Why does this brilliant game not sell as well as it should? And some thoughts..

[Steevodeevo]

The motivation for this thread is purely selfish as I want Starni to sell Strategic Mind games by the bucket load, earn loads of money and continue to evolve what is for me the best in class hex based strategy game of its type.

I think (my view only) there are 3 headline reasons for this, here they are in order of impact on sales -

1. Many people think the interface overlay is ugly. I do as well. The game itself; the 3-D map, the Unit models, info screens etc are beautiful. The brightly coloured movement hex overlay with the supply and overwatch warnings is garish and way too visible. Many people who have criticised the game as being ugly can't get past this bright, unsubtle overlay, which it must be noted is super useful.

2. The game is way too hard and unforgiving. Starni are passionate about their game and long may that remain the case. They themselves describe SM games as 'hardcore' for this genre. However in terms of casual sales and the 'fun rating' the game is unforgiving and brutal. The default difficulty level is really a hard level and easy is normal. I don't think there is an easy level.
Yes, you can make the game easier in preferences, but lets be honest, which casual gamers even go into preferences and start messing with these parameters? I've played over 600 hours of Strategic Mind games and have never messed with difficulty in preferences and stubbornly stick to the default difficulty which for your average Joe is really quite hard. The other brutal aspect is its win or loose, no partial victories or progression if you don't achieve an outright win. I would imagine a great many players who loose consistently (like me) and find that they have to go back to the start again and can't progress at all, throw in the towel (unlike me).

3. The bad PR and negative propaganda As is the case broadly in society these days, people are too lazy to do proper research but seem to be full of uninformed opinion nonetheless. Sadly the current culture of ignorant opinionated people can't be redressed in a war game and as long as Starni take on controversial and important historical issues they will face this stupidity.

[RobOda]

Or just no one knows they exist?

Their top game (Pacific) in terms of reviews only has 400 reviews. That's a drop in the ocean.

Whilst the gameplay is good and challenging, it is also lengthy, which caters to people with time on their hands. It is also fairly tricky, few war games ever give the defender initiative, and Strategic Mind doing so kinda slows things down a bit. Whereas most conventional war games will be more nippy as you can push for speed, or you always attack first on your attacking turns etc etc.

And finally, doesn't matter how good the games are, if you present an (ahistorical) narrative (seems to be the biggest criticism in reviews) then, it has to be a good narrative. From nearly every review I've seen the Voice Acting is panned. So, already the limited playerbase is further limited.

For what its worth, I liked the US narrative in Pacific. :P I'll do Japan soon, and I might buy the USSR game, because Germany has been done to death tbh.

[cbnnr]

To get the best out of scenarios you have to know them so basically replay replay. I thought about getting the allied version but the first british mission is so stupidly unrealistic. I like the game mechanics but not the scenarios.

[RobOda]

Originally posted by cbnnr:

To get the best out of scenarios you have to know them so basically replay replay. I thought about getting the allied version but the first british mission is so stupidly unrealistic. I like the game mechanics but not the scenarios.

Yeah, I get they're being ahistorical, but having the British in the Saar offensive is a bit of an odd one tbh.

[Klaus Jäger]

Probably what RobOda said, but personally, the bad voice acting and bad face animations in the cutscenes are a real big push factor for me.

[mrmagma]

Or this Ukrainian version of history is simply too unrealistic. If a story is created based on historical events, it is important to know them. Here the events preceding the war, the main reasons for its outbreak and the main culprits. Trying to push one's own version of history will ultimately benefit nothing. The developers have done much for the game, little for its acceptance. And that's devastating in the face of the ever-increasing number of games on Steam. These days, I don't think anyone is eager to conquer Moscow with Sherman tanks, spread communism, or save democracy for the world. Instead of their own fantasies, it would be better to show as realistically as possible what the war was like. That is, more gore, horror, crimes, but also heroism (including the bravery of Soviet soldiers). To make the player worry about each of his commanders, the crew in the tank was visible, especially after being hit. Just choose the hyper-reality version. Which would be best in some tactical turn-based version of a smaller battle. In my opinion, the individual parts of the kit are excellent, just poorly assembled.

