Why didn't DTG just stop developing instead of completely removing it from Steam?

[hs118 707]

22 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.

You may want to go back and read the thread again. I don't think you got Mathias' point very clearly.

[mwilk 1,106]

If you want to hear an interesting viewpoint on DTG and Flightsim World checkout Frooglesim's video today on YouTube.

[A32xx 129]

14 minutes ago, Henry Street said:

You may want to go back and read the thread again. I don't think you got Mathias' point very clearly.

Mathjis gave his own point of view from his personal experience of dealing with Dovetail Games on their FSW project.

Beyond that he knows as much as you or I about the internal affairs at Dovetail Games.

[WotanUK 289]

16 minutes ago, mwilk said:

If you want to hear an interesting viewpoint on DTG and Flightsim World checkout Frooglesim's video today on YouTube.

I think that he is a little harsh regarding the money grabbing aspect, but yes his point on LM has been my concern from the begining... Ho hum, i have a professional license, but i can see the fallout would be bad.

[A32xx 129]

This money grabbing label is not only a little harsh, it's entirely deluded. The current flight sim market is a 3rd party developer's Utopia, in that it's a free-for-all, literally. No-one has to pay Microsoft a percentage for selling FSX or earlier versions add-ons, and Microsoft have been kicking themselves ever since - which is why they'll never create another flight sim again. No other developer is going to fall into that same trap with an FSX-based sim, and DTG did all they could to make FSW tamper proof, or un-mod-able, and thereby protect their FSW 3rd parties' DLC as well.

Edited April 29, 2018 by A32xx

[Christopher Low 5,353]

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....

I would be extremely surprised if Microsoft sold the rights to the Flight Simulator name and code in its entirety. They will have sold a licence to DTG to develop a new flight simulator based on the FSX and/or MS Flight technology, and that licence will almost certainly have a time limit attached to it.

[Murmur 3,941]

37 minutes ago, A32xx said:

This money grabbing label is not only a little harsh, it's entirely deluded. The current flight sim market is a 3rd party developer's Utopia, in that it's a free-for-all, literally. No-one has to pay Microsoft a percentage for selling FSX or even FS2004 add-ons, and Microsoft have been kicking themselves ever since which is why they'll never create another flight sim again. No other developer is going to fall into that same trap with an FSX-based sim, and DTG did all they could to make FSW tamper proof, or un-mod-able, and thereby protect the FSW 3rd party DLC as well.

Hmmm... X-Plane is a free-for-all (for 3rd parties) exactly like FSX is. Same for P3D. Same for AeroflyFS 2.

I think releasing a flight sim that is unmoddable or protected/limited in terms of 3rd parties addons, is gonna decrease, not increase its chances of surviving in this market.

 

[A32xx 129]

8 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Hmmm... X-Plane is a free-for-all (for 3rd parties) exactly like FSX is. Same for P3D. Same for AeroflyFS 2.

I think releasing a flight sim that is unmoddable or protected/limited in terms of 3rd parties addons, is gonna decrease, not increase its chances of surviving in this market.

Exactly so - FSW didn't really get started because of it. The free-for-all market is far better protected/limited by the 3rd parties themselves, however many crocodile tears they shed over the demise of FSW. But you can hardly blame DTG for trying, and for venturing into a potentially bigger market via Steam. They just couldn't do it on their own.

Edited April 29, 2018 by A32xx

[hs118 707]

2 hours ago, A32xx said:

Mathjis gave his own point of view from his personal experience of dealing with Dovetail Games on their FSW project.

Beyond that he knows as much as you or I about the internal affairs at Dovetail Games.

Based on your stated opinion about why Mathias was bitter, you may want to review his statements again. Nothing to do with internal affairs at Dovetail.

Edited April 29, 2018 by Henry Street

[A32xx 129]

4 minutes ago, Henry Street said:

Based on your stated opinion about why Mathias was bitter, you may want to review his statements again. Nothing to do with internal affairs at Dovetail.

Thanks but there's no need, please read the previous post to your own.

[hs118 707]

7 minutes ago, A32xx said:

Thanks but there's no need, please read the previous post to your own.

saw when it was posted by Froogle. before posted here 🙂

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

3 hours ago, mwilk said:

If you want to hear an interesting viewpoint on DTG and Flightsim World checkout Frooglesim's video today on YouTube.

