Crikey!Have you seen the kerfuffle going on in the MS Flight forums?Have a look, I'll wait........see?There is some anger there.A fair proportion (well, the based on the criticism) are blaming MS for bringing out a brand new Flight Simulation that isn't to the liking of a certain percentage of fans!The same group seem to be still bitter about the 'demise' of ACES and FSX... I assume these people never heard of the GFC? Tech Bubble 2.0? Basic marketing & capitalism 1.01?Anyway, we aren't alone. This ME! ME! ME! ME! attitude seems to be rife on teh intarwebs these days. Maybe it is people of a certain age?These quotes come from an article at Eurogamer over the weekend, about the growing hatred and bile directed at Valve for not bringing out Episode 3 of HL quick enough for some fans....

"HL2 isn't a service. Fans aren't asked for repeat payment, and they are under no obligation to support Valve in any way. When they complain it has somehow been exhausting to be a fan, it is baffling. It is extremely easy to be a fan; you don't even need to get out of your chair. And yet, that sense of entitlement remains, fed by flattery from social media, by the ongoing confusion over digital rights, by the increasing collaboration of developers and communities."

Further more, it also says a few stronger words, that apply to some of the responses seen on the MS Flight forums...

"

Of course, you don't have to go far on the internet, much less in gaming, to encounter egregious displays of self-entitlement. That particular mixture of naivety and self-absorption is the principle feature of an X-Factor generation, regularly flattered into thinking their views are of vital importance by cheap marketing initiatives to "drive engagement" - rhetorical questions on Facebook; the Like button; text to vote now! Why not get on YouTube and unload your soul into the digital ether? You are worth it, you beautiful snowflake.

The result of this ego-frotting evil is a surge of righteous individualism that is at once incredibly socialised and gallingly self-centred. People appear offended that anyone else has the temerity to exist on their internet. People bark death threats in comments threads when a review knocks down the Metacritic of a game they haven't even played. People decry their favourite musicians when they dare to try new genres or, God forbid, make a living. People, man. What a bunch of jerks."

So there we have it.

To me it's all a bit surprising - I place most Flight Sim fans in my age group; old enough to have started out on 8-bit. I always find it surprising that anyone who was brought up on Mario & SNES would have any interest in something as SLOW as Flight Simming!

Edit: Post number 42! How many roads must a man walk down? What do you get if you multiply six by nine? Life... the Universe.... EVERYTHING!

Edited February 13, 201214 yr by corinoco

Nice post. It's a trend that sums up current society, both young and old. I challenge you to work in retail part time to pay the insurance bills. I'm baffled every Saturday by customers that feel entitled to having store hours that suit their needs, products at their prices, and me with the right answer no matterwhat the question! The forty somethings seem to be the most afflicted with this "memyselfandi" mentality, but old men and young girls are just as susceptible. It would seem we have quite a few young girls around the forums! Good luck to the Microsoft Flight team! (Regardless of the feelings I have towards their "maneuvers" over the past year)

Good luck to the Microsoft Flight team! (Regardless of the feelings I have towards their "maneuvers" over the past year)

+1Funny that people make it seem like MS is their footstool for Flight Simulation.... People hate for it to be moved around at all.

Yeah, maybe you're right. I guess the dumbing down of flight simulation was inevitable...it is the way of the world.I don't feel entitled to things that suit my wants and needs...but neither do I feel at all compelled to buy or praise those things that do not--like MS Flight. What MS had developed stepwise over the last 20 years with the MSFS franchise was a real simulation and a platform that thousands of people around the world used to really learn some things about the complex art and science of flying airplanes. What they're releasing now caters more to the unshaven high school dropout gamer sitting in his underwear in a darkened room slamming down energy drinks in between wee-morning rounds of WoW before he heads off to his minimum wage part-time job at the tattoo parlor.And if current economic trends hold true, a team of enterprising Chinese programmers is already hard at work to fill the market void left when ACES was closed and sorta kinda replaced by guys developing a cheesy video game in its stead. In fact, just ask the guys over at iFly who's doing their programming now...Flight is to the MS flight simulation legacy what an EPA-appeasing 4-cylinder engine is to BMW's long line of performance cars. Sickening, from my perspective.

Isn't "sickening" a bit excessive to describe your disappointment that MS won't continue building your favorite flightsim series?

