FSW and its future

[OHN 1]

I think DTG has done a good job sofar, but it has a long way to go. What DTG in my mind needs to do is draw attention to the gamers, there simply needs to be a career mode with tons of achievements and things you can complete with fellow gamers in multiplayer, if this this is not implemented its dead, and we all know it.

DTG cant implement what the hardcore simmers want if they dont have the average gamer that thinks this a fun and immersive game, in my mind this is the way to go, just giving people the whole world and think and think its fun to fly from a to b is a big mistake.

 

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I believe that DTG is well aware of this, and are indeed moving in that direction.

What then remains to be seen, is whether this new sim has much to offer to us "non-gamers" who are currently using FSX, and wondering where to go next..

Ideally, there would be a "career mode" and a "free flight mode" 

[switch686 50]

See my thread i started on Steam. I think the mission editor may keep things interesting. Seems people don't know about it...Thread is "Mission Tool"....

 

 

[fs4fun 366]

DTG would be better off getting the sim working properly, fix the bugs, improve performance, finish the weather engine, ATC, turn the flight planner into something decent, deliver the SDK, get third party devs onboard, rewrite the terrain engine, add support for turboprops, jets, helicopters, etc...

Career mode is best left to third parties. There's REX SimAir, FSCaptain and probably other products that could satisfy this need. Not all pilots are interested in career mode, so having DTG distracted from delivering a sound flight sim platform would make a lot of people unhappy.

[SmokeDiddy 262]

The Mission Editor is pretty dadgum cool!  The wizard makes it simple to get your feet wet.

 

Edit:

Maybe the 3PP can tap into the Mission Editor also.

Edited June 9, 2017 by SmokeDiddy

[hypercide 97]

52 minutes ago, fshobby said:

DTG would be better off getting the sim working properly, fix the bugs, improve performance, finish the weather engine, ATC, turn the flight planner into something decent, deliver the SDK, get third party devs onboard, rewrite the terrain engine, add support for turboprops, jets, helicopters, etc...

Career mode is best left to third parties. There's REX SimAir, FSCaptain and probably other products that could satisfy this need. Not all pilots are interested in career mode, so having DTG distracted from delivering a sound flight sim platform would make a lot of people unhappy.

Frankly, I think what you set out in your first paragraph is exactly the path they're taking. The first two updates are bug fixes, DTG is concerned about performance (the fps gain survey), that trueSKY folder is clearly a functionality in waiting.  In the meantime users with FSX savvy are leap-frogging ahead by getting things like ORBX scenery and various mesh solutions integrated into FSW. And it's becoming clear from a number of forums that guys like me, aviation enthusiasts who just want to be entertained and for whom "game" is not a dirty word (and I'm a middle-aged old feller, not some kid jacked up on Red Bull and GTAV), for us, FSW may have found the sweet spot in the market.

 

Tim

[fs4fun 366]

1 hour ago, hypercide said:

And it's becoming clear from a number of forums that guys like me, aviation enthusiasts who just want to be entertained and for whom "game" is not a dirty word (and I'm a middle-aged old feller, not some kid jacked up on Red Bull and GTAV), for us, FSW may have found the sweet spot in the market

We're on the same page, I'm into simming for fun but also think it's important for the platform to have enough depth that it continues to offer years of interesting and stimulating content, as FSX has done. I think DTG has the right priorities and hope they don't take their eye off the ball.

[jcomm 5,888]

The more they can build inside of the sim, even if opening doors for 3pds to fine tune / enhance, the better IMO.

They mentioned the Weather Engine has to be part of the core sim, and that they're working on it. ATC is already distinct ( IMO towards the better ) from default MSFS ATC...

I'll wait and see how it goes, but so far it is overall very positive to me, even if - honestly - I am investing a lot more in AEFS2 and looking forward for the future products announced for that platform...

But strangely, because I rarely keep up more than one sim of the same type, I put FSW and XP11 ex-aequo in 2nd place right now in my sim classification board :-)

[Piotr007 163]

The future of P3D V4 will be the brightest one. FSW is tied to developers who are willing to enslave themselves on Steam sales channel, I pretty much think it won't be a lot of them.

[torium 207]

11 minutes ago, Piotr007 said:

FSW is tied to developers who are willing to enslave themselves on Steam sales channel, I pretty much think it won't be a lot of them.

Reaching out to a much larger customer base is a bad idea?

[A32xx 129]

51 minutes ago, Piotr007 said:

The future of P3D V4 will be the brightest one.

P3D is not for entertainment purposes. That ought to be enough for honest flight simmers.

