Why is this game not more popular?

[Bulldogs 10]

The movement thing is a good part of it. ArmA feels more like you're moving a person as oppose to most other shooters where you're just moving a floating gun through the air without the limitations of the physical form. While ArmA isn't dead realistic on it's movement, the limitations in human movement is something people aren't acustom to in shooters so it seems wrong for most people.

Of course there's always going to be differences in a game that aims for more realism, and many of these differences people don't like because they stand against the action FPS genre, but that's where the choice lies. Should BIS make a game that appeals to the masses, or make a game that they want to make. I'm sure everyone here is happy that BIS didn't go for the generic action shooter style, and a lack of popularity may not be great for the sales department but it's good for us.

At least that's a large part of it, although there are a number of other things that could be fixed (and hopefully will be in OA), the main one being the bugs and glitches on initial release. Although most of them were fixed, first impressions mean everything.

As a last point myself, I say to take Engioc's advice. Find bugs and report them on the community tracker. BIS often looks at the tracker and uses it to find and fix bugs, but there's place for that discussion elsewhere so I'll try not to go too far off topic.

[Wolfstriked 11]

I think the movement is clunky and deters players.When your walking straight and aiming I can see the weapon bouncing around.But when you crouch down and say peer around a corner slowly you can be very smooth with reticule.In Arma2 each step causes massive bounce of reticule and that isn't real and does turn people away.If they toned down some of the exaggerated reticule bounce it can go a way towards fixing some of the clunkiness.But as above poster said you do get a feel of a real body on screen better than most FPS....it just needs some downtoning IMO of course.

[jonneymendoza 10]

Dont you guys think that E3 would have been a perfect opprtunity to promote Arma 2 OA

[Engioc 10]

Before I start just wanted to say I am big fan of this game/milsim. I've been playing games for a long time, I've never been much of a FPS fan (I hated all the older style eg DOOM running around endless tunnels that look the same as the last one I ran down) and in all my game buying choices I always look for games that go the extra mile for realism or in some way (at least in my opinion) really make a difference and bring something new to the genre. ArmA definitely does that. Also the story below really describes many of my more recent purchases over the last couple of years because I find myself being attracted to many lesser known games such as East India Company, Anno, Patrician/Port Royale, Call of Juarez, GTR Evo (although I think this one is a little better known than the rest). TDU is also another one but does have a pretty good following but I still believe NFS wins out in the fame and popularity stakes.

Point to that blurb is that these days it does seem harder to find really good PC games and I come by many of them simply by chance, younger/newer gamers wont bother with all the research I'm prepared to do, and will be easily put off by bugs or poor reviews. Mr and Mrs average gamer don't have the IT skills or gaming experience many here might have and dont want to spend time fixing/patching bugs or finding ways around these bugs. They also wont take a chance like me, they'll just believe what the magazine said and spend their money on what ever seems popular at the time. Sadly these days many really good PC games like ArmA are often over shadowed by the one or two well known, Hollywood, over hyped, games. I like some of them such as GTA, AC, but the games like those two that do win and attract a large following do it with huge amounts of hype an BS a year or more before release, even if the end experience for many of these games (in my opinion) is a load of rubbish (btw: I dont mean GTA or AC are rubbish, great games), but the masses will love many of these games for no other reason than the magazine said so and/or its what everyone else is playing and talking about. I do often find myself being the odd one out when I hear others talking about games they play, they've never heard of the games I play and I cant stand most of the games they're talking about. Also when I hear the store speaker system blaring out advertising I hear so many of these games everyone else seems to play and love, but I dont hear anything about ArmA or most of the other games I mentioned.

Example of that was in my current job working in HP, one of my colleges there saw my screen saver which is basically screenshots of games I play, he asked me if I played real games, my first response was what do you call a real game. His reply was not those (meaning my screen saver shots) and that I should be playing on an Xbox because PC's are old fashioned/dead and its nicer to play games in the lounge room on a TV. The conversation ended there and I didn't bother telling him my PC IS in the lounge room connected to a large screen TV via a port found on most video cards these days, sometimes the stupidity of console gamers does make me laugh, some grand idea that a console isn't just a dumbed down PC and somehow their console can do things my PC cant, I guess the dumbed down games are to cater to the dumb audience.

