Maybe the OP was being sarcastic. Only later I realized it was placed in the Flight forum and not FSX forum. However, my post was sincere and not sarcastical. I've had a lot of great help / suggestions from the people here at AVSIM. I tip my hat to you all.

and buy expensive add-ons.

 

That's exactly the mindset that killed Flight. The whole business model could not work if Flight people kept on complaining about the prices of DLCs. IMHO there was no way to keep it alive and deliver high quality DLCs if people kept thinking that a plane should cost $9 or less and a scenery $15. They are much more complex to develop than the average game DLCs, while the user base is smaller. If MS shut down it so soon, it is clear it didn't sell nowhere near its targets.

 

Meanwhile what is keeping the FSX/FS9 market afloat is a user base that will pay $35/40 for a high quality airplane without issues. Frankly I'm ready to pay $200/300 (and maybe something more) for a good simulator and $40/80 for good airplanes and sceneries. I know this is a niche market and will never become much larger, thereby I know I have to pay more than people thowing silly birds at piles of rubbish to keep it alive and pay for the development of high quality software. As long as it is a real simulator.

 

But don't complain about FSX users not spending money in what didn't fit heir needs at all. It's Flight users that killed it because it was too expensive for them.

Sorry Jeroen, but I think that's wrong.

 

As already said, MS never intended Flight to be a simulator and therefore could never have expected it to be adopted by FSX and FS9 users........how could they? If Flight was ever intended to be FS next, it would've included some of the things the made previous versions of FS appeal.

 

At the end of the day, Flight, whilst having all the potential to be FS next, was a poorly implemented product that appealed to neither console gamer nor flightsim enthusiast and as such was always going to fail. I'm sure that releasing a string of aircraft with no cockpit played a large part in alienating the FS community.............or at least it did nothing to encourage them to even use Flight, let alone adopt it as 'the future'.

 

+1

Yeah I agree with Paul. Sure there was a lot of unnecessary negativity in old Flight forum, but after that things calmed down very much. Ones blaming FSX people miss one major point here too; MS couldn't care less about negative feedback as long as they keep making enough profit, and on the other hand even if all feedback is very positive they won't continue any project if it doesn't make enough money.

 

Flight simply didn't make enough money, and you can't blame FSX community from just not buying DLC for game they don't like.

 

In my opinion Flight was doomed from the start. Most of people interested in civilian flying games have already found FSX and FS9, and in gaming community outside FS very few people actually are interested in civilian flying, most want to shoot other planes down. Just look at popularity of IL-2 Cliffs of Dover and other war flying simulators.

 

MS simply failed at marketing and targeting their game. In the end it wasn't really what FS community wanted, and for most of gaming community outside FS all civilian flying is simply boring thing to do although probably many downloaded Flight and plaid it for some hours. To me whole idea never seemed like something that would make sense, but I guess that those people at MS who told those good programmers what to do didn't really understand how gaming and FS community is today.

 

Had they added DLC and more planes with virtual cockpit it could have better among FS community, but I still doubt it would have been enough.

MS Flight has so much in common w/ an old Microsoft franchise it's scary.. MS Flight is a modern day Midtown Madness except replace focus on automobiles w/ focus on Aviation.

Not burn it down from day 1.

 

So the FSX community shouldn't have given its opinions about Flight? Maybe AVSIM should have censored them.

 

The reality, as other haves already said, is that Flight wasn't commercially viable and that has nothing to do with comments in specialist forums. MIcrosoft knew the FSX communiy wouldn't like it. Flight failed because it didn't sell in the wider market.

And the Flight devs listened to their (maybe)customers. Someone yells for Alaska we get Alaska. Someone for TrackIr we got it. Cockpits? We got it. All that is a lot of work. Time not spend on other more gamer friendly dlc. Therefore It was better they did not listen to the FSX customers.

 

Just for clarification:

 

No one yelled for Alaska. The Alaska DLC was already planned and in the pipeline at the initial release of Flight.

As far as Track IR, yes there was a large cry from the community to get Track IR support implemented into Flight and the team did react and made that happen - which certainly was a good thing. But that had nothing to do with time spent on dlc I am sure.