[ASPIK]

I would disagree with the statement about overall difficulty.
If you get used to wargames and play carefully it is very doable to fulfill all the objectives with not much casualties in default difficulties and wargames afficionados does not like it too easy.
the engine is bit tricky and is not really representative of the game qualities so to stream is not as nice as for panzercorps for example.
If next time they upgrade graphism i am pretty sure it can play on the same court than PZ or Order of command so they are on good track.
It has so much more in armies customization and fun secondary objectives than the other 2 and it is very much appreciated.

[RobOda]

IMO It's not so much the difficulty, it's the tightness of how you have to play.

Pacific Japanese campaign examples;

Australia - an optional pops up which necessitates you have the fleet beelining to the East Coast, when the operational deployment would have you either split your forces (west/east) and/or generally use your fleet to support the initial rescue operations in the North-East area.

In order for me to hammer that objective with ease, I had to steam the navy right through the Eastern areas fairly rapidly. Flight is doable but a pain because the East coast is dotted with AA, which you don't really want to be ploughing through as the objective triggers early enough when air superiority is still an issue. Without foreknowledge of this secondary objective, I wasn't in range to take it out, especially because the convoy steams further south and away from any operational forces.


Hawaii - The moment you land on the actual Hawaii main island, an objective triggers about the oil fields on the opposite end of the island. Further objectives trigger in the south-eastern areas, when you're very likely to be inching down the west and north coasts - because there's four naval groups to take out in that area, so you're not likely to bypass them.

Group north, with the first strike hero. Group North 2 - with the second carrier, set slightly off, which you'd attack to eliminate the northern air groups.

Group West - another Battleship led fleet, which is in range to support Group North. I seldom have the ships/planes available (in range) to hammer both groups at once, so this group sometimes does some damage that takes out an escort.

Group South-West - the remnants of the Navy, Battleship and Cruiser.

And then Group South, which spawns as a convoy secondary objective and steams East, immediately, so if you're just about coming into range of Group South-West, you're instantly in a tricky position because the South coast is lined with Overwatched Naval guns and AA, which makes beelining to this objective something of a headache.

Actually, the USA first battle is a startling example of how tight things can be;

You go North - but if you don't move optimally (i.e. link up with forces, scout that area immediately), then even on normal difficulty the AI can and will invade the northern island and trigger a fail for the secondary objective. You need to get into range, scout and immediately risk an attack in order to stem the tide. For me, this objective is horrifically overtuned.

Again, I can complete all these objectives with ease once I know what they are, so I can account for them and plan around them. But... Secondaries should be more organic to the gameplay, they should arise and you should be able to split off and do them, without having to have prior knowledge and position units "optimally" to grab them.

At the end of the day, yes, maybe 'hardcore' war gamers will put up with it, but they're a small, niche group of fans. If the company wants a wider fanbase, then they need to scale back these gameplay issues, the difficulty, the tightness of time frame for the objectives etc, and that would feed in to short playtimes in a way, because not everyone is going to sit there for hours playing optimally - some of these missions go on far too long IMO, I think I'm at what? 66 hours for both campaigns now, that's a massive ask for anyone outside of the core wargamer fanbase, and even THOSE fans are complaining about difficulty or tightness in the few reviews on Steam.

[Steevodeevo]

Originally posted by RobOda:

IMO It's not so much the difficulty, it's the tightness of how you have to play.

Pacific Japanese campaign examples;

Australia - an optional pops up which necessitates you have the fleet beelining to the East Coast, when the operational deployment would have you either split your forces (west/east) and/or generally use your fleet to support the initial rescue operations in the North-East area.

In order for me to hammer that objective with ease, I had to steam the navy right through the Eastern areas fairly rapidly. Flight is doable but a pain because the East coast is dotted with AA, which you don't really want to be ploughing through as the objective triggers early enough when air superiority is still an issue. Without foreknowledge of this secondary objective, I wasn't in range to take it out, especially because the convoy steams further south and away from any operational forces.


Hawaii - The moment you land on the actual Hawaii main island, an objective triggers about the oil fields on the opposite end of the island. Further objectives trigger in the south-eastern areas, when you're very likely to be inching down the west and north coasts - because there's four naval groups to take out in that area, so you're not likely to bypass them.

Group north, with the first strike hero. Group North 2 - with the second carrier, set slightly off, which you'd attack to eliminate the northern air groups.