If BI want to break in to that crowed and be one of the richer developers they need to sort out the bugs, no matter how you feel about ArmA and BI, in the end its a business and needs to attract new/larger fanbase in order to survive long term. So you can make as many excuses as you like about why its ok for SP to suck (because MP is great, has editor), the average gamer wont care and wont bother when they read the reviews on ArmA and many who get as far as buying it will give up in frustration because of its bugs and never experience the good side to the game. Also I've seen posts saying who cares it has a large enough following and we dont need the dumbos from other FPS, I just repeat my last argument why we need more players. Increase the fanbase and increase the profit, and then make an even better game using those profits. Nobody said in order to beat CoD you have to go arcade, fixing bugs and ability to find/buy will go far enough for now. ArmA can continue with realism and win because of it, fix its other more obvious problems first.

Infact I'll give an example of why I would NEVER want to see BI change ArmA and go down the arcade route. I used to be a long time fan of the old Might and Magic series and Heroes of Might and Magic, but sadly 3DO put and end to it with their stupid ideas on making shitty spin offs, and changing the core RPG to something that resembled a FPS. All of this was in the name of making it like many of the more popular games at the time. An idea I've never understood, DOOM is popular so lets make our game like that so more people will buy it. Sounds dumb to me but I wont go on with that argument, but needless to say I dont support simply changing a game to look like all the rest in order to make it popular, games that offer something really different can win, The Sims anyone?? (very boring game but it sure made a mint for EA and they're still flogging it)

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like many others I found ArmA just by chance, I actually saw the original ArmA on a shelf in my local EB, picked it up and read the cover quite a few times but never got around to buying it till it was gone. Amazing it ever got bought considering it was just 1 lone box, tucked away in the corner of the store, not even the cover facing out, just the spine mixed in the dozens of other budget games. Compare that to the the half dozen boxes I could see of games like CoD, BC etc.

I went away and did plenty of research on ArmA and trying to compare it to the better know FPS games, biggest thing I got from most reviews was BUGs, but since I rarely pay attention to the opinions of reviewers I kept investigating because the blurb on the cover I read so many times excited me with the idea of taking control of any unit in game, the totally open ended world, etc. To be honest I did no research on CoD because I figured I already knew what that was about "Hollywood" or being the lone hero that saves the day, not a totally bad idea for a game but not what I was looking for.

Then when I suddenly saw, again by chance, a lone box of ArmA II on the shelf I decided to buy it and really find out what it was like, VERY glad I took that chance, but thats exactly what is was, just a hunch that it might be the kind of FPS I could finally enjoy and maybe a little bit of my gaming experience helped out too, been playing games since 1982 and always been a little more choosy than most when I buy, although I do buy a lot of games.

My point to all that is to show how easily I could of missed this game, I didn't find it because of any advertising, I knew nothing about it, and everyone else in the shop ignored it like so many other budget titles and it was just one little box.

It's no wonder people dont buy this game, it's very difficult to find copies of it to buy, and if you were like me and know nothing about it and you start doing the research, well most gamers will give up when they start reading about all the bugs.

Only the very few, and perhaps older, gamers bother to look a little harder and care more for realism than Hollywood flash. So to attract more gamers it goes back to my original reason for posting on the BI forums, BUGS. Out of the few who manage to find it, many will not buy based of poor reviews, and even though I know other games with just as many bugs get good reviews, it still doesn't help ArmA to be buggy and the reviews were honest because it DOES have bugs. The fact that other games also have bugs is really irrelevant to the success or failure of BI and ArmA.

And please note I never said bugs are the only problem, clearly BI need to do some better marketing and get themselves more shelf space in stores, cant expect it to sell well if people dont even see it on the shelf. Added to this problem is the fact that the PC game shelf in most stores is forever shrinking to make more room for the consoles.

