Thoughts about OFF sales.

[Siggi 10]

Preamble...can't be arsed...

 

You chaps should buy in a bunch of copies of CFS3 (I got one for my brother last night, £2.99 plus £1.94 postage from Amazon).

 

Bundle it with OFF, add £20 to the price to cover OFF, convert that to dollars (£23 = $33), round it up to $35, plus postage, that's a deal. Ditch the distributor, god knows why you went with one in the first place. You should have been burning your own copies and posting them yourselves.

 

But you weren't in it for the money, that's clear to anyone. So you haven't sold thousands. Oh well. What you have done is slough off all the free-loaders, the casual downloaders (P1 and P2), and established who the serious people are (us for starters). Those who were prepared to part with cash, not only to get something they seriously wanted but wanted to put their money where their appreciation is. I think that's called art.

 

You chaps haven't made a game or a mod or a sim exactly, you've made an experience. Experiences don't sell to gamers, they sell to a very specialised niche market. People who are usually of a higher intelligence than the average punter ("Duh, no zombies, screw that!").

 

So think of P3 as art. You painted an original and are now selling prints to the discerning cogniscenti. If I was one of the team I'd be very well pleased. It's a masterpiece, and recognized as such by those who have the wit to tell the difference.

 

Well, that's my blathering done, fueled I have to admit by a quantity of Asahi Super Dry (the finest beer ever crafted by the hand of man).

 

BH&H rocks. It's the dog's bollocks. I've not had as much fun from a computer game since RB2-3D. Thanks chaps, for your passion, enthusiasm, talent and integrity.

[Olham 164]

Why not offer Microsoft a percentage on each sold copy, for the rights, to put the necessary data,

that we now have to load from the CFS3 disc, directly on the BHaH-disc?

That would attract more buyers.

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

Why not offer Microsoft a percentage on each sold copy, for the rights, to put the necessary data,

that we now have to load from the CFS3 disc, directly on the BHaH-disc?

That would attract more buyers.

 

 

I think I can probably guess what those lot would say!

 

"Speak to our $3,000 a day Lawyers!"

 

Nicely said Siggi!... I plan to partake of a small dram myself later! (Just one more mission!)

[Cameljockey 3]

I'll just drink my Bud and be happy! :drinks_drunk:

 

CJ

[Hauksbee 103]

Marketing strategies aside, I think sales would soar if OFF could get more exposure. I suggested in a parallel thread [website kudo's] that it's time to get a dramatic cover on the DVD. I don't play many games, but I love all things 3D/CG and cannot walk past a game store to see what's new. Wouldn't it be cool to see OFF posters taped to the windows? I can't help but feel if PC flyers knew what was in the game, it would sell itself.

[Rickitycrate 10]

We need promotional posters. I'll pepper my area.

[rabu 9]

We need promotional posters. I'll pepper my area.

 

Here are six..

 

[Rickitycrate 10]

Yeah, these are spot on! Thanks so much. I really like the idea of helping folks to learn of our sim.

[Dej 17]

Bumper stickers anyone? There's enough graphics talent in this select body to come up with such... Rabu's posters being an clear example.

[Guest Barnstorm]

One of my few periodical subscriptions is to the bi-monthly magazine,Computer Pilot. Each month The editorial staff publishes their reviews of flight sim related hardware and software. Last week, I sent the editor a letter briefly describing the history of OFF and OBD software and the progression of the OFF series. I asked him to review BH&H and publish his findings in an upcoming issue of CP. I mention this not to "blow by own horn" or imply that anyone else should do the same, but,I do intend to submit similar request to additional printed and on-line resources for the flight sim/gaming community. This is one way we can help get BH&H exposed to a larger audience of potential customers. Then, when BH&H is reviewed, that gives us the opportunity to respond and elaborate on its positive points and refute/rationalize the perceived negative issues.

[OvS 8]

One of my few periodical subscriptions is to the bi-monthly magazine,Computer Pilot. Each month The editorial staff publishes their reviews of flight sim related hardware and software. Last week, I sent the editor a letter briefly describing the history of OFF and OBD software and the progression of the OFF series. I asked him to review BH&H and publish his findings in an upcoming issue of CP. I mention this not to "blow by own horn" or imply that anyone else should do the same, but,I do intend to submit similar request to additional printed and on-line resources for the flight sim/gaming community. This is one way we can help get BH&H exposed to a larger audience of potential customers. Then, when BH&H is reviewed, that gives us the opportunity to respond and elaborate on its positive points and refute/rationalize the perceived negative issues.

