Why Arma 2 has a small market

[interox 10]

Information on the internet about problems in games is like wildfire hence the failure of Arma2 to reach BF2 type sales.

On paper the game is far superior graphically and gameplay wise with a multitude of vehicles, gamemodes and addons constantly being released.

What's the difference between the two games, well one works out of the box and you can play it for hours on end without a crash [ of course there have been patches but the released game worked ] where as the other appears to need numerous tweaks and system settings adjustments just to get it is started and running badly for what seems the majority of users.

Bad word of mouth travels faster than good....

The internet is full of instant gratification seekers . We want to game for pleasure. Spending your valuable leisure time watching your chosen medium fail is a real let down.

I'll be buying OPFDR and I wont be buying Arma3.

[Guest]

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.

I already did that :computer:

[sparks50 0]

I don't think the problem is in the media, the problem is in the game. Actually completing the games before shipping them would be a good first step.

Just my five cents.

[rekrul 7]

I think many people misunderstand the role of a publisher. It's not like Tom Clancy is the marketing director of his books. The publisher does this, they set up book-signing tours, get him into talkshows etc. Tom Clancy writes the book (usually ;)) and shows up wherever he has to.

This is the main problem BIS has after divorcing CM, and one thing I've pointed out both pre ArmA1 and ArmA2. Their multi-publisher strategy (or regional publisher if you prefer) is counter-productive. Since no publisher has exclusive rights, noone is willing to drop alot into advertising since it would primarily be on internet. Why should 505 run a massive campaign, only to see Morphicon harvest the sales from it?

I'm sure they were offered some sort of kick-back but have you ever seen any ArmA-ads? They should pick one exclusive publisher that would benefit from the work and investments they put into it. Unfortunately, the biggest ones with the biggest marketing machine are also the ones who takes the biggest slice of the pie. I guess BIS is happy with the relative low sales as they don't seem to change strategy.

Also, the game should be playable when released. They pissed off alot of new users with A1 and they had bigger demands for the quality of the A2 release which they didn't meet.

[cjsoques 0]

I think a small contributing factor in it all is that the ARMA community is about as welcoming as punch to the face.

Extremely well put!

[Yoma 0]

You guys are all forgetting one major factor: simply the name of the game.

If Arma2 could have been named Operation Flashpoint 2, they could simply thrive on the success of THEIR first game.

I think at least 50% of the people interested in OFP2 still don't KNOW it's not the real successor to Operation Flashpoint.

Also in a lot of countries the game might get banned if it got really popular because of it's realism.

Besides all that i'm not too interested in it becoming the world's number one popular shooter, as long as BIS can earn their cash, survive and do their thing.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 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.

This is true. Word of mouth advertising only works when the game is recommendable. In it's current state, I would have a hard time recommending it although I love it. I did recommend it to one guy I know, but he read all the complaints and problems that we all know about, and bailed on it. Told me to keep him updated on progress.

Marketing is for publishers. Basically BIS is an independent, with very little marketing. 80% of a titles price goes back to the publisher to cover production, marketing, testing, distribution. Since BIS is cutting out the marketing side, there is then a smaller market penetration.

It's a catch-22. If you have a larger market and sell more games, then you have more money to spend on patch development and testing. If you don't, then your patch development and testing areas take the hit.

If you are an independent, and launch a buggy game, your purchasing market is not expanding, not as much revenue coming in, and you slowly just slide into "man that was a good game if only....." bucket.

[BeerHunter 0]

Here's my thoughts...

The ArmA series is referred to as a simulator rather than a FPS so that I think throws off the looking for action packed CoD type player. (which is odd come to think of it because for every run n gun game out there there seems to be some sort of "realism" mod :confused: ) .

Lack of marketing (not necessarily PR). ArmA2 was the first game I ever bought where I actually had to HUNT for a distributor instead of being blasted with constant adds. Mind you , BIS probably saved $millions by not publicizing it in some of the game magazines. They seemed to rely on UTube which was is a great marketing tool.

