Nice article on the possible future of the hobby. MSFS must grow or die. The only way to feed the never-ending search for profits is either increase income (more gamers) or decrease cost (layoff developers). From the article "This is how it works: Capitalism capitalizes, and if that shark stops swimming, it dies". 

Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business' | PC Gamer

Phil Spencer, welcome to the revolution. 

6 hours ago, mspencer said:

Phil Spencer, welcome to the revolution. 

What aspect of this is revolutionary?

I remember X-Plane getting a lot more revenue from the moibile version than the PC one.

I see no problem with MSFS one day running even in a mobile. Why not? If mobiles get the necessary performance, the only problem I see is that it'll not be good for your eyes... just as any game with detail played in a mobile screen...

I just want any simulator that can be played in console / mobile / desktop to ensure that there's not going to be a limitation in detail / quality of the flight dynamics, weather, etc... in the most powerfuil of the platyforms it is played in, at least giving users the option to choose between different levels of complexity, adapting to the platform thy're using to play.

OTOH I would perfectly accept reduced World / Weather rendering details when these games are played in mobiles or even lower end consoles.

With the new so called AI algorithms I would actually expect these programs to be more "clever" at install time, or when required to do so,  and based on the hardware define a profile, or various profiles, with associated expected performance hits translating into quantitative or qualitative parameters that gammers tend to track. 

Id argue that now it's been sold to the masses (kids) the standard of addons has never been as bad.

I know the standard of vatsim has never been as bad since ms2020 came out.

Don't forget both Umberto has said he makes more sales from eye candy which hits proformance than from an optimised airport.  

In short you can sell any old tatt so long as you hype it and tell them it's "hd" even if it means it's not optimised. Let alone not bothering to finish the product after you released it in a unfinished beta state 

Then you have the gate keepers and word not allowed for every product that will come to their rescue like lapdogs if you question or criticise the product.  I call it the getty kouros mentality.

Edited March 31, 20242 yr by fluffyflops

The article is full of clichés 😀. The only thing that I’d underline is the « lack of growth" across the videogame industry as a whole /…/. you have an industry that is projected to be smaller next year in terms of players and dollars, »

I am barely surprised. The video games are getting poorer and poorer innovation-wise. The Steam front page is telling. Makes you cry. Oh yes games are visually magnificent, most of them are anyway.  But thee same types of games declined ad nauseam, FPS,RPG, MMO, city builders, zombies, etc. The same franchises in their umpteenth versions. They copy each other recipes. There are exceptions of course, mostly from indies. But rare. 

 

The (business) direction of MSFS platform is similar to Total War Series. The series was used to be study level turn based games for those who long for historical accuracies. Modders made them even more complex. But this last decade have we witnessed the shift to arcade for the masses.

Edited March 31, 20242 yr by History

3 hours ago, jcomm said:

I just want any simulator that can be played in console / mobile / desktop to ensure that there's not going to be a limitation in detail / quality of the flight dynamics, weather, etc.

Too late, the weather was mutilated around SU5.

3 hours ago, fluffyflops said:

I know the standard of vatsim has never been as bad since ms2020 came out.

A big reason, amongst others, why I am so glad  SayIntentions is available.

2 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

I am barely surprised. The video games are getting poorer and poorer innovation-wise.

Are they?

When I was a kid, Pitfall was the ultimate graphical adventure game. Now we have The Witcher 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon, etc. There are so many genuinely good games out there that I don't have time to play them all, not to mention four top-tier flight simulators to choose from. From an innovation perspective, I suppose if you don't count graphics improvements you could make the claim that all the 3d open world games are similar to each other in mechanics, but you could also make the argument that Star Wars and Citizen Kane are similar to each other in mechanics because they both involve actors saying and doing things on a flat screen. In other words, we don't necessarily need "innovation" as much as we need good storytelling in non-sim games.

The human race got along for 500 years with little to no innovation in distributed media entertainment, from the time the printing press came out in 1440 up until the invention of the radio. Innovation is great, but not always necessary to make entertainment enjoyable.

Plus, if you look at MSFS it's so innovative that it's revolutionary. It's taking a bunch of 2d photos shot from outer space and making a reasonably credible 3d depiction of an entire planet to fly around in. Compared even to its current competition which has had 4 years to catch up, that's revolutionary innovation.

 

28 minutes ago, MrBitstFlyer said:

Too late, the weather was mutilated around SU5.

Yet, still very good imo... We need better representation of stratified clouds, cirrus and CB, but it's pretty nice already, and at least in MSFS clouds get illuminated at night from city lights bellow, and from your aircraft lights too..

Wow, stellar revolutionary insights into how business works! 

Publicly traded companies have to show "constant profit". This inside alone is worth the Nobel. 

word not allowed, why did my parents spend all this money sending me to expensive colleges?

I could have just read PC Gamer!!!

50 minutes ago, eslader said:

Are they?

I do not disagree with most of what you say but there is a reality, the market doesn’t grow anymore. My point was to express a lack of surprise in view of my own experience. I buy less and less games, it seems that I am not alone.

My first game ever was Roberta William’s Mystery House circa1980 😎. Since then I’ve played multiple runs of all the Elder Scrolls, Fallout series, wargames,  etc. and most of the flight sims civil and military.  There is no doubt that the gaming industry has brought us great games over the years. 

But looking at what has been on the market the last few years,  I am underwhelmed, specially by the blockbusters. 

Yes a good story, or rather a good game play, is what is make a great game. This is what I meant by innovative.

 

 

 

Edited March 31, 20242 yr by Dominique_K

5 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

 I am barely surprised. The video games are getting poorer and poorer innovation-wise. The Steam front page is telling. Makes you cry. Oh yes games are visually magnificent, most of them are anyway.  But thee same types of games declined ad nauseam, FPS,RPG, MMO, city builders, zombies, etc. The same franchises in their umpteenth versions. They copy each other recipes. There are exceptions of course, mostly from indies. But rare. 

In that case the gaming sector reflects what has been happening in Hollywood. 

Both industries are a gamble on large investments with potentially huge returns. The investor logic to this has driven the movie industry into a series of safe bet franchises which are basically rinse and repeats.

It looks like the Superhero genre has now run into the buffers. Last years big hit was essentially Barbenhiemer so logically we should all be looking forward to a biopic of Edward Teller in high heels.😶

29 minutes ago, DD_Arthur said:

In that case the gaming sector reflects what has been happening in Hollywood. .😶

The analogy with the Hollywood blockbuster logic is exactly right.

Now, what about a Nobel laureate in Physics playing bongos in strip bars ? I see a lot of potential here.