-----------------------------------------

**Edit:

One more note, I realise realistic sims have always attracted less gamers and I accept its more difficult to get people to play them. However I dont really believe its realism that kills these games. Right now the biggest reason I see is that almost all the games/sims I can think of are made by other small time developers the same as BI and therefore are unable to really market their games in the same way the bigger guys like Ubi, EA etc do. Also in the past it was down to difficulty example I am sure everyone is aware of the number of key combos you need to know to work a top flight sim such as Falcon 4.0 and so this also puts off many gamers. In recent times though some of these problems have solutions such as better/more specific controllers and thats not just restricted to flight sticks and wheels, you can buy keyboards you essentially build yourself, assigning keys to various functions of the game, and they look like a real Fighter control panel, even games like Trainz have a controller specifically made for driving your train. Thats probably still a little difficult for the average gamer not to mention price, but I can see these games making a come back once the technology gets easier and less expensive. These days there is less of an excuse for realism killing a game, and if customers are afraid of playing something as complicated as ArmA then I'd agree with comments that maybe BI should make a spin off (not change the current ArmA) with everything cut down and simplified to help ease more gamers in to it. It is possible to make two games, the current hardcore ArmA we know and love, and a second game catering for noobs with plenty of tutorials thrown in. I wouldn't buy a cut down version as I'm sure nobody here would, but it would help grow the community.

Edited June 16, 2010 by Engioc

[Comrade12 0]

My point to all that is to show how easily I could of missed this game, I didn't find it because of any advertising, I knew nothing about it, and everyone else in the shop ignored it like so many other budget titles and it was just one little box.

Thats interesting Engioc. I was always trying to stay out of main stream games.

I walked into blockbuster and found ofp elite for xbox. I eventually bought it and my brother TEASED me for liking it so much with all the animations! But he missed the big picture of the game. It was so darn fun.

[NeoHazard 10]

I honestly couldnt recommend this game to a friend because of all the bugs. If it was polished then people would probably flock to it by word of mouth.

[rübe 127]

I honestly couldnt recommend this game to a friend because of all the bugs. If it was polished then people would probably flock to it by word of mouth.

pfffffft, you wuss

:nerner:

... so what did you recommend your friend instead?

The latest sims game?

:D

[Zipper5 74]

MW2 is full of bugs, as is BC2. ;)

[[aps]gnat 28]

..... and CM plan to try selling a new Operation Flashpoint 2 ffs LOL ..... theres a joke.

Likely said many times already.

Its not more popular because;

1) It doesnt get the same "air-play" as other games from big distributors

2) It has a tough learning curve (along with 1shot-1kill) so many loose interest very early.

[Inkompetent 0]

Heh, yeah. Like BC2 might seem more polished. But there's just as many badly configed servers as in ArmA2. The coloured 'tags' on people are sometimes wrong (i.e. blue tag over an enemy), one often can't 'spot' things even though they are in plain sight, like a hovering helicopter 50m away, one can finish reloads even before reload animation is done by a quick switch to the pistol and then back to the primary weapon, for a long while stabbing people in the back with the knife had like a 75% failure rate - the stab wasn't ever registered by the server, the flying-controls are TERRIBAD on PC (although apparantly quite good on console), I suffer from flickering grass textures, ridicilous HDR effects on winter maps (I get practically blind if I use red-dot sights due to screen white-out), often invisible or very hard-to-see tank sights due to bloom effects, occasional crash-to-desktops, and that's just what is broken and not mentioning poor design decisions.

I still like the game though, but even the so-called popular games are smack full of bugs ;)

[Sibby 10]

Gnat;1722466']..... and CM plan to try selling a new Operation Flashpoint 2 ffs LOL ..... theres a joke.

very early.

OFP DR SP/Coop campaign played straight out of the box with no patches. That is exactly what the mainstream / average gamer wants for the weekend games.

1 reason why codemasters operation flashpoint will sell far better that other games.

[DZR_Mikhail 14]

Perhaps becuase it is terribly difficult game...

