carbonbasedlifeform

I agree that the next/upcoming sims should stay away from the ESP platform, but... P3D isn't that special. Plenty of newcomers and Steam users won't ever find out about P3D. Lockheed Martin hasn't done much. They're keeping the platform alive. I don't know how long DTG was working on FSW behind the scenes, but it seems like they hit 64 bit (not that big of a deal) and graphical improvements like DX11 in less time. DTG failed at the business side of this, but their implementation was probably going to be better in my opinion. They already offered more out of the box than P3D. The problem was DLC and their brand is completely useless.

Deadstick seems promising in that regard, even if it's scope is limited.

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.

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: They want to retain the rights to FSX and don't want to confuse consumers or undermine FSX sales. They plan on offloading part of their rights and removing FSW is part of the deal. Why remove it completely from Steam?

A big gaming company could come into the market and trounce everyone. If they don't, it's because they don't see the money in it. So what we get is a niche company of people that actually want to use the products they make, Laminar, who take eons to catch up to what ten-year-old software can still do. That or we just get LM propping up the FSX code base with minor improvements like 64 bits, which DTG was also able to do. Alas, that's where we are. Laminar seems to be the slow and steady tortoise that's winning the race at this point.

Yeah, but the thing about P3D is the goal seems to be to just drag an outdated engine into the future with little changes aside from 64 bit. In other words, the goal is to just keep it going. DTG wanted to bring more to the default game and reap rewards from the addons. Clearly they did not handle the third party developers very well. In hindsight, they could have just done what LM did for the Steam consumer market. Make FSX with 64 bit.. FSX: SE 64

Lockheed Martin has the rights to ESP for business and DTG has the rights for consumers. I wonder if DTG plans to keep the rights to keep milking FSX, or if they want to offload their flight sim business and give someone else a look at the codebase and rights.

Yup, a lot of people are pretty much here to say "I knew it" and "good riddance." This genre needs competition and in general is ridiculously behind the times: the ESP platform is ancient and X-Plane still doesn't have nice skies and weather (you know, where flying takes place).

How does career mode work for the Cub? What kind of missions are there?

Which historic weather is it? Same day different year?

I believe they said it would be "accessible" though. Makes me think either a business jet, Cirrhus (sp) jet or old-school military jet that's not too complicated.

Let's not answer bias with mudslinging. Froogle has criticized products other than FSW. I doubt it's about advertising because he says if he was sent a product. As someone pointed out, he's basically stuck in the P3D or X-plane mode that most of the community is in at the moment. Good for him for being willing to change his mind.

That makes me think it wouldn't be that hard for DTG to implement it down the road.

Does P3D really have native VR support? Hadn't heard that.

It's actually making it easier for me not to buy. It seems like OrbX has some changes coming for the main platforms. In the past they charge for the upgraded product with a discount if you already own it on another sim. That's fair since they spend time upgrading, but I'm not going to fork out more money right now. Also they seem to have sales several times a year.