Disagree. News (read: marketing) is productive and is in no way related to budget. Why would they start a Facebook group? Why would they bother doing interviews?So far, they've announced... nothing. I feel pretty strongly that if it takes a year, there will be no news.

Marketing and development are separate things. You don't tend to talk about what you have in the works until you have at least a semi-decent foundation for it unless you want to fall in to the same predicament that Ion Storm fell in to with Daikatana or Peter Molyneux fell in to with a lot of his games including Fable. In short, smart developers don't speak about what their working on outside of shareholder meetings until it's at least in alpha state. Right now I would guess their development is in pre-alpha state because they are probably working on a whole new engine too. Give it a year or two before you get anxious.

Hi Peter - Ok - but, as asked:===================================================Why would they start a Facebook group? Why would they bother doing interviews?===================================================As one who does marketing for a living... this is an odd way to approach development. I don't know that they really have any stiff competition at the moment, though whatever MS has up its sleeve may be the impetus for them not to talk about products.Anyone in the world can talk about concepts and philosophies, and they're both really worth nothing without some type of execution. I think everyone is hoping for the best (as I am) but the lack of consistent communication is strange.Well, I'm chomping at the bit a little - though, nobody knows if they're even producing a new flight product anyway!cheersAndrew

Oh - sorry, forgot to say... yes, marketing and development are separate things - but not by much. They're intertwined enough, but when you have a situation such as this with an unknown product, marketing is all you have.So far...

First of all, the edit button is your friend. Second of all, when you think about it. If you have 5000 followers on a facebook group for your studio, would that not be more enticing to investors than one without any facecbook fan page at all? In a way, it may help bring in more investors. As for interviews, well I don't know much about that one either except possibly making it more clear they exist in order to get new investors who may not know about them otherwise.

Marketing and development are separate things. You don't tend to talk about what you have in the works until you have at least a semi-decent foundation for it unless you want to fall in to the same predicament that Ion Storm fell in to with Daikatana...........

I remember Daikatana :( ...... and all the things it got wrong..........

Oh - sorry, forgot to say... yes, marketing and development are separate things - but not by much. They're intertwined enough, but when you have a situation such as this with an unknown product, marketing is all you have.So far...

Patience is necessary. If another good FS is coming (from wherever) it will take a while to get here........ There's no real need to make a lot of noise before anything substantial has been developed. You can't dive into marketing campaigns if you've got no product..... and you can't give constant updates on development, especially if it hasn't progressed significantly, it would be kinda jumping the gun.......... and wasting your time and resources.

I remember Daikatana :( ...... and all the things it got wrong..........Patience is necessary. If another good FS is coming (from wherever) it will take a while to get here........ There's no real need to make a lot of noise before anything substantial has been developed. You can't dive into marketing campaigns if you've got no product..... and you can't give constant updates on development, especially if it hasn't progressed significantly, it would be kinda jumping the gun.......... and wasting your time and resources.

I agree, it would be a waste of resources and PR to just go and promise the the moon landing before you even have a successful manned orbit of Earth. As for Daikatana, Momtchil, did you ever read Masters of Doom? It's a pretty good biography of John Carmack and John Romero. It also shows a lot about what lead up to Daikatana being such a mess in the first place.

Peter - when I tried to edit I only got a blank screen w/ the AVSIM banner across the top.. happens sometimes from my Mac... sorry about that!1,342 fans on Facebook, unless there's another number I'm missing. One could suggest that's not statistically significant. Honestly, whether an investor sees a group of 1500 or so people on Facebook who occasionally get a tidbit of some sort - well, I'm not convinced that's much of an impetus to invest. Probably, many/most fans on Facebook are Flight Simulator users. And they may not even be working on a flight simulator.I am ALL FOR Cascade taking their time - if they are indeed creating some type of flight simulator - and do their thing. By all means. But I'm confused: they announce, but then don't announce; they reach out, then pull back. From my perspective, something's missing here. (I know It seems like I'm being impatient... just pushy, that's all...)For what it's worth, I don't expect "constant updates"... if they weren't planning on it, though, then again - why "interviews" and social media? To attract investors? And it takes virtually no time to post a quick hello, not a promise of the moon.Disclaimer: :) I know there's always the potential for an AVSIM interview/announcement, and I'm sure we are all hoping for that (and don't want to ruffle any feathers). I'll assume they're keeping it very hush-hush so as not to tip off any potential gaming rivals or lose potential investors. It's all speculation for me. I sure don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but am hoping for the best.