BIS has a reputation (IMO) of supporting their products so I bought the game , faults and all , feeling confident they would eventually work it all out.

[bogdanm 0]

I think a small contributing factor in it all is that the ARMA community is about as welcoming as punch to the face.

Extremely well put!

I, for one, like the fact that ARMA community isn't a safe haven for every kid who wants to play army. I've never seen a new member who didn't get a warm welcome if he showed a geniune interest in the game, not those 12 year old who play the game for five minutes and than start whining why they continuously get killed by the bad guys, why they get shot after they lay down in the grass, or why they can't get a single kill on MP... If you complain about these things that probably ARMA isn't the best game for you.

My opinion is that ARMA is a game that needs a mature community.

[cjsoques 0]

I, for one, like the fact that ARMA community isn't a safe haven for every kid who wants to play army. I've never seen a new member who didn't get a warm welcome if he showed a geniune interest in the game, not those 12 year old who play the game for five minutes and than start whining why they continuously get killed by the bad guys, why they get shot after they lay down in the grass, or why they can't get a single kill on MP... If you complain about these things that probably ARMA isn't the best game for you.

My opinion is that ARMA is a game that needs a mature community.

I'm going to disagree with you on that, I've never ever seen a forum with so many thread lockings for no reason at all and it is quite ridiculous, immature, and unnecessary.

I've seen threads locked that were just fun amongst forum members, others that were locked after one post that was off-topic. It's really getting silly, it's only a matter of time before this thread gets locked due to it's anti-ARMA/BIS sentiments.

I don't think it's hurting sales however as an extremely small percentage of ARMA players get on here to discuss issues/concerns/addons

The other 99.9% who bought the game probably stopped playing after a few days because to be honest, it's quite a bit of work to enjoy this game and to utilize it's potential and most gamers have games they want to just enjoy out of the box, which this game is not.

Most of those that bought the boxed version probably don't even know about the patches (if there is no auto-update) and Steam users who don't frequent the forums were probably like WTF why is it downloading the whole game over again for a patch!?

ARMA and just does not have sustainable features to make sales with their current level of quality control in both the game and community moderation sadly enough.

[{sas}stalker 10]

I, for one, like the fact that ARMA community isn't a safe haven for every kid who wants to play army. I've never seen a new member who didn't get a warm welcome if he showed a geniune interest in the game, not those 12 year old who play the game for five minutes and than start whining why they continuously get killed by the bad guys, why they get shot after they lay down in the grass, or why they can't get a single kill on MP... If you complain about these things that probably ARMA isn't the best game for you.

My opinion is that ARMA is a game that needs a mature community.

Firstly, Kid or not you're/we are all playing army, it a game, secondly there's a massive difference between how you respond to someone coming to whine about how the game isn't what they wanted and how you respond to people coming with genuine questions on certain aspects of the game.

Anyway its off topic and could probably warrant its own thread.

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

The other 99.9% who bought the game probably stopped playing after a few days because to be honest, it's quite a bit of work to enjoy this game and to utilize it's potential and most gamers have games they want to just enjoy out of the box, which this game is not.

I wouldn't go as high as 99.9% of anything. But the game has a "frustration" factor built into it. Hell, most games have a frustration factor. But considering the rather steep learning curve which is compounded by the fact that there are some rather serious core problems, makes it much harder for a casual player to just pick it up, warm up to the differences and start playing.

It's like running an 10K foot race with a small rock in your shoe. It's already hard, but including the free rock, makes it all the tougher.

For myself, I don't play nearly as much as when it first came out, my level of frustration is too high and after dealing with day to day, life, I would rather sit down and just play Arma2. But after an hour watching the comical hijinks of my squad, I go watch TV.

[Guest]

When i get frustrated of Arma 2, i play another game.

But then i get frustrated that its not arma 2.

So i watch TV. But i get frustrated that its not Arma 2.