The FS community, not all, but the members that chose to post negative remarks on this forum as often as possible about how Flight was deficient and anyone enjoying it probably wasn't too knowledgeable about anything related to Flight Sims, probably helped in accelerating Flights demise. At least, they helped to dissuade people from becoming active with Flight or buying DLC. They would have never tolerated this on their own forums, but they came over here to try and rain on everyone's parade that liked Flight. It was obvious to the rest of us what they were doing, and I think it stinks, frankly. Anytime someone tried to defend Flight by pointing out all the problems that we actually experienced with FS9 and FSX, and how Flight had solved most of them, were lectured about how negative comments about FS9 and FSX weren't allowed. It was like being in a fight, and it's OK if someone punches you , but you can't hit back.

 

The funny part about all this is that I think these anti- Flight people figured if they make Flight go away, that Microsoft would decide to make them FS11. That shows how unrealistic they are. MS will never make another Flight Sim in our lifetime, unless it is a space battle ship type on X-box. After this. MS will be done with FS forever.

In my opinion, Flight's problem is pretty simple - it is a poorly conceived product and, like many other poorly conceived products brought to the market by many other businesses, it was doomed to failure from day one.

 

Consider:

 

1. Flight's degree of sophistication was never at a level appealing to a significant number of FS users much less the hard-core crowd thereby guaranteeing a negative response from this segment of the marketplace.

2. Flight's apparent target market's game-playing interests are constantly changing and could be described as "fickle" at times. An examination of the presently popular games reveals a genre much different than that of Flight's.

3. Flight required its apparent target market to accept the validity of on-going capital expenditures in return for what proved to be marginal enhancements in the minds of that target market.

 

The reason FSX and its predecessor products largely succeeded, matured and still retain a certain level of popularity is because they each offered a level of sophistication that required a learning curve. Additionally, those who invested in that learning curve believed they were actually acquiring knowledge that would have been otherwise realistically unavailable to them. Admittedly, the market for such products will almost universally be relatively small, being largely limited to those who value the acquisition of the knowledge such products offer.

 

Most assuredly, in my opinion at least, the present-day gaming community is not interested in investing the amount of time and effort products such as FSX require.

 

I believe a parallel to this logic can be drawn by examining the movie industry as it exists today.

Hello

If every one of Avsim's 88000 members had totally bought into the Flight! concept, it still would not have succeded.

If everyone of those 88000 members had bought every piece of DLC offered it would not have financed Flight! into the next financial year.

JH had set his sights on 20 million users which was madness from the start.

 

If blaming FSX users for Flights! demise make you feel better, then have at it.

 

The reality is that the target market did not like it.

 

The FSX users opinion was irrelevent, MS walked away from us as well years ago , we have that much in common now at least.

In my opinion, Flight's problem is pretty simple - it is a poorly conceived product and, like many other poorly conceived products brought to the market by many other businesses, it was doomed to failure from day one.

 

Consider:

 

1. Flight's degree of sophistication was never at a level appealing to a significant number of FS users much less the hard-core crowd thereby guaranteeing a negative response from this segment of the marketplace.

2. Flight's apparent target market's game-playing interests are constantly changing and could be described as "fickle" at times. An examination of the presently popular games reveals a genre much different than that of Flight's.

3. Flight required its apparent target market to accept the validity of on-going capital expenditures in return for what proved to be marginal enhancements in the minds of that target market.

 

The reason FSX and its predecessor products largely succeeded, matured and still retain a certain level of popularity is because they each offered a level of sophistication that required a learning curve. Additionally, those who invested in that learning curve believed they were actually acquiring knowledge that would have been otherwise realistically unavailable to them. Admittedly, the market for such products will almost universally be relatively small, being largely limited to those who value the acquisition of the knowledge such products offer.

 

Most assuredly, in my opinion at least, the present-day gaming community is not interested in investing the amount of time and effort products such as FSX require.

 

I believe a parallel to this logic can be drawn by examining the movie industry as it exists today.

