FSW and its future

[Chock 17,769]

Nah, they are quite shrewd to be honest. P3D might be ultimately aimed at serious military stuff like teaching F-35 divers how to land on a carrier or whatever, but LM are smart enough to have realised that making it available to us mere mortals means they've got a load of people out there paying 60/200 quid who are effectively doing a product test for them and ironing out any bugs 24/7. It's really quite clever when you think about it like that.

[A32xx 129]

My thoughts exactly. Beta-testing and market research which is not only for free, they pay you!

Back on topic, I've just started doing the FSW training course and I'm thoroughly enjoying it, to my own surprise. I would also like to see it extended to whatever default commercial aircraft are in the pipeline, and can see no reason why a built-in FSPassengers/FS Captain/Freight Hauler style series of missions or even a career mode shouldn't be included. I'm still doing an FSPassengers career which I started in FS2004 on 10 December 2006!

[flyforever 267]

DTG has the sales channel to reach potentially millions of users-- irrespective of their flight sim "seriousness" status.  Let's take their pricing model for example. Not all first time users will go to P3d4 and spend hundreds of dollars as well as trying to figure out what addons to add and how to configure it for a one hour pleasure flight. This is left of the real serious simmers.

What FSW offers is a(potentially) complete experience package and an entry price that makes people want to try.

As to add on developers, the math is simple. If Steam provides a chance to reach one hundred thousand customers that will pay $1 for their product, it's still much more than they will ever sell on their own.

All of this is, of course, speculation, since it requires a fairly good and attractive starter sim.

But let's not assume that only Ford and GM  know how to build cars for the world. Other(new and less experienced) car companies came in and showed them a trick or two regarding innovation and market share.

One more thing. Lockeed Martin is a defense contractor. If, for some reason, management decides that their  "academic" market creates some confusion or embarrassment regarding their true( military) user base, they will not hesitate to get out-- with no explanation. The "recreational" market is not their primary market. They are using us for their R&D needs-- not for their profits. The best example is microsoft. They did not hesitate to leave the sim market. On the other hand, Xplane will always be in with us because we are their primary market.

Also, to start as a developer for p3d still requires a sizeable upfront financial commitment that not all new, first time developers can afford. Some of the most innovative and revolutionary products come from one man initiatives.

I'd like to remain open minded until there's evidence that some companies and products are not worth pursuing. In DTG, we need to give them more time and support.

 

tony

[Elvensmith 165]

IMHO any attempt at a career mode needs to be along the lines of FS Passengers, not "XP" and achievement orientated which is how they implemented it in TS20xx (Railworks). An ongoing record of your flying professionalism rather than arcade style medals. Obviously give players a scale of how realistic they want this - dead is dead means you don't walk away from a crash or ground collision which would be fatal, or you can choose to be revived.

Mission editor, well I haven't looked at this but maybe what's needed is a mission randomizer or generator. The problem with the mission (or activity) editor in the train sims is that if you're the author, you know exactly what's going to happen. And the sim ensures it happens at the same location or lapsed interval every time. So there's not much fun playing your own activity and if you run someone else's after the first run through will pan out pretty much the same.

[A32xx 129]

Agreed - I've no idea what those steam credits are for even after looking it up in the Help pages. I'd like an FSPassengers-type career mode as well as Missions. If the FSW missions and lessons are written in ABL (Adventure Basic Language as used in FSX, FS2004 and earlier) this could be done I'm sure.

[jcomm 5,917]

1 hour ago, Chock said:

Nah, they are quite shrewd to be honest. P3D might be ultimately aimed at serious military stuff like teaching F-35 divers how to land on a carrier or whatever, but LM are smart enough to have realised that making it available to us mere mortals means they've got a load of people out there paying 60/200 quid who are effectively doing a product test for them and ironing out any bugs 24/7. It's really quite clever when you think about it like that.

I just seriously hope their F-35 pilot's don't learn based on P3D.... with the good old MSFS core FDM...

[HighBypass 2,339]

I do hope they learn using MSFS core flight dynamics.... The F-35 is a thing so ugly and overpriced it needs to be removed from the skies immediately.. 

[Chock 17,769]

I'm pretty sure they do use P3D for the cockpit demonstrator version of the F-35 sim seen in this video below (it looks a lot like it to me), and then something a bit more fancy for the full on 360 view 6 DOF full-on simulator training. Of course training for cockpit familiarity could be as basic as a picture of the cockpit layout on a wall; not all training needs to be done in a multi million quid full motion simulator. and you can see from the picture below the video link that the RN's F-35B sim is not massively sophisticated compared to some simulators, in fact it looks a lot like the cockpit demonstrator seen in the video:

 

[Piotr007 165]

3 hours ago, A32xx said:

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

As I see the situation here in Western Europe, a defense contract wouldn't be a bad idea. 

