Hi all.In these days I was reflecting about a comparison that, in my opinion, can be quite interesting, and I am interested in knowing what are your thoughts.I am a lover of several types of PC simulations, and surely two of the best and most successful series have been MS Flight Simulator and Maxis (and presently EA) Simcity. I would like to present a series of similarities between the two situations:- Both series have more than twenty years, and those of us old enough have fond memories of the first editions, with primitive graphics, but all the charm of new ideas.- FSxx had 10 iterations, following a sort of evolutionary path, with better graphics and more options along the way. Similar for Simcity, 4 iterations, with increasing complexity and possibilities.- Very important: both FSX and Simcity 4, the last edition, created a huge community of developers, that contributed with addons of all types to increase the quality and playability of the titles.Now, the "revolutions".- In 2007 EA decides to change path. They offer Simcity Societies. The new game has good graphics, but the gameplay is much simplified, many of the advanced features of Simcity are lost. A typical comment from reviews is: "the game "may be enjoyable" to casual users, but it lacks the depth of gameplay for "hardcore gamers".The result is not good, after some patches it is substantially abandoned, and the community remains quite small.- In 2011 MS decides to change path. They offer Flight. The basic reasons seem similar to the previous choice by EA. Making the game more accessible they hope to enlarge the market base. The reviews seem very similar to those for SCS, with similar arguments.Now, I write this because just some days ago there have been breaking news: EA announced that next year they will publish a new version of.... Simcity!Obviously this announcement has created great excitation in the city builders community, many had by now lost hopes in the possibility to have a new episode of the glorious series.Now, coming back to our flight sim field, what do you think about the question? Do you see some similarities or is it only an impression of mine? And in particular, can the history of the other series give some indication about the possible future of MS choices concerning Flight/FSxx?Sorry for the length of the post :-)A.

I don't see the similiarities. Flight is designed for a market that is interested in and intrigued by flying (which should be lots of people), but don't want a system sim where every knob in the cockpit is functional and necessary. It also happens to combine this with a bush flying sim that even the most hardened veteran can't help but love.Societies, on the other hand, tried to sell the "manage a city" concept to casual gamers, who probably weren't interested in that mundane task to begin with. They also did it by insulting the gamers intelligence, dumbing the game down to the point where there was basically nothing to do.The reviews may seem similar, but the reviews are meaningless in this case, since they're without exception written by the hardcore simmers, and the game isn't targeted at them. How many positive reviews of Zynga games (Farmville etc) do you think you'd get out of a bunch of hardcore strategy grognards? Yet that game has sold BILLIONS. It's all about knowing who your target audience is, and I believe MS is better at that than EA, at least in this case.

I don't see the similiarities. Flight is designed for a market that is interested in and intrigued by flying (which should be lots of people), but don't want a system sim where every knob in the cockpit is functional and necessary. It also happens to combine this with a bush flying sim that even the most hardened veteran can't help but love.Societies, on the other hand, tried to sell the "manage a city" concept to casual gamers, who probably weren't interested in that mundane task to begin with. They also did it by insulting the gamers intelligence, dumbing the game down to the point where there was basically nothing to do.The reviews may seem similar, but the reviews are meaningless in this case, since they're without exception written by the hardcore simmers, and the game isn't targeted at them. How many positive reviews of Zynga games (Farmville etc) do you think you'd get out of a bunch of hardcore strategy grognards? Yet that game has sold BILLIONS. It's all about knowing who your target audience is, and I believe MS is better at that than EA, at least in this case.

Hi Rickenbacker, thank you for answer and arguments.There are however some points in your reasoning that are not clear to me.You said that casual gamers probably were not interested in the task of "managing a city", but then you, correctly, cite the big success of the Zynga games, where some tasks are not so different. Same problem with the question of "insulting the gamers intelligence".So why do you think the same casual gamers didn't like SCS but did instead participated in billions to Zynga games?I suspect that the reason could just be in the expectance of the users. If you expect a sequel to Simcity, you probably don't like the simplification and the stripped features of SCS. If, on the other hand, you are a FB user, and you find a new simple pastime, Farmville can work for you, at least for some time (I hope limited :-)).But this seems quite similar to the Flight situation. If the game was directly born for, say, FB users, surely it would not have created such violent reactions. But considering the glorious ancestors, I suspect that it could be perceived as an excessive simplification, not very differently by SCS.Another interesting point is related to the really breaking news about the next version of Simcity. Here in the forum some Flight lovers propose to support the program, by buying DLC, also if you don't like the direction MS is following.But considering the situation of EA, that after the flop of SCS decided to coming back to the origins, I am not sure which strategy would be better, if one hopes that one day we could read of a new real MS Flight Simulator.What do you think?A.

Well, yeah, I guess that makes little sense... But I meant that Societies kept just enough complexity to make it an effort to get into, but not enough to compel the "grognards". Flight is very easy to get into, and still contains much that a veteran simmer can enjoy. I guess what I'm saying is that it's a matter of finding that balance between simple and stupid, and I think Flight hit it, but Societies didn't. Zynga games, on the other hand, are very much catering to the lowest common denominator, gather stuff and show it to your friends. Which is ONE of the elements in Flight, but wasn't in Societies, now that I think about it.And your second point is a good one, it's mainly expectation, I think. Newcomers to Flight don't expect a full fledged system simulator, find a fun little bush flying game, and love it. I hope, because I sure want it to stick around a few years :). I also hope that we'll see a new Flight Simulator someday. I do love the system sims as well, and can spend hours just flicking switches in Black Shark, f ex. But for now, Flight is an awesome simulation of GA, specifically the feeling of flight. Hopefully it'll be successful enough to convince MS that we need another FS.

Ah I remember Societies. It was also extremely buggy, when your city grew real big it just started to crash no matter what you tried. And that happened to a lot of people.