 

Honestly, this is the BEST approach. We need magazine reviews. We won't be packaging anything, or selling CFS3 with OFF (we legally can't), we are not going to a distributor and loosing 90% of our hard earned profit, plus God only knows what else we have to sign-over to them (software rights... etc).

 

We chose to do it this way because we also have lives and we knew we would not have the time to do it all. We wanted the product in your hands as fast and as easy as possible, and this was the best way. It was a good choice that has worked well for everyone. We're just slow in getting things to fruition as it's a hobby for us, not a business. So for us... any advertising on a website, a forum, a magazine is all we can ask for.

 

All the best, and keep chuggin' :)

 

OvS

[Typhoon 5]

Barnstorm:

I also sent an email to Computer Pilot as well as PC Pilot basically saying the same as you. Hope something comes of it.

 

Tony

[catch 81]

Good work Barnstorm and Typhoon. Please keep us posted if anything comes of it.

[Typhoon 5]

Received this reply from PC Pilot Magazine:

 

 

 

Hi Tony,

Thanks for your email, but we have already covered OFF in issue 41 of PC Pilot.

We are aware of the new version so we will include an appraisal in a future issue.

Kind regards,

 

Derek

Editor – PC Pilot

[+matt milne 5]

There are no hobbyists in the biz ovs, only serious and non serious artists. those who skip about the edges, and those who do the work. we worked hard on off to get it done and out, we are by all measures serious artists, and so we should work equally hard on pushing it out there.

 

for some of us we are the skirt around the edges sort, but there are others on the team who wouldn't mind doing something bigger, myself included, and we aught to get our heads together on that.

 

most people think there are only two camps, those who do what studios do and those who do it in their spare time, would it surprise you to know that those are the same thing. the real deal so to speak, is to come up with a great idea, and get it done fast and well. if we do our jobs right, it sells itself, with a little encouragment. but it takes people who see the world that way to do it, and there aren't that many of us.

 

the real goal of game selling isn't to sell games, it's to sell computers, as we've done, with many members paying over $1400 for a new computer as well as the $70 for the game. That used to be how the gaming industry worked, with manufacturers funding serious artists to make great games.

ofcourse nowadays that isn't the case for some odd reason, but if we can pull our socks up and get serious about leaving our dead end jobs for a better more enjoyable but harder life, then that's what we should do. problem is most people talk big, but don't actually want to do what's needed and make up other excuses to fill their unfulfilling lives with mundane anythings. I think our team's got the ability to do something great, and we should do it.

 

as for marketing, send some free copies out to reviewers asap, we need to get many more reviews.

[tttiger 0]

Honestly, this is the BEST approach. We need magazine reviews. We won't be packaging anything, or selling CFS3 with OFF (we legally can't), we are not going to a distributor and loosing 90% of our hard earned profit, plus God only knows what else we have to sign-over to them (software rights... etc).

 

We chose to do it this way because we also have lives and we knew we would not have the time to do it all. We wanted the product in your hands as fast and as easy as possible, and this was the best way. It was a good choice that has worked well for everyone. We're just slow in getting things to fruition as it's a hobby for us, not a business. So for us... any advertising on a website, a forum, a magazine is all we can ask for.

 

All the best, and keep chuggin' :)

 

OvS

 

OvS, that smug, self-satisfied look on your avatar picture maybe says it all. "Honestly, this is the BEST approach...."

 

Well, with that "BEST" approach it never will sell in any appreciable quantities and I think that's a bloody shame because it is a truly great sim.

 

A truly great sim that not many folks know or will know about.

 

If you can't bundle in CFS3 that's a major hurdle. But I would believe as long as you pay Microsoft for the copies, they should have no complaint. Has anyone even asked?

 

You won't loose "90 percent of our hard-earned profits" by using a distributor. You'll be making sales you wouldn't otherwise make. Lots of them.

 

Sure, you only may get a 10 percent royalty but that's 10 percent of many, many sales versus 100 percent of whatever few sales you will get with this current approach.

 

The distributor pays the cost of making and packaging the discs and distributing them (hence "distributor") to regular customers (like electronics stores) who will retail them. They all have expenses and they all have to make some profit.

 

It isn't as though the distributor and retailer are there to cheat you. They are in business to get your product to a market where it will sell.

 

You simply can't do what publishers and distributors and retailers can do on a much higher volume.

 

Look (I've said this in another thread):

 

I'm a retired newspaper reporter (and Army Reserve officer; the taxpayers thank me for my 30 years of military service the end of every month with a very handsome pension check and they pay for my medical care).

 

In my retirement, I write books.

 

They're non-fiction and tied to fairly recent events, so they have to sell fast if they're going to sell at all because in a few months they will be "old news."

