Falcon OT from the Black Shark AI thread

Falcon4 failed as a product? :blink:

 

In what regard?

 

 

Well, I sure hope to see some other company picking up a 10 year old game and selling it again as a full-prized game with minor modifications and still making a good profit from it!

 

 

And looking at the number of regular online competitions, fan support, active squadrons and high-quality 3rd party addons, not even to mention OpenFalcon, FreeFalcon and the other mods available, I'd be really interested to see in what regard Falcon4 failed as a whole compared to LockOn or DCS:BS?

Edited February 26, 2009 by Feuerfalke

Falcon4 failed as a product? :blink:

 

In what regard?

 

 

Well, I sure hope to see some other company picking up a 10 year old game and selling it again as a full-prized game with minor modifications and still making a good profit from it!

 

 

And looking at the number of regular online competitions, fan support, active squadrons and high-quality 3rd party addons, not even to mention OpenFalcon, FreeFalcon and the other mods available, I'd be really interested to see in what regard Falcon4 failed compared to LockOn or DCS:BS?

The fans kept F4 alive, not the gaming industry. You're also forgetting that mods like FF, OF have been in development for years - and they're showing the fruits of their labour.

All these comps, support, squadrons are a direct result of years of modding and patches by fans, not by any commercial support.

Falcon4 failed as a product? :blink:

...

And looking at the number of regular online competitions, fan support, active squadrons and high-quality 3rd party addons, not even to mention OpenFalcon, FreeFalcon and the other mods available, I'd be really interested to see in what regard Falcon4 failed as a whole compared to LockOn or DCS:BS?

Umm... what is Microprose doing these days again - consumer electronics?

 

I didn't say Falcon failed as a simulation. It failed as a product. On the other hand, Lock On (TFCSE, to be more precise) continues to this day to be a source of product development and business growth for TFC/ED, both in the entertainment market and now in the military market.

I've been tweaking my foothold mission for days, and finally tonite I saw all the pieces working in sequence and it was quite a sight! I'm putting version 6 up tonite, give it a try and let me know how you like it

Will do. Edited February 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

Umm... what is Microprose doing these days again - consumer electronics?

 

I didn't say Falcon failed as a simulation. It failed as a product. On the other hand, Lock On (TFCSE, to be more precise) continues to this day to be a source of product development and business growth for TFC/ED, both in the entertainment market and now in the military market.

Will do.

 

I am not sure to say Falcon 4 failed as a product is entierly correct. From what I know (very little), the development costs were very hight, but it also sold very well. A figure I read several years ago was something like 600'000 (but don't quote me on that). Of course it is possible that it didn't make profit, but without more data it is hard to tell. Likely is that it just didn't make enough profit compared to Barbies Little Ranch.

...but that's exactly the point I'm trying so desperately to drivel into people... :) even a "successful" flight sim that reached the upper-end sales numbers was canned like there's no tomorrow. Sales numbers mean squat if you're closing shop the year after.

 

I want flight simmers to understand the development side of this business, but I don't think it's working. Can you tell? :D

 

Course, I might just be wrong, but IMO the past 10 years of combat flight sims speak for themselves.

Edited February 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

Umm... what is Microprose doing these days again - consumer electronics?

 

I didn't say Falcon failed as a simulation. It failed as a product. On the other hand, Lock On (TFCSE, to be more precise) continues to this day to be a source of product development and business growth for ED, both in the entertainment market and now in the military market.

 

 

I don't want to hurt any personal feelings, but these are brave words for a developer that was dropped by it's publisher before the first addon was released. :P

 

 

 

Well, now seriously, I honestly doubt that Hasbros decision to close down the Microprose studios was primarily because Falcon4 was a failure.

 

And to your marketing theories: If what you say would be right for the gaming market, it would mean that there are virtually 4 or 5 successful game-products, because their label/Engine is still being developed. After the FlighSim series was closed down, too, failing to your parameters, I guess this will sum up with Quake, UT and The Sims.

I don't want to hurt any personal feelings, but these are brave words for a developer that was dropped by it's publisher before the first addon was released. :P

Actually, they're perfectly fitting words. Lock On was also a "market success" as far as flight sim sales numbers go, but that too was not enough for a traditional publisher like Ubisoft to continue investing in it. Which is why ED is doing what they're doing now - self-publishing and pushing into the military sims market as a source of financing.