I agree, it would be a waste of resources and PR to just go and promise the the moon landing before you even have a successful manned orbit of Earth. As for Daikatana, Momtchil, did you ever read Masters of Doom? It's a pretty good biography of John Carmack and John Romero. It also shows a lot about what lead up to Daikatana being such a mess in the first place.

I skimmed though 'Masters of Doom' in a store a long while ago - but I never read the whole thing or purchased it. If I remember correctly it had some interesting points. There was an informative and interesting contrast between John Carmack (programming) and John Romero (creativity) - other than that I don't remember much.Wasn't there also some sort of Lawsuit involving the book?

I skimmed though 'Masters of Doom' in a store a long while ago - but I never read the whole thing or purchased it. If I remember correctly it had some interesting points. There was an informative and interesting contrast between John Carmack (programming) and John Romero (creativity) - other than that I don't remember much.Wasn't there also some sort of Lawsuit involving the book?

This one? http://www.bluesnews.com/s/57457

Peter - when I tried to edit I only got a blank screen w/ the AVSIM banner across the top.. happens sometimes from my Mac... sorry about that!1,342 fans on Facebook, unless there's another number I'm missing. One could suggest that's not statistically significant. Honestly, whether an investor sees a group of 1500 or so people on Facebook who occasionally get a tidbit of some sort - well, I'm not convinced that's much of an impetus to invest. Probably, many/most fans on Facebook are Flight Simulator users. And they may not even be working on a flight simulator.I am ALL FOR Cascade taking their time - if they are indeed creating some type of flight simulator - and do their thing. By all means. But I'm confused: they announce, but then don't announce; they reach out, then pull back. From my perspective, something's missing here. (I know It seems like I'm being impatient... just pushy, that's all...)For what it's worth, I don't expect "constant updates"... if they weren't planning on it, though, then again - why "interviews" and social media? To attract investors? And it takes virtually no time to post a quick hello, not a promise of the moon.Disclaimer: :) I know there's always the potential for an AVSIM interview/announcement, and I'm sure we are all hoping for that (and don't want to ruffle any feathers). I'll assume they're keeping it very hush-hush so as not to tip off any potential gaming rivals or lose potential investors. It's all speculation for me. I sure don't know what's going on behind the scenes, but am hoping for the best.

My whole point was why there are no screenshots or anything WIP being shown yet. I know something is weird here involving their PR, I just have to wonder why.

This one? http://www.bluesnews.com/s/57457

Yup - sounds familiar, I remember it involved the Ion Storm CEO at the time.

Bill and Ed,So let me get this straight based off of what you've just said above and from your conversation with ex-ACES members? - ACES were unwilling to make FS more "game-like" as directed by MS Management. - MS's future strategy for FS is to make it dumbed down to appeal to more people = more $. - MS wants more control of 3PD's. So MS essentially showed ACES the door when they wouldn't dumb the program down? Am I correct? Look Bill, you've helped me a lot in the past with my project and I know you have close ties with ex-ACES members, but are you allowed to give us the straight story, or is something like an NDA not allowing you to speak your mind? I think both you and Ed have given us more information to the demise of ACES in this ONE thread, than I've seen in the past year and a half. Just curious, - Blake

Good insight from Bill and Ed...None of it is encouraging. Our simulator, as we knew it, is mostly likely dead with FSX. A "flying game" will likely come out, not do well, and then the coffin on MSFS will likely close. There are no budgets for "simulation" any longer - at least not for the $$-a-pop "entertainment" market. Funny thing is, I've hit the point in my life where I will GLADLY pay $$$ (and possibly $$$$) for a real simulation product, or at least an "adult" product. The "game design" parts of FSX did not interest me at all but I fear that is the only place that new energy will be spent. All of this reminds me of how another "sim" dynasty petered out: Sim City. This went from a great product, to the sims (another animal entirely) to, well, to the pits. In ACES we had some reasonably-traceable lineage back to the Artwick days, now... nil. I think the criteria will be "gamey" first and there are no other criteria. Sure, the engine needed updating to modern 3-d rendering standards, but there is NOTHING like MSFS's comprehensive modeling of the earth environment for flight. The engine was so compelling that ESP was born and will likely see nibbles and takers for a long time to come. Someone earlier pointed out that the Balmer MS is an aimless and rudderless ship, leading noone.... so, so, so true.Invest in making FSX great and wrenching every last drop out of it and what can be done with it's SDK - any successor will not be.