 

One was published last September by a subsidiary of Amazon.com.

 

The books that sell directly on Amazon's web site (the one we all use) earn me a 35 percent royalty on the cover price. That's pretty nice!

 

But the Amazon web site retail sales are only about 20 percent of my total book sales.

 

The other 80 percent comes from sales to book stores who retail the book to their customers by putting them on their shelves in hundreds and hundreds of stores. Amazon is the distributor and charges the stores a wholesale rate of about two thirds the cover price of the book.

 

The books sold to book stores earn me only a 10 percent royalty on the cover price.

 

Sure, I look at 10 percent versus 35 percent and gnash my teeth.

 

But the fact is, 80 percent of my sales are through a distributor and retail outlets and I wouldn't have sold any of those books directly through Amazon's retail web site.

 

I needed a distributor to make those sales to retail outlets (in my case, the publisher and the distributor are the same company).

 

So, 10 percent of thousands and thousands of sales is better than 35 percent of a few hundred of sales.

 

And I'm happy with that.

 

Maybe the difference is that I spent 40 years as a professional journalist and writing is my career, not a hobby.

 

But if I produce something good, at this stage in my career, my priority is getting my work into the hands of as many readers as possible.

 

I would think you guys would feel the same way.

 

You have an excellent product but posters and T shirts can't be your your total marketing effort or no one will know it exists.

 

Go find yourselves a good distributor so I can walk into the computer store and spot OFF sitting on a shelf where I can pick it up and lug it to the cash register.

 

It certainly deserves to be there where people can see it and buy it.

 

It's a great product.

 

Tony

Edited April 30, 2009 by tttiger

[+matt milne 5]

really can't argue with that. That's how a pro does it if they're lucky enough.

 

there's gotta be a way, but lets start with some decent reviews. like more than one a month.

[OvS 8]

really can't argue with that. That's how a pro does it if they're lucky enough.

 

there's gotta be a way, but lets start with some decent reviews. like more than one a month.

 

No denying it, you're 100% right Tony. I'll pass that on to Winder and Polovski to contemplate ... I'm just a cog. :)

[OvS 8]

There are no hobbyists in the biz ovs, only serious and non serious artists. those who skip about the edges, and those who do the work. we worked hard on off to get it done and out, we are by all measures serious artists, and so we should work equally hard on pushing it out there.

 

for some of us we are the skirt around the edges sort, but there are others on the team who wouldn't mind doing something bigger, myself included, and we aught to get our heads together on that.

 

most people think there are only two camps, those who do what studios do and those who do it in their spare time, would it surprise you to know that those are the same thing. the real deal so to speak, is to come up with a great idea, and get it done fast and well. if we do our jobs right, it sells itself, with a little encouragement. but it takes people who see the world that way to do it, and there aren't that many of us.

 

the real goal of game selling isn't to sell games, it's to sell computers, as we've done, with many members paying over $1400 for a new computer as well as the $70 for the game. That used to be how the gaming industry worked, with manufacturers funding serious artists to make great games.

ofcourse nowadays that isn't the case for some odd reason, but if we can pull our socks up and get serious about leaving our dead end jobs for a better more enjoyable but harder life, then that's what we should do. problem is most people talk big, but don't actually want to do what's needed and make up other excuses to fill their unfulfilling lives with mundane anythings. I think our team's got the ability to do something great, and we should do it.

 

as for marketing, send some free copies out to reviewers asap, we need to get many more reviews.

 

Matt,

 

I've been modding WWI games for 10 years now (RB3D, WoW and OFF). Believe me, we are hobbyists having a great time and doing what we do best. Any one of us could become professional and run the gambit, but it's not just all about the artwork as it is more about getting it all together. WWI is a hug task to put together, correctly. It's about dedication to the core of the design, not so much about making a sellable game. In the past, over and over again, the dedication faltered and so did the game. There have been plenty of attempts that failed. Believe it or not, RB3D failed, however, was kept alive and rebuilt to perfection by all the modders. For OFF, Winder did a great job of keeping it all together, and seeing it all through to the very end. Almost every idea we talked about, or he came up with went into the game. We really worked hard, but he worked even harder. Once Phase 2 received such high marks, our intent was always to make a sellable game, as long as it was something we could be tuely pround of. But our intent was also to do it with passion, depth, accuracy and respect for what WWI really was.

 

Still, there is no way I would consider myself a professional game maker. Although we do have a 'company', we still are like a garage band. We play really good, we have fun, we play some gigs here and there and have a great fan base. But in the end, the big contract has not come across to us yet. Hopefully, someday it will.