And to your marketing theories: If what you say would be right for the gaming market, it would mean that there are virtually 4 or 5 successful game-products, because their label/Engine is still being developed. After the FlighSim series was closed down, too, failing to your parameters, I guess this will sum up with Quake, UT and The Sims.

I think you're missing the point. :) The product is not the goal - the developer staying in business is the goal, so that they can continue to make more flight simulations for us to fly. Edited February 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

...but that's exactly the point I'm trying so desperately to drivel into people... :) even a "successful" flight sim that reached the upper-end sales numbers was canned like there's no tomorrow. Sales numbers mean squat if you're closing shop the year after.

 

I want flight simmers to understand the development side of this business, but I don't think it's working. Can you tell? :D

 

Course, I might just be wrong, but IMO the past 10 years of combat flight sims speak for themselves.

 

You're not.

 

But you use really strange and sometimes pretty offensive arguments to support your point.

 

 

Of course a product is only good, if it lasts long, but you can't say the Falcon-Series was a blow, because it is no longer being worked on, while LockOn was a success because it is still being produced!

 

You can't make up your own rules and look at the last 10 years and say you are still there and miss out that the Falcon-Series lived for 21 years and what huge leaps it came from and what it did for the genre!

I'm sorry, but that doesn't support your point, but makes it rather look like starting a fanboy war.

Actually, they're perfectly fitting words. Lock On was also a "market success" as far as flight sim sales numbers go, but that too was not enough for a traditional publisher like Ubisoft to continue investing in it. Which is why ED is doing what they're doing now - self-publishing and pushing into the military sims market as a source of financing.

I think you're missing the point. :) The product is not the goal - the company staying in business is the goal, so that they can continue to make more flight simulations for us to fly.

 

Then I guess we will have that discussion again, if in 21 years DCS is still an active brand. ;)

Feuerfalke - you're looking at it as a flight simmer. I'm trying to get you to look at it as a developer.

 

As a flight simmer, I love what has been done with Falcon. As a developer, I would have gone out of business and no longer produced any flight sims.

 

Do you see the difference?

Edited February 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

EB-1 :I think you're missing the point. The product is not the goal - the developer staying in business is the goal, so that they can continue to make more flight simulations for us to fly.

 

HIT!!!!

 

Too bad other people don´t understand such a simple thing.

Feuerfalke - you're looking at it as a flight simmer. I'm trying to get you to look at it as a developer.

 

As a flight simmer, I love what has been done with Falcon. As a developer, I would have gone out of business and no longer produced any flight sims.

 

Do you see the difference?

 

 

No, I'm not.

 

I'm looking at 2 brands from a neutral point of view.

One was active for 21 years, released 6 full-priced games at the very uprise of PC-gaming, the other one has released 2 games and 1 addon over 10 years.

 

Now a developer or affiliate of the later tries to tell me, that his product is more successful, because it is still alive and not being a fanboy of either product, this equation makes no sense to me in any regard.

 

So, if you say...

"The product is not the goal - the developer staying in business is the goal, so that they can continue to make more flight simulations for us to fly."

 

...I agree 100% and reply that Microprose succeeded in doing so for 21 years, ED succeeded in that for 10 years, so far.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Feuerfalke

Here is a quote from Mark Bush (Frugal) about MicroProse and Falcon, he probably knows more about this than we do (I also used to think that MPS went bancrupt, as you can see in that thread):

 

It is probably worth pointing out that Microprose did not go bankrupt, Hasbro went bankrupt, Microprose were doing ok. However let's use Falcon as an example, Falcon cost $6 million to produce and sold around 800,000 copies. The average formulaic tat costs a fraction of that to produce and will sell several million copies. As a developer/publisher/businessman are you going to spend $6 million to sell 3/4 of a million copies $1 million to sell 16 million copies?

 

http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/showpost.php?p=1579357&postcount=503

 

Those 800,000 copies refer to the original Falcon 4, not including Allied Force.