 

You left out a couple of important fact however. FS never made a sim that felt real when flying an aircraft in it. I don;'t care whether it was one of the stock aircraft, or an add on, none came close to behaving like a real airplane in Flight like Flight did with several of it's aircraft. If you make a simulator for the airlines, and it doesn't feel to the pilot like a real aircraft, the airline will not accept it and you have a $20,000,000 NIntendo game. I was told this by a manager at the company that makes almost all the Sims for the airlines. FS, never came close to that goal, with the way aircraft behaved in the FS environment. I have had high time pilot friends of mine fly both FS9 and FS10, and they all commented on the fact that it looked nice, but didn't approach reality at all as far as the behavior of the aircraft in Flight. Then you throw in bugs, CTD's, stutters, flickers, and all the other issues and there goes what is left of your reality right out the window. And I don't buy this, "On my computer it is flawless and runs great". If that were the truth, I am sure that the P3D people would be contacting you and trying to figure out what you did to the FSX platform to make it work properly, so that they could duplicate it.

Thank you.... FlightGear 2.8 is coming, costs 0$ and has potential like this:

 

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Boeing_787-8_Dreamliner

http://wiki.flightgear.org/Cessna_337G_Skymaster

 

It's 64 bit, multiplatform, has AI, OP, etc... Gives a bit of an headache to configure your joystick? Yes it gives, but then, JSBSim is as good as MS FLIGHT FDM can be.... depending on who designs the model, and FG2.8 is bringing interesting news regarding rotary wing simulation in JSBSim...

 

So, big thx for the Flop MS FLIGHT was, minus the suffering of those who worked hard and made part of it's team :-(

 

For me, it is just beginning to reveal a new World of Joy - I hope :-|

I think you mean 'Thank you AVSIM community'? Because the FSX community didn't really help here. They only helped ending the project.

 

Jeroen, as someone part of the FSX community I take great offence at your statement!

 

No one and I mean no one is responsible for helping end the project other than some in Microsoft.

While a great deal of the flight simulation community was very vocal about their dissatisfaction with Microsoft Flight, which undoubtedly contributed to it's lack of acceptance by other potential customers who may indeed have been pleased by it if only they had given it a chance, the key thing to remember is...

 

Microsoft went to great lengths to ensure that a large percentage of their previous customers, supporters and fans would be dissatisfied and effectively encouraged them to rebel by clearly and publicly rejecting them. Anyone pointing fingers needs to think really hard about why those people reacted the way they did rather than about how they reacted. Microsoft managers created that situation, seemingly with deliberation. Point your fingers at the root of the problem rather than at the symptoms.

The FS community, not all, but the members that chose to post negative remarks on this forum as often as possible about how Flight was deficient and anyone enjoying it probably wasn't too knowledgeable about anything related to Flight Sims, probably helped in accelerating Flights demise. At least, they helped to dissuade people from becoming active with Flight or buying DLC. They would have never tolerated this on their own forums, but they came over here to try and rain on everyone's parade that liked Flight. It was obvious to the rest of us what they were doing, and I think it stinks, frankly. Anytime someone tried to defend Flight by pointing out all the problems that we actually experienced with FS9 and FSX, and how Flight had solved most of them, were lectured about how negative comments about FS9 and FSX weren't allowed. It was like being in a fight, and it's OK if someone punches you , but you can't hit back.

 

The funny part about all this is that I think these anti- Flight people figured if they make Flight go away, that Microsoft would decide to make them FS11. That shows how unrealistic they are. MS will never make another Flight Sim in our lifetime, unless it is a space battle ship type on X-box. After this. MS will be done with FS forever.

 

Flight did not solve all the problems with FSX/FS9, you and some others simply were happy with what little Flight offered and had a problem with anyone that wasn't and cared to point out the things that it didn't offer, plain and simple. I am a Flight user just as you are/were, BUT I have different needs and expectations from it and i voiced them in a contructive way, you can call it whatever you want, but because I don't fit in with your mindset I am wrong or to blame for it's demise, please!!. Also unlike you, i have had a positive experience with FSX and FS9, so I am not as jaded and cynical as you are/seem to be from your rants about how bad they were.

 

I am an FSX user and a Flight user and supporter that bought DLC, If you want to blame someone, start with MS..

 

The 3 things Flight gave me that I can't get with FSX are much better shadows, the first person walkarpound mode and superior flight model. I firmly believe that if you had included all the options avaliable in FSX to Flight, the performance would have been the same in Flight, but I guess we'll never know.