ACES Studio Member Responds to FSW Closure

[Dumont 9]

Many acid words, difficult to convince.

 

João Alfredo

[Boomer 1,619]

Blaming the consumer for your product's failure in the market is a cop out.

[torium 207]

4 hours ago, Silicus said:

Same with Flight Sim World. One major milestone was the 'cold and dark' release feature - really? Other than that it was a regurgitated FSX with the same old issues. TrueSky. Great. But no weather engine? So why should I buy it? 

If you do not like FSW - do not buy FSW. It's ok.

But why did so many attack the simulator with negative reviews - even when they had never tested the simulator? They accused DTG of having no DLC. Then they accused DTG of having DLC. And then they accused DTG for giving permission to 3rd party developers to sell their products for FSW. Etc., etc .....

And even now - after FSW is closed - we can read users who express their their deep feelings, quote:

".... and now I'm happy to report, its dead....it has been cremated - now all that is left to do is scatter the ashes. It is a good day in flight simming. After May 24th it will even be better, because the ashes will have been scattered and the community will be rid of this disastrous distraction ...... Can you tell I'm overjoyed?"

Is FSX a good simulator? FSX was also overloaded with similar bad feelings and negative accusations when it was launched. 

I'm glad that FSX survived. And I would have been very happy if FSW had survived.

[dave2013 1,123]

Do I detect some bitterness in this former ACES studio developer?? 

If this Froogle guy was indeed criticizing DTG for wanting to make some money then I, too, would have to disagree with him on that, however.  I don't have a problem with someone making a *reasonable* profit off their work, as long as it isn't absurdly high(which 50% would be if it's true regarding Aerosoft) and as long as the product works as advertised. I've been critical of a number of flightsim developers when they misbehave, but I would never condemn them for making a little money, and this is coming from a guy who has spent hundreds of hours making freeware scenery for FSX.

Anyhow, there are several reasons why FSW failed which some folks have already mentioned in these forums, but ultimately there just wasn't enough customer demand for it. The blame for that lies with the software company Dovetail Games - period.  It's simply absurd to blame the customers and flightsim community for FSW's demise.

Dave

[Patco Lch 1,464]

9 hours ago, TheFlightSimGuy said:

1) Robert Randazzo is not a "pillar" or "leader" of our community. He doesn't deserve to be heard. He hated DTG because they outbid him and never gave them a chance. They approached him in good faith and he told them off. He continues to make money because of the things DTG did to FSX to make it more stable and allow him to make addons that previously would have crashed FSX immediately and he has no respect for them at all.

I'm not very knowledgeable on the other points but this one I have to take issue. As an airliner fan my sim would be quite bland without PMDG which is probably around 90%of my simming. He is most certainly a pillar of the hobby for many of us and followed by legions of simmers. May not always agree with all their practices but I don't know if the hobby would be much without them. Any new platform developer should wholly seek his endorsement to prosper. PMDG was developing aircraft for FS9 long before DTG came along.

Sometimes his moderator might rub the fur the wrong way but even that adds a little fun to things. After all the Book says "Iron sharpens iron".    

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Blaming PMDG for the collapse of FSW is like blaming France for the US colonies seeking independence from England. At the time, France and England were rivals for global power but that was not the cause of the US war for independence.

In the case of FSW, PMDG mostly sat back and smirked at the naivete and fumbling of DTG. They could have thrown all their resources at FSW, but had good sense not to do so. ORBX had the same approach.

[Guest]

Its very simple. X-Plane11 is awesome, Prepar3D V4 is Awesome. FSW is way inferior to both of the above. FSW lost the battle competing for the consumers money because the savy buyer is looking for value for money. I'll hazard a guess that two major players in this niche market is enough and more would be too much. Flight Sim is a very expensive hobby and I think most of use can only commit to one platform.

That's the kind of competition we need to main contenders and no sideshow.

It would be great if LM could pick up the entertainment license for FSX and have an enthusiast/hobbyist option for P3D. That would level the playing field. LR is a serious commercial flight simulator software developer so I don't see why LM wouldn't do it.

I am sure there are VIPs in a Lockheed boardroom right now discussing it!

Might be good news for some of the people who lost there jobs at DTG too.

Edited May 9, 2018 by Guest

[Greggy_D 935]

5 hours ago, chelmo said:

 

If this had been the same sim but called "Aerosoft/PMDG Flight Sim" everyone would have loved it and said what fantastic promise it had. But with the Dovetail name attached it had zero chance.

Maybe.  I also believe locking themselves to the Steam commerce system was part of their demise.