All I can say is....Does anyone remember New Coke???Coca-Cola reinvinted the wheel once upon a time only to bring it back as Coca-Cola Classic, which is now Coca-Cola once again.I miss the old MSFS Franchise. but FSX still suits me fine for a very long timeCheers

Fsx model has been abandonned some years ago and ms is trying a different approach. It will not fit all enthousiast but in my case, it seems promizing.Better flight model, fluidity, vfr terrain, better sound. I will defenitively try it to make my own opinion but so far, so good at least for vfr. I will keep fsx for tubeliner, vatsim, procedural flight.Nobody have to use the game portion. What matter is the flight model and environment created for me.

Edited February 13, 201214 yr by kama2004

I can understand why some people are very upset at how MS Flight is apparently panning out. These people might have spent considerable amounts of time and money in their hobby and the apparent disappointment with Flight manifests itself as indignant diatribes. However, I will just say to those people take a deep breath and calm down. It's not the end of the world, you still have FSX. Put the news on TV or pick up a newspaper, look at the people around the world struggling with conflict, natural disasters, economic woes and political opression, it puts your complaints about a video game into perspective does it not?I've seen quite a few parallels in my other areas of interest, this phenomenon is not exclusive to flight simulation. Microsoft are out to make money by selling software, as much of it as they can. They're not going to do that by catering for the wishes of a few thousand anoraks populating a tiny niche market. No matter how worthy you think your hobby or interest is, no matter how much you think they owe you for buying their new version of FS every 2-3 years, no matter how much you kick and stamp your feet... they simply don't care.MS have bigger fish to fry...

Some time ago, Microsoft announced they were moving the successor to FS9 to Vista, and it would no longer run on anything but Vista. Then, they announced that they had stopped working on Flight Simulators completely.Vista died. Flight Simulator lived.Unfortunately, they're now dealing with a different demographic. "Gaming" isn't simulation, but it is the thing that drives the industry right now.

All I can say is....Does anyone remember New Coke???Coca-Cola reinvinted the wheel once upon a time only to bring it back as Coca-Cola Classic, which is now Coca-Cola once again.I miss the old MSFS Franchise. but FSX still suits me fine for a very long timeCheers

Where your "New Coke" analogy fails is in that Coca-Cola was at the time battling Pepsi-Cola to be the world's best-selling soft drink...MSFS has never even been the Upper 10 in that analogy...

Where your "New Coke" analogy fails is in that Coca-Cola was at the time battling Pepsi-Cola to be the world's best-selling soft drink...MSFS has never even been the Upper 10 in that analogy...

True True, but what I was going for is don't change a proven resipe. The ole Big Mac is still a Big Mac, always been and always should be.Most likely what the issue with MSFS was it had no competition at this point and wasn't making money compared to XBOX generation. Big Wigs at MS didn't get it and most likely never will.MSFS was something that Bill Gates liked, he bought it from Sublogic and gave Bruce Artwick the chance to develop it further. Bill Gates is gone and the new management at MS doesn't have to stick to his visions anymore.Cheers.

Most likely what the issue with MSFS was it had no competition at this point and wasn't making money compared to XBOX generation. Big Wigs at MS didn't get it and most likely never will.MSFS was something that Bill Gates liked, he bought it from Sublogic and gave Bruce Artwick the chance to develop it further. Bill Gates is gone and the new management at MS doesn't have to stick to his visions anymore.

At least this is the story we tell ourselves. How true? Who knows? ;)

 

Bill Gates is gone and the new management at MS doesn't have to stick to his visions anymore.

Yes, and once the vision of a company is gone look how it tanks...Remember how far Apple fell when Steve Jobs left, and how far it rose when he came back? I see Microsoft as a [albeit well funded] dinosaur in the software world... Yes "all your windows are belong to us" but new PC OEM installs and corporate contracts are the only thing that is keeping MS viable. IMHO.

Edited February 13, 201214 yr by gtrbarbarian

Hi allI think MS did extremly well when Bill gates ran it. But when he sold things only started to go bad when MS went public and the sharks (share holders) took over and as we all know the rule is milk for all its worth and then dump it and customers be damned!!! Just my two cents.....John

At least this is the story we tell ourselves. How true? Who knows? ;)

I heard it often too but never seen anything to justify for it.

Edited February 14, 201214 yr by mgh