And I never claimed anything other than that.
Think of it this way:
1. "Bohemia Interactive" (BI) is a company with a lot of side projects ("VBS", "Take on Helicopters", etc.)
2. "Day-Z standalone game" is a side project as well / they support it
3. "Day-Z mod" *probably* sold more copies of "Arma II game" than "Arma II game" alone did, which is something that CAN'T be ignored by BI
4. To have "Day-Z standalone game" ship on "Arma III engine" would be like shooting yourself in the foot because a big chunk of Arma community, Day-Z players, would *probably* not purchase "Arma III game"
5. This is a perfect solution IMO - "Day-Z standalone game" gets released on an upgraded engine and "Arma III game" remains a profitable project and an improved modding platorm
Completely disagree.
- Overall, people who bought ArmA 2 for DayZ will buy DayZ Standalone instead of ArmA 3.
- People who buy ArmA 3 won't buy DayZ standalone.
The best solution would have been to funnel all those buyers into ArmA 3, sell off DayZ as a DLC for the engine. Keep everything together in one strong community.
Not only would it then also benefit all the other modders but it would also [further] boost the ArmA 3 sales.
There's no chance the modded ArmA 2 engine will be remotely anywhere near the excellence of ArmA 3, and so far the preliminary leaks from those who play DayZ Alpha aren't good.
ArmA 3 is a supreme product, far beyond the dated, bloated, and faulty ArmA 2 engine. There's already a handful of promising mods and more coming, even
dynamic zombie sandboxes, which in their very buggy pre-alpha stages are already just as fun as DayZ due to ArmA 3's enhancements, from everything to movements, bullet registration, weapons, items, vehicles, sounds, the settings (Stratis island or the big forest/hill map), even the zombie sounds in these new mods are better than DayZ ever had. Who here isn't also extremely tired of Chernarus as well?
No doubt the DayZ Standalone will sell, and ArmA 3 surely will too, but overall the decision to not use ArmA 3 as a whole is wrong, a fact easily proven by all the great early mods available at the moment.
I for one, and likewise for everyone I personally know who pre-ordered ArmA 3, won't buy the DayZ standalone unless the beta test proves extremely entertaining, free of all ArmA 2 issues and full of ArmA 3 enhancements, anything else would feel hugely inadequate because ArmA 3 already provides plenty of entertaining in the same genre, and if the early mod versions are any indication of the future then I'd personally much rather play ArmA 3 mods than anything ever related to the ArmA 2 engine again, ever, no matter how much duck-tape they plaster on it.
Think of it this way:
- Total War releases a new TW game on a new engine. It fixes all of the issues the former engine had, adds graphics 100 times better than the latter engine, supplies a wide range of mods that early on looks extremely promising.
- They then also releases a game in the former engine, let's say a mod campaign, with only a handful of the enhancements the new engine will have.
Why would you even consider buying the game built on the old patched engine, instead of the new game which offers a much better experience plus the same type of entertainment via mods.
There's an extremely high chance of ArmA 3 competing against DayZ Standalone, essentially costing BI money due to lost sales.
Patience is a virtue.