So i kill myself.

Yeah its true, i've killed myself 27 times you know!

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

When i get frustrated of Arma 2, i play another game.

But then i get frustrated that its not arma 2.

So i watch TV. But i get frustrated that its not Arma 2.

So i kill myself.

Yeah its true, i've killed myself 27 times you know!

LOL. I know!! It's like "I WANT this to work." I mean I really want it to be what it can. I read up and got better at squad control thinking it was me. I got good with more complex commands to the squad. Really TRYING to make it work, but it doesn't. I run into more bugs.

I found out last night, that if you assign a squad a color, then change it back to white, then to another color, it still thinks it's the original color. Just a new one I found last night. So rest of the game, squad was running all over cause it didn't know what fire team it was on. Or should I say, I didn't know what fire team they were on.

[bogdanm 0]

Firstly, Kid or not you're/we are all playing army, it a game, secondly there's a massive difference between how you respond to someone coming to whine about how the game isn't what they wanted and how you respond to people coming with genuine questions on certain aspects of the game.

Anyway its off topic and could probably warrant its own thread.

My point is that some people see that ARMA2 is a military sim, they still buy the game and than complain that the realism is too much for them to handle.

Also something on-topic. I can’t say that BIS is that careless about attracting new players… They managed to keep around these forums many OFP and ARMA1 players so they had a community from the first moment they announced ARMA2. Also there is quite a lot of publicity on game related websites, there were about 5-10 websites which made a preview/review about the game, not to mention all the publicity they get from the user made videos posted on youtube. The community has a major part in ARMA2’s PR campaign.

[Guest]

But relying on random fans to publicize your game is a very dangerous move, its as if they didnt plan anything!

[cjsoques 0]

The community has a major part in ARMA2’s PR campaign.

If that is indeed true, then I can understand why the game does not seem to have the success/sales that it really should have.

You can tell by the majority of stability and satisfaction surveys and the general trend of threads on here are negative.

I have friends that I play PR, all different Battlefield, and a little COD with and showed them initial videos of ARMA2 as well as RichieSpeed's amazing large scale war videos and they were sold.

Sadly, none of them play anymore because none of them could get past bugs in the campaign in the first few missions as well as wild instability with machines that are much more decent than mine, the laggidy laggy multiplayer also didn't help either.

I mean I got four copies of ARMA2 sold so that is money in BIS pocket but they don't play anymore and I doubt I could ever convince them of another BIS game after their experience.

[{sas}stalker 10]

The community has a major part in ARMA2’s PR campaign.

Then to further expand the community and thus the user base some heads need pulling out of their owners arses

[bogdanm 0]

If that is indeed true, then I can understand why the game does not seem to have the success/sales that it really should have.

You can tell by the majority of stability and satisfaction surveys and the general trend of threads on here are negative.

I have friends that I play PR, all different Battlefield, and a little COD with and showed them initial videos of ARMA2 as well as RichieSpeed's amazing large scale war videos and they were sold.

Sadly, none of them play anymore because none of them could get past bugs in the campaign in the first few missions as well as wild instability with machines that are much more decent than mine, the laggidy laggy multiplayer also didn't help either.

I mean I got four copies of ARMA2 sold so that is money in BIS pocket but they don't play anymore and I doubt I could ever convince them of another BIS game after their experience.

People complain about ARMA2 just like they complained about ARMA, that’s probably the only big mistake BIS made with ARMA2, releasing an unfinished game. Eventually most of the bugs will be fixed just like ArmA1.

Also the fact that you managed to convince 4 persons to buy the game just by showing them youtube videos proves that this strategy works.

Well I doubt that they’ll never buy another BI game just because this one was buggy. There were people who said exactly the same things when ArmA1 was released and than changed their minds after the game got fixed.