Group West - another Battleship led fleet, which is in range to support Group North. I seldom have the ships/planes available (in range) to hammer both groups at once, so this group sometimes does some damage that takes out an escort.

Group South-West - the remnants of the Navy, Battleship and Cruiser.

And then Group South, which spawns as a convoy secondary objective and steams East, immediately, so if you're just about coming into range of Group South-West, you're instantly in a tricky position because the South coast is lined with Overwatched Naval guns and AA, which makes beelining to this objective something of a headache.

Actually, the USA first battle is a startling example of how tight things can be;

You go North - but if you don't move optimally (i.e. link up with forces, scout that area immediately), then even on normal difficulty the AI can and will invade the northern island and trigger a fail for the secondary objective. You need to get into range, scout and immediately risk an attack in order to stem the tide. For me, this objective is horrifically overtuned.

Again, I can complete all these objectives with ease once I know what they are, so I can account for them and plan around them. But... Secondaries should be more organic to the gameplay, they should arise and you should be able to split off and do them, without having to have prior knowledge and position units "optimally" to grab them.

At the end of the day, yes, maybe 'hardcore' war gamers will put up with it, but they're a small, niche group of fans. If the company wants a wider fanbase, then they need to scale back these gameplay issues, the difficulty, the tightness of time frame for the objectives etc, and that would feed in to short playtimes in a way, because not everyone is going to sit there for hours playing optimally - some of these missions go on far too long IMO, I think I'm at what? 66 hours for both campaigns now, that's a massive ask for anyone outside of the core wargamer fanbase, and even THOSE fans are complaining about difficulty or tightness in the few reviews on Steam.

To experience these issues you have to first own the game and its low sales that are the issue, not so much bad feedback from owners, who I think are broadly positive - with some exceptions of course.

On reading the feedback I think I'm pretty much sold on the idea that for some reason the marketing of the game either doesn't appeal to the standard strategy game player and/or strategy gamers are totally unaware of the game.

It seems these days most Developers of niche war games sell via companies like Matrix, Slitherine or Paradox who act as a 'hub' drawing together niche buyers to one location. Respected developers like Lock n Load, Avalon Hill, Gary Grigsby, John Tiller, Fury Software/Battlefront etc all work via one of these companies even though some maintain direct sales via their websites as well.

Steam is huge and isn't really a 'go-to' for hardcore strategy games, so I think games like Strategic Mind simply get lost in the flood of eye candy and action oriented games on Steam and new games arrive so quickly, that any new game that doesn't immediately create a big player base buzz (like Valheim did for example) quickly gets buried and disappears.

[Xray38]

From a graphics perspective and battlefield command challenge this is the greatest game on the market and that I have ever played, including Panzer General 2. IMO the reason it is not selling like it should is because it is designed for a smaller group of "hard core" gamers that seek challenges more than "authenticity" or historical accuracy; and, the icing on the cake is the "eye candy". Actually I fall more into the later group who still plays PG 2. Actually I would go crazy if a new version came out that gave historical designations to non-core and enemy units with appropriate capabilities- ensuring historical accuracy.

[Xray38]

A serious problem that may be holding back the"major group" of war gamers is the developers only addressing the games "playability/bugs"- not the representation of unit interactions,e.g. air overwatch stopping A/C in their tracks unless they are fighters using "overwatch breakthrough" (something ALL A/C should have) greatly permuting the impact of air superiority in favor of strong AA rather than strong A/C; or allowing defending artillery to fire FIRST against counter battery artillery. And, most importantly, facing the enemy's most advanced equipment that in many cases didn't even exist at the time of the battle. I have made multiple complaints about this but never received a response from anyone.

[AncientGamer]

Personally I don't think Pacific was all that good, but each sequel was far better. Played them all so far (as of June 2021). Pacific was glitched, buggy, seriously lacked optimization. I think the following decline in sales was due to several factors: Issues with Pacific, the COVID scare, and the fact a lot of games were more interesting to the general population of gamers. I think if the game were designed with the fact that not everyone owns a high end game machine, that might help. Also adding pathing options as were found in the granddaddy of WW2 games - PANZER GENERAL, i.e., you could decide which scenario you would play, and that choice might give you an optional scenario to play, which in turn, gave you more experienced gained and better end game play. A real improvement would be a game where you could play Allied or Axis campaigns. The HEROES feature could use some revamping also.

