One vote on bad idea, relic employees really search the forums
there are so many cool ways to earn money thru cosmetics, skins ( really cool ones), the name tags you mentioned, voice packs for units etc. the problem is you need to deliver a good game before players spend money on cosmetics..
Of course, everyone wants all the commanders to be free. But it won't happen because it won't generate much revenue. And what about the people who already payed real money for the commanders?
What I'd like is an in-game currency. Instead of directly buying commanders/skins, you could buy ingame currency, then use that to get the stuff. From there, you could craft commanders, skins, bulletins into different amounts of in-game money.
Say CAS costs $15,000 virtual currency. You get $100 for every game completed (has to be automatch). The average commander could be crafted into $5,000. A skin, maybe $1500. An intel bulletin, maybe $15 each.
Skins, decals, and victory strikes would be on sale on the store.
Just my two cents, this game could be a lot more popular than it is with a warspoils overhaul.
Of course, everyone wants all the commanders to be free. But it won't happen because it won't generate much revenue. And what about the people who already payed real money for the commanders?
well if relic used my idea they would be rolling in the micro transaction money and players would still have everything they've bought regardless of level or experience
More ideas like this are a step in the right direction.
But don't ignore the big elephant in the room which is SEGA/Sammy Holdings executives using their "pachinko expertise" from Sammy to make money from SEGA games and totally ignored how to make quality gaming. Unfortunately, Relic/SEGA still underestimate the momentous task it will become to monetize an RTS eSport game.
If the marketing team behind COH2 actual took this serious then they would have fixed the broken war spoils system a long time ago or replaced it with in-game currency.
For Relic sister studio Creative-assembly it took them several years to polish a new business model to support CA eSport by adopting the "World of Tanks" FTP model which they are now using in Total War: Arena (beta).
With a few exceptions all the big eSport games focus their business model on either microtransactions + in-game currency or subscriptions such as World of Warcraft. http://www.esportsearnings.com/history/2015/games
Starcraft 2 is a rare exception that focus on quality DLC expansions, but Blizzard have more or less abandoned that eSport business model to also focus on subscriptions or microtransactions. The Starcraft 2 model would not be good for Relic games nor DoW3 as that require some deep pockets between expansions and top notch marketing. Not to mention COH2 is already over-saturated with multiplayer content which haven't been polished/balanced yet.
Today it's very hard to monetize RTSs unless it's a big MMO RTS like Game of War (on mobile) or an MMO RTS like Total War: Arena that use the World Of Tanks business model. Blizzard figured that out years ago and started to focus on MMOs and MOBAs instead of classic RTS.
Dawn of War 2 as you can see with "Last Stand" (http://dow.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Stand) was originally intended to be an MOBA forerunner in 2009 along with LoL. Unfortunately, that did not work out so well and the lead Relic designer Jonny Ebbert (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonny-ebbert-a8567b9) soon left after launch to join Blizzard as Senior Designer. Ebbert also played a central role to make Starcraft DOTA mod (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-17-blizzard-dota-launch-plans-revealed) and Heroes of the Storm. Now that don't mean DoW3 nor COH should become more MOBA like as that market is saturated, but there is still market potential for new MMO like RTS to thrive.
eSport with MMOs/MOBAs are growing big primary because it attracts a lot of "casual players" that are the fastest growing gaming community. Unless Relic/SEGA figure out a way to attract a lot of casual players along with hard-core players (easy to play, hard to master gameplay) to COH2 or future games it's hard to imagine that it can become a big eSport game.
So far there have been too much bad marketing by SEGA that focus on quantity with lots of new content with questionable quality. Even the new CEO of SEGA admit to this as does the former SEGA CEO, Tom Kalinske.
First a bit of context, the company is actually part of Sammy Corporation who bought out Sega a fair few years ago. Sammy has a history of mostly doing pachinko in Japan and while they did a few games over the years, it was never their main line of business.
So the direction of Sega since Sammy took over is not an entirely surprising one, as they’ve almost ignored what made games work and went after what they thought would make money based on their pachinko expertise.
Old interviews with the most successful SEGA CEO of America, Tom Kalinske
SEGA Nerds interviews Tom Kalinske
SEGA without Tom Kalinske would never have become a consumer trusted "brand" during the console wars in the 90s. As have been said by Tom Kalinske, he regular talk with former SEGA employees and they all recognize it's a sinking ship.
When we criticize SEGA, we got everything to back it up beyond any shadow of a doubt. So don't be silly and defend SEGAs horrific market strategy which need to change. In the right hands such as Blizzard marketing team, COH2 could have become the next "Starcraft 3" that every RTS fan wanted to play. COH2 is not a big market success when you consider the huge potential it had.
I like how you have good knowledge about the RTS/MOBA market and back them up with data. I totally agree with you.
Relic/SEGA (whoever the culprit is) still doesn't have a good business model for the game as far as I can tell, and I think they've moved on and are working on other projects, and they are just milking out the last drops from CoH2. CoH2 sales are just extra money in their pocket. This is the only acceptable explanation, how else can we justify their poor balance choices, sloppy patches, input delay, poor performance etc. If they wanted this game to become a popular e-sports title, they would act a lot faster. I'm not saying it's bad, only pointing out that I think they are working on another project, full time.
PS: I hereby ask this community (specially our trivia and news lord Nigod) to follow Relic on instagram (Relicentertainment), Maybe you can find a clue about what they are up to.
But don't ignore the big elephant in the room which is SEGA/Sammy Holdings executives using their "pachinko expertise" from Sammy to make money from SEGA games and totally ignored how to make quality gaming. Unfortunately, Relic/SEGA still underestimate the momentous task it will become to monetize an RTS eSport game.
If the marketing team behind COH2 actual took this serious then they would have fixed the broken war spoils system a long time ago or replaced it with in-game currency.
there are so many cool ways to earn money thru cosmetics, skins ( really cool ones), the name tags you mentioned, voice packs for units etc. the problem is you need to deliver a good game before players spend money on cosmetics..
yea, i would spend money on name tags, voices, National flag decals CA . maybe even on different unit portraits. or uniforms and camos for the infantries.
I actually spent like 150$ on top of the original price, for the Call of Duty games. up until Ghosts. then i said garden this crap. lol! but i always liked the idea of leveling up unlocking the guns instead of having to buy them with real money. then prestiging and doing it all over again 15 times.
i wont spend any money on this game though, which i actually got for free
Good , but its too late for that. They will need to give players that bought commaders a refit of money because else they would have wasted whole money
Anything that doesn't change gameplay is a great idea to monetize, however I don't know how they could possible transfer from the current system successfully
yea, i would spend money on name tags, voices, National flag decals CA . maybe even on different unit portraits. or uniforms and camos for the infantries.
all good ideas, unfortunately like people have been saying simply out of principle they refuse to spend more money on this game, which I absolutely understand
Good , but its too late for that. They will need to give players that bought commaders a refit of money because else they would have wasted whole money
I agree that it could be a bit late to be incredibly successful but relic could completely change the commander system, remove the ability to buy commanders and use the change as justification to not give any refunds because they were bought when they were available in store
) relic will take note 
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