[axure 10]

OK, so here are a couple of elaborate thoughts of mine about this:

For starters, I think BIS is lead by a couple of people that really care about the game itself. They're not a big company that decided one day "OK, it's time to make another shooter and squeeze as much money out of as many people as possible". I have a sense there are people that are really passionate about this and are putting a lot of creativity and soul into this.

On the other hand, BIS is clearly not a fully capable game company. As pointed out in earlier posts, their promotional effort seems very halfhearted. And their support seems really deficient. They totally ignore these forums, including some really important threads (like about the mouse lag and surely this one.) And we don't see technical problems being solved. I think the only big issue they took seriously was stupid AI behavior in certain scenarios.

Honestly, it almost feels like they've released the game along with a handful of promo videos, felt that their job is done and went out for summer holidays, leaving just a few people to put out fires. So maybe in the end, it's a management issue?

My suggestions for BIS:

(as if anyone from the company were to actually read this thread)

* Show to your users that you give a damn about them. If there are really painful and persistent issues (like the mouse lag problem), at least get someone from the programming team to post on the forums some explanation and an estimated time frame for fixing it. Yes - a programmer - to acknowledge that this is a technical problem and that you actually know what you're talking about, and not some kind of "We take all inputs very seriously, we'll look into it when we have time, blah blah blah".

* Fix most obvious technical issues. If you knowingly decided to release and sell a somewhat faulty product, a beta version to be frank, you should have a big programming team that will jump on problems immediately as user complaints start flowing in. I know you can't solve every minute detail, but the game is on the market for two months already (!!!) and some of the most basic problems persist. It's as if you really wanted your product to fail.

* If you don't have a huge marketing department, get some of your most avid fans to promote it for you - and reward the best! Richiespeed13 is a great example here. I already knew this game would be interesting, but it's his videos (especially those of 1000 AIs ;)) that really made me think: Wow, this is like real war! I want to be in this!

Then, as I watched some other videos, some really interesting ideas started popping up in my head. But then, I tried the game and it turned out it runs like crap on my laptop, because of the mouse lag problem. So no videos, no promotion, I'm not even buying this game.

To me it's so obvious: you take richiespeed13, me and two other guys from the web, we team up, come up with some really interesting vid scenarios, shoot the thing, edit it in After Effects or whatever, put on YouTube in HD and throw links on a gazillion of gaming forums.

And that's just for starters.

- How about building a small training community, where you have like 10 experienced Arma2 players that patiently walk through newcomers and teach them all the needed skills. (Maybe noone will want to do this for a longer time for free, but then, I could really use a new rig. ;)) And even organize small, temporary training clans, where people learn to cooperate, go through simple missions under a watchful eye of one advanced player. This way everyone would be pulled into the game and given attention, as opposed to a lone noob going on-line and immediately getting his ass kicked or just getting lost on the big battlefield.

- How about doing a weekly Arma2 web video show, where coolest Arma2 user videos would be shown (authors sent T-shirts and stuff), coolest Arma2 mods, coolest missions and perhaps even some discussion of real conflicts and real war footage for inspiration and reference.

- Many game/pc magazines have DVDs attached to them and they really have problems filling them with something interesting. So why not ask (pay?) them to put on such a disk a really cool video for kids to watch? The video should be relatively long (10mins of action) and high-quality (big, but it's on a disk) and present all the best aspects of Arma2. That is quality graphics, realism, but also things that lacked in Arma2 promo vids, like massive scale, especially in terms of player count. Show a piece of a big battle, where real players scream to each other in emotion while fighting the enemy.

- How about multiplayer (pvp) campaigns that actually have consistent scenarios, plot continuity, and an objective umpire to direct an unfolding conflict? (Much like a game master in pen-and-paper RPG games.) And no, don't wait for the community to do it by themselves. If you organize it well and put a good umpire in place, this could yield something really interesting. And when the campaign ends, you release a video with the best and/or most crucial moments in the whole story for players to be proud of and have a nice souvenir. :)

Jeeez, there are so many really interesting things you could do with this game. But no, you don't care about what people think, you won't take unnecessary risks, you just want to spend this summer peacefully, sipping your fine Czech beer and fantasizing about your next title...

