As far as I can tell, there are a lot of pretty unsuccessful/low-selling games on Steam. They aren't removed though. Maybe someone can correct me about Steam's policies, but I haven't heard of indie developers removing their games from Steam because of hosting fees or anything like that.

Having played FSW, I think it was functional. I know they were testing career mode, but even that could have been stripped and they could have tidied up a few bugs. FSX still takes tons of tweaking/adjustments (i.e., it has bugs).

IMO, the following are possiblities:

1. They want to retain the rights to FSX and don't want to confuse consumers or undermine FSX sales.
2. They plan on offloading part of their rights and removing FSW is part of the deal.

Why remove it completely from Steam?

My guess is that their licence runs out on May 24. In other words, it reverts back to Microsoft.

Edited April 28, 20188 yr by Christopher Low

Just now, Christopher Low said:

My guess is that their licence runs out on May 24. In other words, it reverts back to Microsoft.

Probably... or maybe - since they've stopped development of it, they've probably also stopped support, which in turns automatically stops further sales.

Purely speculating here... 

The company's accounts (to 31 March 2017) show an outstanding royalty payment of over £1.3 million in respect of "technology being used in one of the company's simulator products". This must be the Microsoft tech. This is repayable in instalments by 24 Dec 2018.

It seems reasonable to suppose that an instalment was payable by 24 June but that they would have to give a month's notice of any decision to default on the payment. Hence the decision to withdraw it from sale on 24 May as they would be legally barred from doing so subsequent to that date after which the technology will revert back to Microsoft.

This information, incidentally, is freely available on the Companies House website.

1 hour ago, uncle_adolph said:

The company's accounts (to 31 March 2017) show an outstanding royalty payment of over £1.3 million in respect of "technology being used in one of the company's simulator products". This must be the Microsoft tech. This is repayable in instalments by 24 Dec 2018.

Very interesting. What about FSX:SE? Is it part of the license that is reverted back? Will it continue to be sold on Steam? And will there be some other company interested in re-acquiring the license from Microsoft?

FSX:SE is a separate product and isn't affected by the closure of FSW.

The licence for FSX:SE didn't allow for any further development of the core engine, that's why FSW was created instead and licensed separately.

Who knows if Dovetail have even given up the license? It may be that Dovetail are removing FSW from sale to radically re-program the core engine in peace, without having the constant demands for roadmaps, updates, SDK's and so on.

They'd have a bit of a job when they've sacked the FSW team!

 

I think there attention is now focused on the fishing sim and Train sim. 

1 hour ago, uncle_adolph said:

They'd have a bit of a job when they've sacked the FSW team!

 

Says who? I haven't seen a statement from DTG which mentions it?

22 minutes ago, A32xx said:

Says who? I haven't seen a statement from DTG which mentions it?

You won't get a company volunteering that sort of information.

But it's pretty much common knowledge and confirmed by Mathijs Kok on the Aerosoft forum.

Edited April 29, 20188 yr by uncle_adolph
Name spelt incorrectly!

1 minute ago, uncle_adolph said:

But it's pretty much common knowledge and confirmed by Mattijs Kok on the Aerosoft forum.

So just a rumour, then. Aerosoft don't employ anyone at Dovetail Games, or vice-versa.

14 minutes ago, A32xx said:

So just a rumour, then. Aerosoft don't employ anyone at Dovetail Games, or vice-versa.

You think that people within the same niche industry don't know what's going on elsewhere?

21 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

My guess is that their licence runs out on May 24. In other words, it reverts back to Microsoft.

Microsoft sold the rites to any further development of MSFS platform to DTG they out bid other interested party', and I don`t see them buying it back there focus since dropping flight sim has been on game console market, and signing up game studios to develop for the X BOX.

That is ware the big money is nowadays one top title on the game console has more in game players than all the flight sims put together.     

31 minutes ago, uncle_adolph said:

You think that people within the same niche industry don't know what's going on elsewhere?

I'm sure of it in this case. What Mathjis actually said was: "Most of the people who worked on the project are fired now and we lost a potentially good platform."

Followed by: "If I sound bitter.... yeah, perhaps I am." Meaning that his judgement may have been clouded at that time, and in any case, his whole article was his opinion, not a factual report.

Edited April 29, 20188 yr by A32xx

13 minutes ago, A32xx said:

I'm sure of it in this case. What Mathjis actually said was: "Most of the people who worked on the project are fired now and we lost a potentially good platform."

Followed by: "If I sound bitter.... yeah, perhaps I am." Meaning that his judgement may have been clouded at that time, and in any case, his whole article was his opinion, not a factual report.

I think you are missing a bigger point; even if the entire team still exists, what about the relations they have with the flight sim community, can you seriously see them in two or three years coming out with something like:

'Hello Flight Sim fans, it's your old friends DTG, remember that scaled back half a sim we sold (a point you seem to be somewhat forgetful on) you three years ago.  Well we know that we said we had abandoned it...but surprise, we have actually been developing in secret now it's back and includes a helicopter'

To what end?  People in the community will be even more invested in P3Dv5 (probably) or X-Plane 12, the much touted 'new blood' doesn't exist in any great numbers, or it certainly wasn't enough to keep FSW around, even the Aerosoft arcade flight sim (Holiday flight simulator) has almost no interest at all on Steam.