Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

D. A re-make of North Atlantic '86. Now that game was a CLASSIC, the best of the 3 grigsby games from the 1980s. Imagine this time "China Sea 2016" where China now is the aggressor and the various nations which surround the China Sea are opposing China's advances. Just take the War in the Pacific game engine and there you go.

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ORIGINAL: JudgeDredd

The Falklands

• WWII Pacific, emphasizing operational land combat, with abstracted but suitably detailed air & naval combat on the side, covering, in detail: Burma 1942; Burma 1944-45; Burma 1942-1945; Malaysia 1942; Singapore 1942; Luzon 1942; Bataan 1942; Luzon 1945; Leyte 1944; Liberation of the Philippines 1944-1945; China War 1937-1945; Papua/New Guinea 1942-1945; Guadalcanal 1942-43; New Georgia 1943; Bougainville 1943; Solomons 1942-43; hypothetical invasion of Australia 1942-43 (kind of like Operation Sea Lion); the larger land battles (not just Marine invasions) on Saipan, Guam etc. 1944; Liberation of the DEI 1945; Iwo Jima 1945 (at a lower level of detail, but not tactical); Okinawa 1945; hypothetical invasions of Japan 1945; and so on. Not more air/naval games with abstracted land combat on the side; rather vice versa. (TOAW is just inadequate to the task, and its several scenarios covering just a few of these conflicts are old, outdated, unavailable, and/or were never really good to begin with.)
  
• Operational, not strategic, level American Civil War, where I can fight in detail, the separate campaigns: Forts Henry & Donelson 1862; Missouri 1862; Shiloh 1862; Peninsula Campaign 1862; Valley Campaign 1862; Second Manassas/Antietam 1862; Kentucky/Tennessee 1862; ... Gettysburg 1863 ...; etc. Strategic level games like Forge of Freedom, Gary Grigsby's War Between the States, AGEOD's American Civil War -- these aren't detailed, big enough to do operational, theater-level campaigning justice, also lack scenarios modeling individual historical campaigns. And grand tactical games like the HPS ACW series aren't truly operational.
  
• Operational, for the Napoleonic Wars, covering the many different wars and theater-level campaigns. (See above.) (AGEOD's Rise of Prussia and Revolution under Siege are low-level, detailed enough, with large enough maps, to adequately model operational warfare. AGEOD's Napoleon's Campaigns is not low-level enough, and its map it too small.)
  
• Pre-Napoleonic wars. (See above.) It's questionable whether viable markets exist for this category, though.
  

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ORIGINAL: doomtrader

Doesn't matter is it one man indie developer, or large company. Each game has got it's budget and each game must bring profit.

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ORIGINAL: 2ndACR

That Armored Brigade is a pretty cool little game. Just played a quick fight with a M1a1 company and M2 Mech Company vs the Russians. Got a tactical victory. Destroyed 119 of 130 vehicles but lost 16.

No clue how to get major artillery units. Had some M106 that worked pretty good. And could not change the year from 1987, no matter what I did.

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

Hey, I love games as much as the next person, but why can't game companies, like Matrix, start making some unique games instead of just rehashing WW2 games like the battles on the Eastern Front (bored now!), Normandy, or any variation of the above?

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ORIGINAL: Hertston

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

Hey, I love games as much as the next person, but why can't game companies, like Matrix, start making some unique games instead of just rehashing WW2 games like the battles on the Eastern Front (bored now!), Normandy, or any variation of the above?

The simple answer is that WW2 games sell better. There's an audience for alternatives including all those you mention (to varying degrees), much of which is as bored of WW2 as you, but even so WW2 games set in 'popular' theatres still usually shift more copies.

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ORIGINAL: doomtrader

For example if a WW2 is selling with 100k copies and WW1 game is selling with 50k copies, then how many Falkland war copies can be sold?

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

Okay, how many Afghanistan operational level games have been sold compared to WW2?

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ORIGINAL: Hertston

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

Okay, how many Afghanistan operational level games have been sold compared to WW2?

There's enough in most of the areas you suggest to make a tentative assessment; enough to base a decision on whether to commit to a major project or not. For example, WW2 tactical games have been covered just as much as operational and strategic ones; if you include the semi-mainstream stuff like Men of War and Theatre of War even more so. Yet if CM: Normandy sells ten times what CM: Afghanistan does it's reasonable to assume those sales levels can be extrapolated to operational/strategic level with some degree of confidence.

Where there isn't anything to compare with, Africa and Iran/Iraq, I would consider the chances of turning any profit as virtually nil, and I very much doubt any of the developers here would think otherwise. Maybe the route to go is the traditional one, pushing for games that allow comprehensive scenario construction or modding? Would a new Vietnam operational game, particularly one lacking time and money for 'polish' and comprehensive testing, necessarily be any better than Boonierat's terrific set of scenarios for TOAW?

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ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

E. Iran-Iraq war of the 80s. Biggest war since WW2 yet it is essentially ignored. The last year of the war had lots of maneuver and in '86 the Iranians did some hard fighting around Basra.

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C. Wars in Africa.

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ORIGINAL: Perturabo

Armored Brigade.

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ORIGINAL: nim8or

An operational game centered around the conflict in Afghanistan sounds about as boring as watching the dust my windowsill. There were few operational aspects in reality; hard to believe a game could make it any better.

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ORIGINAL: nim8or

An operational game centered around the conflict in Afghanistan sounds about as boring as watching the dust my windowsill. There were few operational aspects in reality; hard to believe a game could make it any better.

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ORIGINAL: Agent S

For middle east wars, try schwerpunkt's game. Covers Iran, Iraq and desert storm.