Edited August 12, 2009 by axure

[Bulldogs 10]

I agree BIS should fix some issues (mouse lag included, I thought it was fixed last patch but I guess it was just fixed on my friends setups, didn't have mouse lag myself)

But as far as tweaking go's, I think people shouldn't get upset when BIS doesn't change everything to the way people want it. At some point you've gotta say "Hey, we designed this game to be like this, not like that"

There's also an issue with development time/costs. To tug an old cord... "Crysis" was linear. Everyone wanted it to be an open world (ala OFP/Arma/Arma 2), but if Crytek went that way then Crysis never would have been released.

I'd love the perfect game myself, but let's face it, the perfect game will never exist. You can try to create the perfect game but 12 years later you'll find your company bankrupt and the game you've been working on for those past twelve years will truely live up to it's initials of "Did Not Finish"

[-RIP- Luhgnut 10]

People complain about ARMA2 just like they complained about ARMA, that’s probably the only big mistake BIS made with ARMA2, releasing an unfinished game. Eventually most of the bugs will be fixed just like ArmA1.

Also the fact that you managed to convince 4 persons to buy the game just by showing them youtube videos proves that this strategy works.

Well I doubt that they’ll never buy another BI game just because this one was buggy. There were people who said exactly the same things when ArmA1 was released and than changed their minds after the game got fixed.

I bought Arma1 the day it launched. Had more than enough PC to run it. Took it home, and 45 min later felt like I got ripped off. Put it away. Loaded it again 6 months later, and patched it. I was like.... hmmmm ok, just sorta ripped off. Uninstalled. 6 months after that or so, I installed it again and repatched. Getting better..... uninstalled. Finally reinstalled and final patched the day Arma2 launched. Played it one day. Took that long to get it playable and they are still patching. Do I still feel ripped off? Yes. Cause they had MY Money for all this time, and I had nothing in return.

Like buying a car, and every week they come to your house and put parts in it cause even though you can only drive it down the street and back, we are supporting our product. "BUT I CAN'T DRIVE IT!!!.." "Don't worry, you will some day. Trust us. And don't say you can't drive it, you can go down the street and back. Yes, yes, we know, we told you it has a top speed of 150mph, but that's are marketing department.... they are always saying stuff like that. Those silly pranksters."

[cjsoques 0]

...really awesome ideas...

I abbreviated your post but you have it spot on :)

DCS Black Shark did a similar thing and teamed with the community to make some very amazing in-game videos. I think they were Glowing Amraam team or something. They also incorporated community made skins/mods into their 1.0.1 patch which is very commendable.

The ideas you talk about are very social-networking/community oriented which is where all major companies (not just game companies) are directing their attention, not just because it is effective but also relatively cheap and great representation.

I would LOVE to see a weekly/bi-weekly blog or post just quickly saying what they are working on but they can't really even do that (which I've seen many developers do lately, especially in the Battlefield community)

I really want to believe in this game and the developer, if they become more active the community will proportionally become more active and will be supported by more sales

[bogdanm 0]

@[=DD=] Luhgnut

Well thats you own oppinion. I would say ARMA1 was playble since patch 1.08(mid 2007) and almost bug free with patch 1.14(mid 2008). So they fixed the game 1 year before the release of ARMA2.

@cjsoques

Here is living proof, this guy bought a BI game that he didn't enjoy at all and than still bought a second BI game. :)

[Guest]

I have my conclusion.

This is the last BIS game i will support. While it's here i am going to give it all i've got, but if they do make a new one, and its like this, i will sell it straight away. I am just fed up with there strategy, its horrible.

Me leaving as a customer alone won't do much, but when 1000 people like me all do the same thing, then BIS have an issue.

And to be honest, i don't even know why they started that new game. It's going to make them bust i'm telling you!