[torium 207]

10 minutes ago, A32xx said:

P3D is not for entertainment purposes. That ought to be enough for honest flight simmers.

Correct....

[Chock 17,769]

1 hour ago, Piotr007 said:

FSW is tied to developers who are willing to enslave themselves on Steam sales channel, I pretty much think it won't be a lot of them.

The facts and historical sales of DTG simply don't support that contention. Be aware of what 'enslaving yourself to Steam' actually means in real terms; yes, they take a cut of your RRP, but it's not a cut for nothing, not by a long chalk; for that money you get your product exposed to 125 million registered Steam users worldwide, get your stuff hosted by them, and critically, you don't actually have to spend a single cent on advertising or promotion if you don't want to, nor would you have to worry about targetting any advertising you did indulge in at all, since in addition to getting coverage on Steam's main pages, the products are directly tied to the host simulation's product page and its splash screen and will probably also be available as transactions directly from the main FSW GUI page too if the present GUI is anything to go by.

Now, I'm not for one second suggesting that this means 125 million people will necessarily buy your FSW or FSX add on simply because it is on Steam, because that number includes everything from First Person Shooter fans, to little girls playing Hello Kitty Island and My Little Pony games, but it does nevertheless mean a seriously large amount of exposure to simulation fans for no effort on your part, and there are a lot of simulation users on Steam. That is what you are paying for when Steam and DTG take their cut, so when you view it like that (i.e. as it really is), that's a pretty damn good deal. You won't see Lockheed Martin doing that kind of promotional work for P3D add-on developers, they are too busy making Hellfire missiles, F-35s and such (first airborne gun firing test for the F-35 took place this week apparently, and I bet they are more concerned with that than whether the cloud reflections look nice on your FSL A320 in V4 of P3D or whether the landing gear comes down properly on your Real Air Duke lol).

To understand what that means for a business in bang for bucks, the average advertising budget spend for a company, is typically about 12 percent of its turnover (i.e. not its profit, but transactions in total including CC fees etc), but this is an average, it is unlikely any FS add-on developer has the kind of budget necessary to expose their product to 125 million people worldwide, since that would aso include things such as translations into approximately 194 different languages etc. Then you've got the cost of hosting on servers too of course, not negligible, but this pales into insignificance in comparison to advertising costs of that kind.

It's clear, historically, that many developers have realised what a good deal that is. After all, you might sell through your own site and gain 100 percent of the RRP of those sales as turnover (and let's not forget that DTG/Steam are not preventing developers who go with them from doing this), but remember that 100 percent of the RRP a small number of sales is significantly less than 60-70 percent of RRP of the kind of massive sales one might potentially garner from the exposure through Steam. This is not rocket science and you can be sure that every accounts and marketing department worth its salt at any developer (or any ad agency they might hire) will be well aware of that, we know this is true because you only have to look at the developers who are on board with FSX-SE, also those who clearly won't object to doing so WHEN fsw is released. Whilst this is to some extent speculative on my part, it is nevertheless informed speculation based on the logical assumption that many have been happy to do so when selling for FSX-SE through Steam (also note that this too has not prevented them from also selling from their own sites as well, so it is a fallacy to claim that one is enslaved solely to Steam as evidenced by that). This would include (to name a few), REX, Hi Fi Simulations (so, that's the two main ESP weather engine and cloud set developers for a kick off), Turbulent Design, Carenado, Alabeo, Orbx, A2A, Just Flight, Virtavia,Toposim, Zinertek, First Class Simulations (and associated sub companies) and so on. Every single one of those companies has done the maths and come to the conclusion that the cut Steam and DTG take is an acceptable transaction given the sales they can expect. And you can understand why too...

DTG have historically been excellent at driving DLC sales for its other titles, notably numerous iterations of train simulations, For example, just shy of a million users known to have purchased train sim 2015 via Steam, and several DLC add ons for it, so they are no slouches at knowing how to create a sales market for a platform and to get third party developers on board for that marketing strategy.

None of this of course means that P3D will not be successful, nor that those who develop for it won't make money, but any business which would deny potentially being exposed to a customer base which is literally the same size as the entire population of Japan (i.e., Steam), really needs a better market analyst as a matter of urgency lol.

[stans 702]

Well said, Chock.

[A32xx 129]

36 minutes ago, Chock said:

None of this of course means that P3D will not be successful, nor that those who develop for it won't make money, but any business which would deny potentially being exposed to a customer base which is literally the same size as the entire population of Japan (i.e., Steam), really needs a better market analyst as a matter of urgency lol.

... or a Defense contract, which is what LM are aiming for, not a small group of flight simmers pretending to be trainee pilots lol.