Flight post mortem.

[LHookins 3,103]

Was a back-handed compliment like this really necessary?

 

I dunno, I spent almost as much time tweaking aircraft as I did flying them in FSX, and loved every minute of it.

 

I'm not convinced that XP-10 is a serious sim at all, but we don't have a lot of choices.

 

Hook

[DarkstarF16 72]

 

 

The myth was if you could polish a xxxxx. Myth busted. You CAN polish a xxxxx. Thats the reference, but Flight was never a xxxxx. It was a diamond that was buried in one.

 

I think the #1 thing that hurt Flight the most, was having an almost empty store on launch. When you have a product like Flight, people are investing in an eco-system. If you buy an iPhone, you want to know that they have a good catalog of apps, since the iPhone will be the only place to get apps. Same thing with Android and WP7/8. You need a strong eco-system to attract customers. That eco-system could of been GIVEN TO FLIGHT via 3rd party's. Many were ready and willing to do just that, but as we all know, that didnt happen for whatever reason. So Flight launched with an empty eco-system, and they were very secretive about there plans for that eco-system. So it was very hard for people interested in Flight to INVEST there hard earned money in that eco-system. I think THAT is what killed Flight.

 

Kevin thank you for some great posts. Some of us banged on about the lack of content during the beta but all had hopes that this would change.

 

When a torch is lit that glows brightly and there are people that believe in something then anything can be possible.

 

To the team that had so much dedication I can only offer my thoughts and support for the tough times ahead.

[Wizard-Bob 9]

Kevin, thanks much for your candid post. Having some non-rumormill info is welcome.

[Gibbage 199]

Was a back-handed compliment like this really necessary? I know as a former Flight developer you probably still regard X-Plane as the "enemy", but come on, Flight is dead, the Flight Simulator franchise is dead, isn't it time to start mending bridges instead of tearing them down? You could have just as easily said, "We have XP-10 for people who want a serious sim," and left it at that.

 

 

Its the truth, but not necessarily an insult. Some people LOVE to tweak things and that in itself can be a big part of there hobby. FSX was like this also. Flight simply got out of the way and allowed people to hop in and fly with very little effort. You simply cant say the same about FSX or XP10.

[LAdamson 240]

Was a back-handed compliment like this really necessary? I know as a former Flight developer you probably still regard X-Plane as the "enemy", but come on, Flight is dead, the Flight Simulator franchise is dead, isn't it time to start mending bridges instead of tearing them down? You could have just as easily said, "We have XP-10 for people who want a serious sim," and left it at that.

 

 

To me, that doesn't sound right either. In fact, it's the main problem I have with X-Plane's marketing, as well as some of it's greatest admirers and addon developers. The word is, is that X-Plane is developed by serious engineers & pilots. So...........in addition to it's "outstanding" blade element theory for flight dynamics..........it's the ONLY sim that a "real" pilot would appreciate. And...........any real pilot should know the difference.

 

Personally I know better. I'm very aware that real pilots have also been involved in designing, programming, and owning many of the 3rd party addons companies for FS9 & FSX. I'm also aware, that real pilots were employed by Microsoft, for the design & programming of Microsoft's Flight Simulator program. In fact, as I was a beta tester, I knew that these people with pilot backgrounds were very enthusuastic about these projects.

 

Therefor, I get sick & tired, turned off, etc...............of seeing this marketing approach, in which X-Plane & only X-Plane, is portrayed as being the "serious" sim. Let's face it, Microsoft was the company that was capable of putting up serious cash for real life navigation, terrain & airport databases, before X-Plane could even think of it. And that's the reason, I'll easily go along with Microsoft's "Real as it gets" slogan, back when it was first published.

 

In the meantime, Flight Simulator isn't dead by any means (since it's still highly supported by outside developers). Once again, whenever this excuse is used by X-Plane developers, Austin (the X-Plane owner), or just users...................I shake my head in disbelieve, and get farther alienated.

 

L.Adamson

[Mountain Man 142]

Its the truth, but not necessarily an insult. Some people LOVE to tweak things and that in itself can be a big part of there hobby. FSX was like this also. Flight simply got out of the way and allowed people to hop in and fly with very little effort. You simply cant say the same about FSX or XP10.

 

I think I see what you're saying, and I apologize if I misunderstood your intent.

 

I will say one thing about Flight, though: by trying to "get out of the way", Flight abandoned pretty everything the core market wanted out of a flight simulator, and that was Microsoft's big mistake. Instead of trying to build on an existing market, they had to try and establish a brand new market, and the truth is, the casual flight simulator enthusiast simply doesn't exist. This is why Flight failed.

