but only what i have heard from some insiders. As in Big Publishers gives reviews anything they may 'need'. That's why I don't read gaming magz or take reviews seriously, even tho there are alot of good guys.

Stalker is right about the punchwelcome but it is probably not affecting sales.

I have faith in BIS supporting this game so I always recommends ArmA2. You dont even need a perfect setup to play the game, it runs playable and enjoyable on my machine for now.

[vasmkd 12]

I got Arma2 because of OFP1. Had waited for years for them to make a sequal and I didn't know thay already had, Arma1 lol. so obviously there is something not right.

I too was in this boat

I found out about arma 1 but it was too late to buy it as i heard arma 2 was on its way in a few months

But it must be selling right? http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/59426

Edited August 12, 2009 by vasmkd

[JonasRC 10]

I think ArmAII's big selling point is the engine and its capabilities. Showcasing this on youtube would hopefully increase sale.

BIS should invest in a big rig and showcase the engine, thousands of AIs and townfights and so on.

It's no shame to notice that Mil orgs are using this engine as well :)

A number of sales would be very interesting!

Edited August 12, 2009 by JonasRC
Another edit