 

And I think that you cannot really compare Falcon's long lasting success after its release (not in terms of business but as a flight sim) to that of other sims (maybe except EECH and BoBII), simply because Falcon's code was leaked, if this did not happen Falcon 4 would have been dead by now for a long time.

Edited February 26, 2009 by Acedy
:)

So, if you say...

"The product is not the goal - the developer staying in business is the goal, so that they can continue to make more flight simulations for us to fly."

 

...I agree 100% and reply that Microprose succeeded in doing so for 21 years, ED succeeded in that for 10 years, so far.

But I wasn't talking about the entire Falcon series. Maybe we just misunderstood each other. Sure, everything before 4.0 was, by my own definition, a great success. Then 4.0 came along and killed it. In fact, if 4.0 wasn't as much of a product failure, maybe we'd be flying 5.0 today with that F/A-18 add-on? But we're not, because 4.0 was the end of the road.

 

The idea being that Black Shark or Warthog should not be the end of the road for DCS or ED, because if it is, quite frankly I'm not sure what I will have left to fly. I don't know about you...

 

As usual with you guys, I trully enjoyed this exchange. Really, I was sitting here, smiling. But I think I've said my piece and will leave it there. Sorry if I over-emphasized a point here or there. ;)

 

Thank you.

Edited February 26, 2009 by EvilBivol-1

But I wasn't talking about the entire Falcon series. Maybe we just misunderstood each other. Sure, everything before 4.0 was, by my own definition, a great success. Then 4.0 came along and killed it. In fact, if 4.0 wasn't as much of a product failure, maybe we'd be flying 5.0 today with that F/A-18 add-on? But we're not, because 4.0 was the end of the road.

 

The idea being that Black Shark or Warthog should not be the end of the road for DCS or ED, because if it is, quite frankly I'm not sure what I will have left to fly. I don't know about you...

 

As usual with you guys, I trully enjoyed this exchange. Really, I was sitting here, smiling. But I think I've said my piece and will leave it there. Sorry if I over-emphasized a point here or there. ;)

 

Thank you.

 

 

Not taken any offense at all. Glad you didn't either. :beer:

 

 

I'm also sure we all don't want to see BS or A-10 to be the end of the road for DCS. Again, we're not bashing either product.

 

 

But you are still mixing up cause and effect, IMHO. That Microprose was bought up was not because of the failure of their products, but because of the SUCCESS of its brands!

And as Acedy quoted, Microprose didn't run out of refunds, it was bought up and THEN the buying companie died, as one of the many gaming companies that died that time, because PC-gaming changed a lot at these times and there were many, many flightsims spamming the market at that time (Janes, dymamix, Microsoft, etc).

 

You cannot compare that situation to the simulation market today, if you're honest. ;)

 

And then, we both know, that The F-16 and the F-18 are still most popular and even wished for numerous times in these very forums. If Microprose was still active, be sure there would be at least a Falcon5! Let's not forget that Microprose also modelled the Mig29 to have the option for competative LAN and Internet-Playing, beyond the ability of dynamic Coop-Campaigns a long time before fast DSL was standard!

 

Flaming Cliffs was a leap forward in many terms, but while it probably wasn't sold 800.000 times either, I wouldn't stand here and claim it was a failure either. ;)

The fans kept F4 alive, not the gaming industry. You're also forgetting that mods like FF, OF have been in development for years - and they're showing the fruits of their labour.

All these comps, support, squadrons are a direct result of years of modding and patches by fans, not by any commercial support.

 

 

i think this speaks volumes for how Falcon "Succeeded" as a product. The fact that Falcon 4.0 as a base has spurred on these modificiations for 10 years!! if you look at the mods too they add things like more avionics, more planes to fly, more of this and that. It is in no way changing what Falcon 4.0's Core goal was (To creat the fighter pilot experience)..

 

Evil-bol its unfortunate that ED frowns on F4 so much and looks at it as "how not to do things" when in fact the philosophy and merit behind it is exactly how to do it. Faclon 4.0 more than anything was released too early due to the "corporate" world trying to get something out the door to succeed when in fact the people behind F4 where in it to make a really great sim. I believe ED's goals are similar but their strategy is different, in fact i'm not sure exactly what ED mission statement is regarding DCS.