 

If it were that easy to jump out of my job and start new, believe me... I'd be the first to weigh that anchor on the ship. But RL, and today's economy (and I live in Long Island, NY $$) dictate that I have to work to keep my family afloat. Somehow, I get the feeling I'd be sleeping alone in a cold bed if one day I came home and said, 'Honey, I quit my job to gamble on making games!'

 

I enjoy this, but our market is small and has been for the simple reason that OFF is the 1st true, in-depth WWI simulator for commercial release in 10 years. So there is plenty of apprehension, and wonder in the minds of those that don't know about the thrills of WWI Air Combat.

 

Perhaps OFF will take-off some day (pardon the pun), but for now, it's a great hobby to me and I love making it a fun experience. Would I like to make it a real job and dedicate all my time to it... Hell yes!! But I can't... 9 hr job, house to fix and pay for, car to build, kid to raise... etc.. etc.. etc.. I'm not 20 anymore, my responsiblity list out weighs the fun-time list now. It's that simple. So I trust Winder and Pol that we'll make the best of whatever opportunity comes our way, and hope someday it does break wide open. :)

 

OvS

[Rickitycrate 10]

Well for what it's worth... I joined the forums over at G4-TV for Gamers. My purpose of course was to bring awareness to some more folks about our favorite sim. I could not find the proper place to address my concerns about getting OFF BH&H reviewed. At least I started a thread in the PC game forum about "Is there support for independant developers? Not a perfect situation I know but if it does not garner a future review perhaps it will bring some new flyers to our ranks. You never know.

Edited May 1, 2009 by Rickitycrate

[tttiger 0]

OvS, I understand where you're coming from and just because I disagree doesn't mean what you're doing is the wrong solution for you.

 

I just know I couldn't do it that way (but we're different people).

 

My point above is:

 

I'm a good reporter and a good writer.

 

All those decades I was writing for a newspaper, I never learned how to run a printing press or deliver papers. Other departments of the paper took care of that.

 

These days, I work out of my office at home if and when I choose to. What I do now is as much hobby as it is work.

 

Now when I finish a book or a magazine piece, I still have to rely on a publisher and a distributor and retailers to get it into the hands of readers.

 

That's the next step in the process and I need some pros to complete the process for me.

 

If nobody reads it, what was the point of all that effort?

 

 

T

[OvS 8]

OvS, I understand where you're coming from and just because I disagree doesn't mean what you're doing is the wrong solution for you.

 

I just know I couldn't do it that way (but we're different people).

 

My point above is:

 

I'm a good reporter and a good writer.

 

All those decades I was writing for a newspaper, I never learned how to run a printing press or deliver papers. Other departments of the paper took care of that.

 

These days, I work out of my office at home if and when I choose to. What I do now is as much hobby as it is work.

 

Now when I finish a book or a magazine piece, I still have to rely on a publisher and a distributor and retailers to get it into the hands of readers.

 

That's the next step in the process and I need some pros to complete the process for me.

 

If nobody reads it, what was the point of all that effort?

 

 

T

 

Who said I was disagreeing with you ... ;)

 

Truthfully, it's not my call, it's Winder's. Aside from all the artwork, the models, the info... etc.. he made it all work. Without him, OFF would still be a dream. So if he wants to use a publisher, it's his call... we just follow suit and back him up. :)

 

At one point, we tried, and the details were not in our favor after spending so much time on it. I think he made a good choice. Maybe our thinking will change... maybe not. I'm just glad we put out something that really kicks a$$. We couldn't ask for more than that.

 

OvS

[buddye 1]

The OFF team will get their sales. It will just not come all in one short period like the big names.

 

Just keep making improvements, fixes, content, and new stuff. Keep the customers engaged and always review customers comments and recommendations.

 

The sales will come weekly over the years if you stick to your basic beliefs (historic accuracy, realisism, and fun).

 

A publishers is for a new game and requires a very big cut of the pie.

 

We have continually had BOBII weekly sales since 2005 when then game was published. The weekly sales increased with the download version.

 

I recommend a long term out look for OFF and getting the correct price.

[jayo 0]

Makes sense Buddye.

 

What happened to P.C.Pilot magazine?,they did a great pre-Phase-2 spread which was what caught my eye and prompted me to go get CFS3 the very same day!!

 

Are they not interested anymore?

[Typhoon 5]

Makes sense Buddye.

 

What happened to P.C.Pilot magazine?,they did a great pre-Phase-2 spread which was what caught my eye and prompted me to go get CFS3 the very same day!!

 

Are they not interested anymore?

 

See post #14 of this thread.

BTW Computer Pilot Magazine did not reply to my e-mail

 

Tony