Matrix Games

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
The second boat were missing is The Tablet and Mobile market. Every publisher, developer and entrepreneur is investing into this market. From war-games (sliterine studios) to 1st person shooters ( Battlefield Bad Company) all is being developed at a astonishing rate. At this point there are more games in The Apple App Store than has ever been made on all consoles and PCs ever. The amount of money being generated is incredible (Over 6 billion in Developer Revenue Alone). One teenager made a simple puzzle game and began making 6 figures after the 1st month. This is the market Strategy War Game Developers need to invest in. Many people today are picking up iPads because they find it VERY easy to use. These are the people who are your future market. These are the people that are willing to shell out money to see if they can whip Lee at Gettysburg. Make them a simple strategy war-game and you'll have a award winning title on your hands, not to mention a great deal of profit.

I hope our strategy game developers do invest in this market... if not they will find themselves realizing most people no longer use PC's. Everything is moving to Tablets and Mobile Devices. Companies need to see that otherwise they will go under. Desktops are going to left to professionals who edit videos, need the screen real estate for their work. Casual people are going to utilize iPads, iPhones, Androids for their day to day needs.

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
Forge of Freedom had this idea... they took tactical combat and mixed it with strategic gameplay. This definitely has took strategy wargaming up a notch. They do need to improve the game because many facets are clumsy and difficult to manage. The learning curve needs to be reduced for this game to appeal to a larger audience... and it must be simpler.

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ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil
Alternatibvely they just produce much simpler games that are quicker to develop and sell for a dollar or two.

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ORIGINAL: Iain McNeil

The issues is money. As you say 99% of the money goes to mainstream games so the amount of money left for the strategy market is much less than it used to be so development budgets are either cut or develoeprs die. Developers have to work smarter and work harder than they used to just to stay alive. Alternatibvely they just produce much simpler games that are quicker to develop and sell for a dollar or two. Raising budgets of games to raise quality would need to increases revenues by more or its not worth it and the issue is that generally it doesn't. It's not always true but as a general rule the cost benefit is not there. The developer graveyard is littered with those who tried to do that kind of thing and failed.

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ORIGINAL: sterckxe

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
The second boat were missing is The Tablet and Mobile market. Every publisher, developer and entrepreneur is investing into this market. From war-games (sliterine studios) to 1st person shooters ( Battlefield Bad Company) all is being developed at a astonishing rate. At this point there are more games in The Apple App Store than has ever been made on all consoles and PCs ever. The amount of money being generated is incredible (Over 6 billion in Developer Revenue Alone). One teenager made a simple puzzle game and began making 6 figures after the 1st month. This is the market Strategy War Game Developers need to invest in. Many people today are picking up iPads because they find it VERY easy to use. These are the people who are your future market. These are the people that are willing to shell out money to see if they can whip Lee at Gettysburg. Make them a simple strategy war-game and you'll have a award winning title on your hands, not to mention a great deal of profit.

I hope our strategy game developers do invest in this market... if not they will find themselves realizing most people no longer use PC's. Everything is moving to Tablets and Mobile Devices. Companies need to see that otherwise they will go under. Desktops are going to left to professionals who edit videos, need the screen real estate for their work. Casual people are going to utilize iPads, iPhones, Androids for their day to day needs.

Couple of points :

Matrix/Slitherine has "Egypt : Engineering an Empire" out for the iPad, I like it very much, but it's not looking as though it has really caught on in the iPad world. I also hear that the guys from HexWar (Field of Glory) are working on something.

Apart from these titles, no other pc wargame publisher has announced anything for the tablet market while boardgame manufacturers seem to be more quickly on the ball : board wargame conversion in development for the iPad include Across Five Aprils, Battles of the Bulge, Hornet Leader : Carrier Air Operations, Manoeuvre, Pelopponesian War, R.A.F., Soviet Dawn, War Patrol, Waterloo and Washington's War.

So, yes, there are wargames being developed for the tablet market, only not by the established pc wargame publishers.