I have always considered ARMA not a game, but an adapted light version of VBS, which is not game - it's MILITARY TRAINING SIMULATOR. In English language (and in all the others too I think) we have SIMULATOR term BOTH for computer game genre and technological tool for serious stuff... That's the core problem))

If it looks like game, sold like game, even called a game by devs (more for marketing purposes, they have to pretend it's a game).... it is still a sibling of a military simulator.

First person shooters are for playing, Arma - for raw combat experience.

I will not say that people who can't understand Arma's amazing and unique phenomenon are stupid. It's rude. They just do not need that level of entertainment. You may say they need Hollywood)) But you also go Hollywood when go to cinema for your favourite action movie sequel! You won't eagerly spend hours watching technical documentaries on war topic to get entertained on a Saturday evening with a can of beer... I guess not.

So, everyone decides which level is more pleasant for him. You chose CoD-like mainstream. Enjoy the "show". You choose Arma - take my respect. You opened the infinite world of military combat simulation. Welcome aboard. Join our (not very numerous) crew. And enjoy the battle.

[dmarkwick 261]

I have always considered ARMA not a game, but an adapted light version of VBS, which is not game - it's MILITARY TRAINING SIMULATOR. In English language (and in all the others too I think) we have SIMULATOR term BOTH for computer game genre and technological tool for serious stuff... That's the core problem))

If it looks like game, sold like game, even called a game by devs (more for marketing purposes, they have to pretend it's a game).... it is still a sibling of a military simulator.

First person shooters are for playing, Arma - for raw combat experience.

I will not say that people who can't understand Arma's amazing and unique phenomenon are stupid. It's rude. They just do not need that level of entertainment. You may say they need Hollywood)) But you also go Hollywood when go to cinema for your favourite action movie sequel! You won't eagerly spend hours watching technical documentaries on war topic to get entertained on a Saturday evening with a can of beer... I guess not.

So, everyone decides which level is more pleasant for him. You chose CoD-like mainstream. Enjoy the "show". You choose Arma - take my respect. You opened the infinite world of military combat simulation. Welcome aboard. Join our (not very numerous) crew. And enjoy the battle.

I wouldn't go so far as to call either VBS2 or ArmA2 a simulator. VBS2 is a training tool, to teach procedure. As gamers aren't generally interested in learning procedures its rightly marketed as a game. There's really only one way to learn how to fight a battle, and that involves going outside with real guns in the real weather :) however VBS2 is useful for teaching soldiers what to do when non-battle situations occur. Thats not to say they don't use VBS2 for battles when they happen, but thats not the core of the product's purpose.

ArmA2 is very good, and far far better than other products at what it does, but make no mistake it is still a game. As such its primary role must be that of a game, we may decide to disable/enable features and enhancements for more realism, but that should always be something that should be actively done by the enthusiast IMO. In order to survive as a product it MUST be accessible as a game right out of the box.

[DZR_Mikhail 14]

You're right too)) I'm only saying that I consider it more than a game, see the roots and potential so to say) And I'm not against calling it a game, especially if it helps the developers.

[[aps]gnat 28]

OFP DR SP/Coop campaign played straight out of the box with no patches. That is exactly what the mainstream / average gamer wants for the weekend games.

1 reason why codemasters operation flashpoint will sell far better that other games.

lol ... from your 2 posts already its clear youre on CM's payrole.

Oh, and sure the game *may* sell better (and that all you need to keep getting your weekly pay packet), but you obviously haven't paid much attention the the level of hate and discord from gamers who feel they were ripped off.

No, I'm not talking about these forum ppl, I talking about heaps of non-BIS related web sites and forums.

Example: LINK

This is why companies like CM hate missing out on 2nd-Hand sales at big name game shops, because they KNOW 1,000's of gamers are going to off-load their bit of smelly shyt at the soonest opportunity (to get some of their wasted cash back), and so developers and distributers miss out on the BIG re-sale of crappy titles!

.... they know the potential of Heaps-of-Hype + Crap-Game + Hooks-on-Reselling. It could double revenue!

[NoRailgunner 0]

C'mon we all know that the average/casual/mainstream player prefer popcorn movies and popcorn games. Even if simulations do have somekind of arcade/beginners/recruit modus they will complain about it.