[Kinakin]

For someone who doesnt own the game (for now) and whos only looking into it due to a youtube lets play. I would never have considered this earlier due to the voice acting. The trailer scream budget translation and makes you think the game is of the same quality. The lets plays lets the gameplay shine trough the crap voices. So there is clearly something there, but the bad voice acting and trailers that build around that insted of the core gameplay doesnt sell this game aswell as it could.

[-=EDF=- Kouta Seto]

1. Because its difficulty setting is ment for those who already are proficient in those kinda games
2. No turn limit changing the way you want it turns MANY people down as well
3. They claim Historical, and badly ballanced the assets. Shure given what kind of game this is AND how it play's they did their best to do the real world assets justice somewhat. As seen with SM:Pazific, they fail miserable in some instances. Even here in Blitzkrieg, a simple old outdate russian plane kills one of the best fighters in the world (not carrier based that is, those are a different story), the BF109, with relative ease, when in reality the german Airforce SLAUGHTERED the early tries to compete with them in the air.
4. Your playing germany and see the different, OTHER , part of the history. Wermacht wasnt all bad, those few directly controlled by the waffen SS are ofc. but the majority of it are, as shown in the very first mission, honorable officers of the old day's, if they promise something, they keep it, if they get the order to kill civilians, they will turn that order down (as Rommel and Manstein did, and thats proven, no arguing about that, and both of them knew NOTHING about what hitler did to the people they conquered (Yes, until 1944 Rommel did know NOTHING about the genocide, he even ignored orders to burn down city's in north africa etc.)

[Chicken_Salad]

I play all sorts of wargames, all the panzer general/corps games. I search steam often looking for something new. This game has been out a while, and I'd never even heard of it! That's the problem.

I was searching for a game starting w/ 'strategic' and stumbled on this game purely by accident. It seems interesting. I'm downloading it now.

So I reckon the problem isn't the game - it's the lack of marketing. Nobody will buy a game if they don't even know it exists.

[mrmagma]

I'd also say there's a marketing problem, including better trailers. Speaking for myself, I have to say that I decided not to buy the latest version - Fight for Freedom in the end, due to the excessive falsity of the historical data, and unfortunately the arrogance of the developers. I regret it, I tried to contribute my part to this game, I gave two tips on authentic music of the time, which were finally inserted, yet my subtle warnings about the inappropriateness, falseness or even insolence of some turns of phrase were not taken into account. The USSR (surely a criminal communist state) is falsely cast as having started a war with Nazi Germany, while on the other hand we can hear in the British campaign that the "best diplomatic efforts of the West" had no response. In doing so, the cowardice and incompetence of French and British politicians contributed most to the rise of Nazi Germany, abandoned Austria to Hitler, destroyed Czechoslovakia through the infamous Munich Treaty - a reason why all Czechoslovakia's allies (Yugoslavia, Romania and by then the USSR) changed attitudes. Romania sided with Nazi Germany, and the USSR, after occupying the rest of Bohemia (only then), began to negotiate with Nazi Germany. Apparently, the real history does not suit the Ukrainians on the team, with incredible arrogance they overlook the negative experiences of not only the then inhabitants of my homeland. At least they could have chosen their words (a few sentences) better... I expect that the next episode with the Finnish campaign will again be just a bunch of biased and one-sidedly directed dirt (even though the Red Army had a shameful role in this campaign). Not even the classic iconic track, Священная война - The Sacred War, was able to be included, instead only inauthentic lyrics and songs referring not to WWII but rather to the civil war era in Russia are given in the piece with the hideously titled Spectre of Communism (No, I'm really not a fan of criminal communist regimes). Ridiculous. It's disgusting when contemporary bad international relations are projected onto a long-ago history that is being rewritten, when absolutely blatant lies are being told. I resent the disrespect for Soviet soldiers, without whom Nazi Germany would not have been defeated, and of course I resent even more the disrespect for Czechoslovakia, as my homeland. The Ukrainian developers are behaving like an elephant in a china shop. Shame!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEB7BkPsWOk