[Chock 17,769]

Maybe they already have one, but if they told us about it, they'd have to kill us.

[fs4fun 366]

3 hours ago, Elvensmith said:

Mission editor, well I haven't looked at this but maybe what's needed is a mission randomizer or generator.

Great idea!

Another addon I'd like to see supporting FSW is Ideal Flight.

[Paraffin 2,197]

5 hours 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.

And...

4 hours ago, flyforever said:

DTG has the sales channel to reach potentially millions of users-- irrespective of their flight sim "seriousness" status.  Let's take their pricing model for example. Not all first time users will go to P3d4 and spend hundreds of dollars as well as trying to figure out what addons to add and how to configure it for a one hour pleasure flight. This is left of the real serious simmers.

What FSW offers is a(potentially) complete experience package and an entry price that makes people want to try.

As to add on developers, the math is simple. If Steam provides a chance to reach one hundred thousand customers that will pay $1 for their product, it's still much more than they will ever sell on their own.

There is another side of this "Steam exposure" business that rarely gets mentioned, and that's the fact that FSW is not the only civilian flight sim available on Steam. 

Any Steam user who develops a sudden interest in flight sims will also find Aerofly FS2, X-Plane 11, and FSX:SE as well as FSW. In fact, the only competitor they won't find is P3D.

This doesn't completely counter the argument that Steam exposure is a potential boon for developers. There is undoubtedly a portion of the user base that will buy more than one sim to try out. But availability on Steam is not the golden ticket it would appear to be, from some conversations here. At least not yet. It's only a golden ticket if the sim is successful over time, so DTG will have to deliver a compelling enough product. For the sake of a healthy competitive flight sim market, I hope they can succeed. But it won't be a free ride for 3rd party developers just because they can market through DTG's Steam channel. 

[Chock 17,769]

2 minutes ago, Paraffin said:

And...

There is another side of this "Steam exposure" business that rarely gets mentioned, and that's the fact that FSW is not the only civilian flight sim available on Steam. 

Any Steam user who develops a sudden interest in flight sims will also find Aerofly FS2, X-Plane 11, and FSX:SE as well as FSW. In fact, the only competitor they won't find is P3D.

This doesn't completely counter the argument that Steam exposure is a potential boon for developers. There is undoubtedly a portion of the user base that will buy more than one sim to try out. But availability on Steam is not the golden ticket it would appear to be, from some conversations here. At least not yet. It's only a golden ticket if the sim is successful over time, so DTG will have to deliver a compelling enough product. For the sake of a healthy competitive flight sim market, I hope they can succeed. But it won't be a free ride for 3rd party developers just because they can market through DTG's Steam channel. 

Certainly all true. As enthusiasts of flight sims though, most of that is good news where we are concerned. And there is of course a lot more to Steam beyond the points you mention, much of which also gets missed or overlooked by those who only see the 'they take a cut' aspect of selling through Steam...

For a kick off, developers who sell through Steam get access to the Steamworks API, which offers all kinds of additional benefits to a developer. Not gonna list everything that API grants here (because it is a lot of stuff), but it includes accurate geographic sales tracking data to help with further product refinement and development, copy protection features and a number of community-based features to assist with marketing. All this stuff is rarely  mentioned when talking about the costs of selling through Steam, overlooking many additional benefits of being on a platform which is generally estimated to have about 70 percent of the entire worlwide market share of digital distribution for entertainment software.

 

[FlyBaby 659]

In the First Person Shooter military arena, ARMA is considered a combat sim, while Call of Duty is considered a "run and gun" game. However, COD is by far the most successful of of two when it comes to sales.

I think that DTG is trying to strike a balance between the two extremes mentioned above. They have the sim foundation, they have added a mission creator (huge plus, IMO for replay value), eye candy like rain, Orbx; and I imagine more to come. Their reach through Steam is also a plus.

I think that DTG will really appeal to a less demanding audience who wants to load up and go without much hassle (loading this addon (utx) vs that addon (vector)  etc.), and who can engage / share with the missions for a sense if achievement,  etc. I think that they can offer a "flight" experience that distinguishes them from the rest

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

There's no reason a game can't be a serious simulation and fun for gamers. Unless you're a pilot or training to be one, you're flying imaginary airplanes. It's odd people try to make it a status thing.