[RomeoSierra 10]

ArmA2 is very good, and far far better than other products. In order to survive as a product it MUST be accessible as a game right out of the box.

As a new player of BIS games, I couldn't agree with you more. I love the freedom & realism this game offers but I believe this game NEEDS simple (yet detailed) laymans documentation covering ALL aspects of the game. From contact drills to comm's SOP to advanced editing (from a non-programmer/scripter point of view) etc.

IMO the A2 & OA manuals are as good as any other game manual but this is no ordinary game!

I know most of the things I've mentioned are already available within the community but if I didn't hang around here I wouldn't know about most of it!! (because it is produced at different times by different people, although appreciated it's not as fluid & comprehensive as I would like)

As a new player I would say the manual needs expanding & it would be really nice for new players if the editor consisted of drop down boxes & wizards (while leaving the ability to use script for more comfortable users).

EDIT: I would love one of those great big manuals, you know the ones you used to get with flight sims?

[DZR_Mikhail 14]

EDIT: I would love one of those great big manuals, you know the ones you used to get with flight sims?

RomeoSierra, I understand you meant it must be within the game package, but concerning Big Manuals - Dslyecxi made one, though it does not cover editing...

"Dslyecxi's guide is an unbelievably complex, detailed and informative resource, showing many ways how to be more efficient in combat in ARMA II and hopefully also get more enjoyment from the game. The previous guide was already unique, and it is breathtaking to see it this much improved right on time for the international release of ARMA II.

This guide is simply one of a kind and I strongly recommend it to everyone who will be sent to Chernarus!"

:eek: --->>>Marek Španěl, CEO of Bohemia Interactive <--- :eek:

Edited August 18, 2010 by zvukoper

[RomeoSierra 10]

RomeoSierra, I understand you meant it must be within the game package, but concerning Big Manuals - Dslyecxi made one, though it does not cover editing...

Thanks for the link but I've already checked out Dslyecxi's excellent guide. ;)

Cheers

[SPC.Spets 21]

OFP DR SP/Coop campaign played straight out of the box with no patches. That is exactly what the mainstream / average gamer wants for the weekend games.

1 reason why codemasters operation flashpoint will sell far better that other games.

are you serious? OPF DR is the shiet, many ppl complains about this game, and not in this forum. Yes, they did a good campaing avertising, showing how amazing the game is, things that you cant see in the game, also, they make the game for consoles too, thats way they seel it well, console gamers buys everything, including BS

[maddogx 13]

I found an interesting video over at The Escapist about Indie vs. AAA developers, that is quite relevant to this topic.

[[aps]gnat 28]

I found an interesting video over at The Escapist about Indie vs. AAA developers, that is quite relevant to this topic.

Yes, very good. Thanks

[johncage 30]

my theory: the buildings lag really bad in this game

[RomeoSierra 10]

my theory: the buildings lag really bad in this game

Holy cow batman, Insightful. :rolleyes:

[avibird 1 141]

OFP DR SP/Coop campaign played straight out of the box with no patches. That is exactly what the mainstream / average gamer wants for the weekend games.

1 reason why codemasters operation flashpoint will sell far better that other games.

are you serious? OPF DR is the shiet, many ppl complains about this game, and not in this forum. Yes, they did a good campaing avertising, showing how amazing the game is, things that you cant see in the game, also, they make the game for consoles too, thats way they seel it well, console gamers buys everything, including BS

Hello community this is AVIBIRD 1 and I have seen the light.

Most console players could never play this game the right way or work together in a mid to large size group to complete mission the way the game was setup for.

I still have hope that one day this game will be on a console so I could play with a small group of friends playing COOP mission that we made. ARMA game will not sell well compared to other console FPS that is a hard cold fact sad but true.

Most console gamers just want to run around caring only about the score or XP. OFP:DR was a shit game the bottom line, but it was the only thing for the console market. How sad for the few players that are still around playing the game CODEMASTERS is just going to F them again to try to get the bigger market of players the next time around with OFP:RR.