[carbonbasedlifeform 179]

7 hours ago, Silicus said:

It is called free market capitalism... 

Then Froogle and others shouldn't be complaining about DTG being 'greedy.' It's been a double-standard from the start with FSW. All other sims charge an arm and a leg for addons. When FSW allowed others to make add-on, they were evil. Which one is it?

Three grumpy simmers also had cogent responses to the criticism of FSW and DTG.

Froogle should try to rebut these responses.

[anden145 2,284]

"An item is worth the price, you can sell it for."

[Ted Striker 338]

If you make something that people want they will buy it and use it. FSW was just getting to the state that I wanted to start using it and DTG pulled the plug. Same thing happened with MS Flight.  You can't blame the customers, the FSW development staff, competing developers, or the press for the bad decisions of DTG management. DTG had the knowledge of the problems of the MS Flight and their own Train Sim business models and they still took FSW down the same path.  I commend the DTG staff for attending conferences and reaching out to users for input, unfortunately it does not look like the DTG management paid any attention to the feedback.

I wish the best of luck to the FSW staff and hope they find good spots soon, especially the ex-Aces personnel that had to go through this let down twice now.

Ted

[himmelhorse 1,276]

Hello all,

I found it hard to get past thefirst paragraph of the "ACES" submission, particularly because of the way Froogle was interpreted.

I am not a genius nor a rocket scientist but I never saw the view that he attacked the creative staff. My view was that he praised that part of DTG and did so several times. His negativity was actually aimed at the management and its practices in my view.

Why FSW was released in its initial state is beyond the aged and feeble neurons circulating in my brain. Did they really have to decimate the original FSX/FSX-SE (and release it) in order to start on a completely new path for flight simming. Again, in my view, they were selling a "potential" and that potential never came close to fruition.

I was one of the early adopters despite the same reservations that Froogle expressed very early on. I played with it but was never really happy with what I had been sold but was madly passionate with the promises and potential. I fwere at faultelt that progress was slow but kept my version of what was possible held high on the proverbial pedestal.

My biggest disappointment was in the way that DTG (Management) inferred that it was their customers, or lack of, who were at fault. I do not think I blame the customers who to this day, still have little more than a quarter of the original FSX, 64 bit, slightly ramped up and now dead.

I agree that there was a huge amount of initial negativity but was that not justified.  I think that most of it was originated by potential customers and indeed, early adopters, whowere initially slightly disappointed by what was released and trying to put DTG (who supposedly were listening) on the right track. The apparently hamstrung creative staff, I believe were, but the marketing and management sections were apparently not.

I would further like to add that some of the early critisisms were not really justified and a few people seemed to voice "me too"  observations without trying the product. However, that does not change the fact that the early negatives could have been changed to positives.

I still believe in the "potential" of this sim and genuinely hope that someone or some company with deep pockets can pick it up and run with it.  If not, we still have the potential of at least, "Truesky" being adopted by the other platforms.

My last hope is that we can end the nit picking and finding someone to blame aspect, to try to be creative as a community and find an alternative positive out of this fiasco. There really is a lot that could yet, be done with this platform.

Regards

Tony Chilcott

 

[vortex681 806]

12 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

My view was that he praised that part of DTG and did so several times.

You've clearly interpreted most of what he said about FSW in a different way to me. The first time that he grudgingly admitted that he was actually impressed with FSW was in January this year. Almost everything else, and in particular his early comments, were critical.

12 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

My biggest disappointment was in the way that DTG (Management) inferred that it was their customers, or lack of, who were at fault.

I've read plenty of comments from others blaming the community for the demise of FSW but don't recall reading anything specifically from DTG, who seem to have been unusually quiet about the whole thing. Do you have any links to DTG's comments?

There were a number of high-profile figures in the flight sim world who were very critical of FSW almost from the day it was released. Whilst they may not have actually caused it to fail, through those who read their comments they almost certainly contributed to it.

Edited May 10, 2018 by vortex681

[torium 207]

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

I've read plenty of comments from others blaming the community for the demise of FSW but don't recall reading anything specifically from DTG, who seem to have been unusually quiet about the whole thing. Do you have any links to DTG's comments?

I think he refers to this statement (facts), quote: "...... alongside the player numbers we need."

https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/flight-sim-world-closure-announcement.4514/

or:

https://steamcommunity.com/games/389280/announcements/detail/3400657079148405506

[nealmac 260]

That's a really poorly executed reply. He didn't think it through and it sounds like he just lashed out in frustration. Blaming the consumers is laughable at best.