Battlefront.com was founded in 1998 to provide high quality, innovative games for people looking for serious wargames. At the time such games had been all but squeezed out of the marketplace by the crushing forces of retail sales practices. To work around this problem Battlefront unveiled itself in 1999 as an Internet only company. It's hard to believe now, but industry veterans and so-called experts said "you're crazy, it will never work". 20 years later Battlefront is here making games and most of them are not.
What follows is a shortened version of the original "Manifesto" which was posted when Battlefront.com first went live:
Battlefront's founders have been around as active Developers since the mid 1990s, watching with growing nervousness the rise of Mass Market thinking within the Industry. For years there was no alternative to this institution since shelf space was the only way to get games into the hands of gamers. Things got much worse before there was even a hope of it getting better.
Then one day BBS services targeted towards the average computer user began to spring up, and soon after more sophisticated online services (AOL, CompuServe, etc.) appeared. All of this held promise, yet it could not offer a true alternative to the Industry. However, over time the various segmented services matured and formed a viable medium for software distribution; the World Wide Web, as it was called at the time. We began to see another option becoming available for Developers like us.
In the Winter of 1997/98 Battlefront.com was formed in principle. At first it was a "Plan B", a life boat, in case the Industry totally turned a blind eye towards our type of games. Within a few months it became apparent that "Plan B" was no longer the more risky and less viable choice for us. The Industry was turning to the mass market faster than we could have imagined.
As the new century approached the big Publishers, one after the other, cut back and/or watered down their war and strategy game efforts. Those that didn't simply went out of business or faded into obscurity. All the while we planned in secret for the survival of our hobby, our work, our inspiration. Thus, Battlefront.com was born!
Battlefront.com's mission is to provide the challenging military minded computer gaming experience that has all but disappeared from the face of corporate gaming today.
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