[Gibbage 199]

I think I see what you're saying, and I apologize if I misunderstood your intent.

 

I will say one thing about Flight, though: by trying to "get out of the way", Flight abandoned pretty everything the core market wanted out of a flight simulator, and that was Microsoft's big mistake. Instead of trying to build on an existing market, they had to try and establish a brand new market, and the truth is, the casual flight simulator enthusiast simply doesn't exist. This is why Flight failed.

 

I dont agree that is the reason why Flight failed, but we can agree to disagree. I think a balance must be struck between being overly complex (FSX, XP10) and kid friendly (Flight). Like it or not, our hobby is loosing members at an alarming rate, and I think the reason for this is the lack of new pilots, and natural attrition of old pilots moving on. We need to bring in new pilots, and we cant do that with something as complex as XP10. It scares new pilots away. We need something to bridge the gap. Flight was a good starting point, but it was not able to bridge the gap since it didnt advance its user base, but put them in reverse. At first, Joshua Howard said that Flight was doing "better then expected" so the initial offer was compelling to new pilots, and many old simmers. Then I can only assume the numbers dropped since they never released anything compelling.

 

People who fly, want to ADVANCE there skills, not have everything dummed down to the point its not even flying like the warbirds did. I think if they added a lot more Deluxe content, the numbers would grow, not diminish. MS was not fast enough to react to customer needs, and thats why I think that if Flight were to succeed, it must do it outside of MS in a more agile company. That agile company is NOT XP10, as they dont react to customer needs, but tell the customer what they need. I hope someone comes along to fill in the gap between starting sim pilots, and XP as I think there is a viable market there. It may not be the millions that MS needs, but im confident it would be profitable for a smaller company.

[Mountain Man 142]

Flight Simulator isn't dead by any means (since it's still highly supported by outside developers). Once again, whenever this excuse is used by X-Plane developers, Austin (the X-Plane owner), or just users...................I shake my head in disbelieve, and get farther alienated.

 

Flight Simulator is dead in the sense that the core program is no longer being actively developed (and hasn't been for some time). Therefore, all the shortcomings inherent to the software will always exist. The best people can do is bolt things onto the existing structure with varying success, but the structure itself will never improve. This is in contrast with an actively developed project like X-Plane or FlightGear which have both seen constant improvements in the years since Microsoft pulled the plug on FSX.

 

Let's put it like this: FSX has a very definite expiration date that will come sooner rather than later.

[mgh 89]

This is in contrast with an actively developed project like X-Plane or FlightGear which have both seen constant improvements in the years...

 

I suggest that FlightGear will many more years before it achieves the standard of FSX.

[Gibbage 199]

Flight Simulator is dead in the sense that the core program is no longer being actively developed (and hasn't been for some time).

 

Lockheed Martin is still developing Prepar3d. P3D was developed from FSX (ESP)'s core, so yes, in a way Fight Simulator's core program is still being actively developed. I even just released a patch to my Seabee to allow people to install it into P3D or FSX.

[Zeus67 15]

IMO, the main difference between FSX development vs. Prepar3D is the following:

 

FSX is consumer oriented products. Once the product was out for sale, in the company view there was nothing else to do but get into the next thing. Probably a patch if any major bugs appeared.

 

Prepar3D is a business oriented product. The main market are companies that need to use professional simulators for pilot training. P3D is one major cog inside the machinery and for LM it pays to have a development team permanently working to: a). enhance the product and B). kill any reported bug ASAP. Those companies spend thousands of dollars for their simulators and want them to be as accurate and reliable as possible.

 

Flight was supposed to be a hybrid of the two: a consumer product with a permanent developing team. Of course the problem is that the earnings had to be exceptional to support that developing team. Otherwise the plug on development would be pulled and the product left as-is, which is exactly what happened. Flight development is canceled and the team either let go or moved to other projects.

 

MS tried to keep in-house the entire environment, after reviewing the 3rd Party Add-On FSX market. They wanted the whole thing. In their words: "MS wants to monetize the Add-On market that so far is not generating any income to the company." They were savvy enough to try to get the cooperation of 3PD but the conditions were so restrictive, that in the words of one of them: "they were being asked to bet the company on the success of Flight." Something they were not ready to do. The sales forecasts made by MS were really high, too high IMO. So, the big ones walked out and decided to stick with FSX, and P3D, for the time being. I'm not disclosing any secret here, ORBX said the same thing when they announced their decision to walk out from Flight development.