I'd like to make a couple of small points regarding Frooglesim's take on the rise and fall of FSW. First of all, DTG is no more or less about making money than any other of the developers that he mentions. There is only marginal altruism in the corporate world. It's all about the bottom line. The mantra is "If I make a top notch product, people therefore will buy it and I will make money." Period. Frooglesim's implication was that DTG was purposely making a weak product and then trying to foist it off on the flightsim community. I give DTG the benefit of the doubt. They were just in over their heads on this, as will be any future cottage industry company which attempts the same naive approach to create a new, whole world PC-based flightsim.

Another point that he made was that Flight School was a preview of FSW, including the surprise cancellation. Maybe it was. But mostly, both the availability of FSX on Steam and the release of Flight School were done were to slow down the inevitable adoption of XP11. Apparently, someone at DTG had the brains (probably the development team) to figure out that the development of a finished FSW product was going to take years and every day that went by, the available market for FSW was shrinking as both P3d4 and XP11 ate into the ever-shrinking pie. I knew that this was the reason as when I posted this theory before, DTG Cryss denied it was true and that I was giving DTG too much credit.

Then Frooglesim marches into a tirade against DTG for trying to sell its products just before canning FSW. Jeez, what do you expect? The ship was sinking, the plug was pulled. So maybe Frooglesim expected DTG to go, "Hey don't buy are products, we're thinking of cancelling FSW?" It's a classic marketing ploy. Besides, how many here fell for the March, 2108 FSW fire sales? No one was buying their DLC anyway.

Frooglesim was right on some major points. DTG had a weak relationship with 3rd party developers. It wasn't only about money conflicts with the 3rd party community. It was also about the slow release of the FSW SDK and the lack of some key compatibilities with FSX. He was also right in saying that even though FSW was "out of early access", it had only moved on to a nebulous "Phase 2", which was still an incomplete mess, at least when compared to FSX, P3d4 and XP11.

But his last point was just one of those things said on the Internet to stir the pot. DTG is not going to sue LM, because they believe that LM hasn't created a SWAT team to enforce its EULA. Even if DTG did sue, think about it. LM's market capitalization ATM is close to $100 billion US. That makes it roughly the 60th biggest publicly held company in the world. It is 150th largest on the basis of annual revenues. Beating LM in a civil suit isn't going to happen. If anything, DTG might be trying to sell their MS licensing authority to someone else. But unless MS attorneys were asleep at the yoke when the original deal with DTG was made, that isn't going to happen either.

Edited April 29, 2018 by jabloomf1230

[A32xx 129]

20 minutes ago, Henry Street said:

saw when it was posted by Froogle. before posted here 🙂

Not THAT post, but never mind. I did see his comment about the deal he was offered by Dovetail and Steam, which he declined as he has every right to do. That doesn't make it a bad deal though, take a look at the Steam product catalogue - everyone else was offered the same deal.

[hs118 707]

32 minutes ago, jabloomf1230 said:

 They were just in over their heads on this, as will be any future cottage industry company which attempts the same naive approach to create a new, whole world PC-based flightsim.

This ^^^....DTG overpaid for a license in an industry with which they had no experience. Then crapped out, destroying a potentially bright future for the product line. In the process, destroying much of the license's value trying to monetize FSW while P3D, XPlane, and DCS pulled ahead in market share.

@A32xx This is why Mathias was bitter. The Aerosoft et al consortium had a business plan for the license that had a much higher probability of success and offered a price likely much closer to the real value. 

 

[SamYeager 244]

9 hours ago, Henry Street said:

 

This is why Mathias was bitter. The Aerosoft et al consortium had a business plan for the license that had a much higher probability of success and offered a price likely much closer to the real value. 

 

 

Well now that FSW has hit the buffers (pun intended) Aerosoft et al will probably be able to have a second go at it. They'll probably be able to negotiate a cheaper licence with better conditions e.g. lower payments until sales are above a certain number not to mention having the benefit of learning from what went wrong with both Flight! and FSW. Of course maybe they'll decide that selling add-ons aka DLC  for higher prices to P3D users makes better business sense.