The notion that all gaming is moving to the mobile platforms is a false one imho. I like playing games on the iPad, but it's not a platform that's ready for the really super-duper heavy wargames like Battles from the Bulge, nor will it be in the next 5 years, so my digital gaming time will for the forseeable future remain split between pc and iPad

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx

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ORIGINAL: terje439

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
Forge of Freedom had this idea... they took tactical combat and mixed it with strategic gameplay. This definitely has took strategy wargaming up a notch. They do need to improve the game because many facets are clumsy and difficult to manage. The learning curve needs to be reduced for this game to appeal to a larger audience... and it must be simpler.

Tbh I find part of this true, and parts of it way off.
Yes, mixing tactical and strategical gameplay was something really sweet.
Clumsy and difficult to manage? Seriously? I do not see how to make it easier without dumbing it down (which is sort of what you say later on). Then you run the risk of falling between two chairs, it becomes neither mainstream nor strategy.

What Matrixgames could be better at, is utilizing their perhaps best feature, the forum. I have never asked a question in here that was not promptly answered, and often by the Devs themselves.

That being said, I understand what you say, and I partly agree, however I think that it is not easy to please both camps. Look at the direction the Civ-series is going, it is being dumbed down. The result - players that have been loyal to the series since Civ are put off the series since it is no longer Civ but a Civ-lite. The kids out there want games with pretty colours, flashy graphics and instant action. That is simply not imo what strategy games is about (it is a nice BONUS but not the main thing).

Anyway just my oppinion.

Terje

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie

So Im a LONG time strategy gamer... back from the days of Garys Grisbys Pacific War....

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
One thing developer studios need to realize is that the work doesn't stop after making the app... you need to reach out to your audience. You need to do advertising. Now yes this takes money, money most strategy war gaming studios do not have, so what you do is you approach this at a different angle. You reach your target audience by other means. One such means is Reenactments. These are large events that host approx 50 - 70,000 people nearly every year, all of which are interested in history. So now when you make a civil war game the first thing you should ask is when is the next reenactment. You get a team together, rent a vendor table and get your game out to the public. Also you get some hands on feedback that you won't ever get anywhere else. Feedback you take to improve your game.

I show up to these events and CANNOT believe no studios are taking advantage of it. You need to go where the people go.

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
I was not aware that these titles are in development - do you have links to them? I hope they complete the work and release the titles.

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ORIGINAL: sterckxe

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ORIGINAL: JeanAllTrekkie
One thing developer studios need to realize is that the work doesn't stop after making the app... you need to reach out to your audience. You need to do advertising. Now yes this takes money, money most strategy war gaming studios do not have, so what you do is you approach this at a different angle. You reach your target audience by other means. One such means is Reenactments. These are large events that host approx 50 - 70,000 people nearly every year, all of which are interested in history. So now when you make a civil war game the first thing you should ask is when is the next reenactment. You get a team together, rent a vendor table and get your game out to the public. Also you get some hands on feedback that you won't ever get anywhere else. Feedback you take to improve your game.

I show up to these events and CANNOT believe no studios are taking advantage of it. You need to go where the people go.

Just a tiny example : John Tiller has a new wargame out. You'd think someone of the developer/publisher team would spend 5 minutes to copy & paste a note about it to the barely half a dozen wargame forums out there ...

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ORIGINAL: Perturabo
Exactly. You don't need a full advertising campaign with psycho-manipulation and professional hype-building to increase sales.
Increasing awareness of potential customers by posting information is more than enough - neglecting it is a pretty stupid way to lose potential sales. Especially when we're talking about people who play rather cerebral games without "next-gen" graphics.

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ORIGINAL: sterckxe

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ORIGINAL: Perturabo
Exactly. You don't need a full advertising campaign with psycho-manipulation and professional hype-building to increase sales.
Increasing awareness of potential customers by posting information is more than enough - neglecting it is a pretty stupid way to lose potential sales. Especially when we're talking about people who play rather cerebral games without "next-gen" graphics.

I've actually given up on most wargame developers/publishers - they're so amateurish in the pr and marketing department that it pains me. They spend months trying to get the OOB for the 53rd Kitchen Company correct, but can't be bothered to spend half a day on actually promoting their new game - drives me bonkers.

Greetz,

Eddy Sterckx