 

So, MS decided to do it alone and probably hired a bunch of small 3PDs to make new content. The non-vc aircraft probably was a decision made to create new aircraft as fast as possible and within budget, since VC development is man-hours intensive and expensive. You can crank out an external airframe really fast, and take a little more time with the FDE and the paint scheme. A cockpit is another beast entirely. It has to be right and accurate and very good looking. Most people flying sims will spend their times inside that cockpit than outside the aircraft. But that decision probably hurt them in sales, and that created a vicious circle: low sales, not enough money for development, more cheap aircraft, etc.

 

I won't consider purchasing an aircraft with no VC. It breaks the suspension of belief for me. It shows me that I am using a game as opposed to flying a virtual aircraft.

 

How long will the Flight servers remain up? Probably as long as there are enough users using them. Otherwise, they will reclaim server space and use it for any other cloud based product that needs it.

[Mountain Man 142]

I suggest that FlightGear will many more years before it achieves the standard of FSX.

 

That's probably true. My point, however, is that the future of the flight simulator hobby is with those sims that are being actively developed.

[mikea76 184]

I dont agree that is the reason why Flight failed, but we can agree to disagree. I think a balance must be struck between being overly complex (FSX, XP10) and kid friendly (Flight). Like it or not, our hobby is loosing members at an alarming rate, and I think the reason for this is the lack of new pilots, and natural attrition of old pilots moving on. We need to bring in new pilots, and we cant do that with something as complex as XP10. It scares new pilots away. We need something to bridge the gap. Flight was a good starting point, but it was not able to bridge the gap since it didnt advance its user base, but put them in reverse. At first, Joshua Howard said that Flight was doing "better then expected" so the initial offer was compelling to new pilots, and many old simmers. Then I can only assume the numbers dropped since they never released anything compelling.

 

People who fly, want to ADVANCE there skills, not have everything dummed down to the point its not even flying like the warbirds did. I think if they added a lot more Deluxe content, the numbers would grow, not diminish. MS was not fast enough to react to customer needs, and thats why I think that if Flight were to succeed, it must do it outside of MS in a more agile company. That agile company is NOT XP10, as they dont react to customer needs, but tell the customer what they need. I hope someone comes along to fill in the gap between starting sim pilots, and XP as I think there is a viable market there. It may not be the millions that MS needs, but im confident it would be profitable for a smaller company.

 

I think you are right.. Had MS gotten quality DLC out for flight faster this may have been a different story. Everything was dumb ed down and it's a cold dead world. Flight with some traffic, land vehicles and other things to make it more alive and faster pace of DLC releases may have made a difference.

[CryogenicPilot 1]

Actually, the young simmers who are entering Flight Simulation are often teenagers who are thinking about a career in aviation and / or currently working on their PPL. It's not little kids. This is where Microsoft made it's biggest mistake with "Flight". It was too simplistic for the teenagers to get behind... The mainstay of the gaming industry... And it wasn't exciting (interesting) enough for casual gamers, either. Yes, the old guns vs. realistic flying argument again, but this is a legitimate factor if you know the current market of mainstream games vs. simulations... Something Josh Howard either ignored, or was under orders to try and futility change.

 

I also agree "Flight" needed to offer much more out of the gate with regard to DLC and more complete base package, but more to the point, QUALITY DLC that included finished planes with cockpits and some functionality (radios, etc.). This is what the teenager who operates the PMDG 737NGX with real world checklists is going to possibly consider when he/she looks at "Flight". Not a plane with no cockipt, or minimal functionality like the Icon A5...

[HiFlyer 9,363]

It's a good working hypothesis that's belied for me by the literally dozens and dozens of young people I spoke to in multiplayer. The vast majority identified themselves as under 15 and usually self described newbies. (for some reason exchanging ages seemed very important to them)

 

Plus the usual deliberate crash kiddies, and one adorable little girl who spent all her time in the trees, but babbled happily, nonetheless.

 

The only people I encountered mentioning ppl or any of the things you mentioned were already in this community, and were identifiable by their many comments comparing the experience to FSX.

 

There is at least anecdotal evidence that flight was reaching a section of its target audience.

 

In fact, there is actually a thread in the multiplayer forum by somebody nervous about the propriety of talking to all the kids. And they were buying! A kid would ask me why my plane was an arrow, and when I explained, there would be a hasty thanks and they would sign off, only to be back a few minutes later with the plane. There seemed to be a strong desire to have planes that others had. This was less common for the more expensive planes with cockpits, but it also happened occasionally.

 

Don't even get me started on the free Mustang!