 

Is it to have high fidelity cockpits and then some scripted missions? or is their goal for DCS to have a living combat world?

 

i don't know, i couldn't really find anything about it on the website.

 

and understand that I only talk about this because I love what ED has done with BS, i want nothing more than to see it move into the realm of living world that F4 provides. If we didn't have passion over these types of things then nothing would move forward :)

Actually in terms of business, F4 was exactly how not to do things. From some hippie 'hand over the source code' point of view it might be 'the right thing to do', but not from a business point of view.

 

Let's recap what EB was saying: The company that created F4 WENT BANKRUPT.

 

The reason you have F4 upgrades right now is because the source code was stolen. That's right. Stolen.

 

Moving on, ED has said time and again that DCS is a WIP, and will be improving with each module.

 

And as I have pointed out time and again, while this is how it is, it doesn't mean your pet peeve will be taken care of in the next module.

F4 imo, still hasn't succeeded commercially. It's still fan-based (and I'm one of them). Leak the source code to any game and you'll ALWAYS have a small number of fans that will do something with it. But unfortunately, those fans are definitely in the minority. The market just isn't big enough - if it was, why hasn't a developing house picked up the FF, or OF teams. Why haven't they started charging for their mods themselves?

Look what happened to MSFS (they don't even attempt to mimic complex enemy AI) - and if any company could have afforded to keep a studio open, it was M$.

 

When's F5 coming out?

 

You also gotta remember that for a long time, Falcon was the only serious study sim we had. It's had years to mature and grow. BS was released how long ago?

 

i think this speaks volumes for how Falcon "Succeeded" as a product. The fact that Falcon 4.0 as a base has spurred on these modificiations for 10 years!! if you look at the mods too they add things like more avionics, more planes to fly, more of this and that. It is in no way changing what Falcon 4.0's Core goal was (To creat the fighter pilot experience)..

 

Evil-bol its unfortunate that ED frowns on F4 so much and looks at it as "how not to do things" when in fact the philosophy and merit behind it is exactly how to do it. Faclon 4.0 more than anything was released too early due to the "corporate" world trying to get something out the door to succeed when in fact the people behind F4 where in it to make a really great sim. I believe ED's goals are similar but their strategy is different, in fact i'm not sure exactly what ED mission statement is regarding DCS.

 

Is it to have high fidelity cockpits and then some scripted missions? or is their goal for DCS to have a living combat world?

 

i don't know, i couldn't really find anything about it on the website.

 

and understand that I only talk about this because I love what ED has done with BS, i want nothing more than to see it move into the realm of living world that F4 provides. If we didn't have passion over these types of things then nothing would move forward :)

Saying Falcon 4.0 succeeded as a product and using RV and OF as your example is like saying that a movie succeeded by pointing out how many torrent seeds there are for it. Succeeded for who? Not those who stood to profit from it, that's for sure. Thus, it was a failure as a product.

 

As for its performance as a sim, I like to think of it as an the very zenith of an evolutionary dead-end. For that type of sim experience, it never got any better than that. Now I think with DCS we're branching off and evolving in a new way. Really, it may be that Falcon wasn't a dead end. Maybe someone will evolve it further, Fighter Ops perhaps?

 

Sorry to respond to this so late in the thread, but I thought this was rather informative:

 

Military simulations demand scripting ability over dynamic environments and are certainly not interested in random behavior. Military sims, at least ones ED is contracted for, also benefit from deep modeling of individual units in the virtual world rather than large-scale virtual combat not directly connected to the pilot.

 

I also vastly prefer this and its easy to understand why a military would prefer this. Flight sim fun for me are all about setting up the pieces and hitting the "GO!" button. I don't know why exactly, but I've always found it more fun to put one group in one corner (controlled by me), another group in the other corner and watch how we duke it out. Then change some variables and try again. I can do that for hours at a time, literally.

But you are still mixing up cause and effect, IMHO. That Microprose was bought up was not because of the failure of their products, but because of the SUCCESS of its brands!

 

With all due respect Feuefalke, I think you have this one completely wrong.

 

Between 1993 and 1998, Microprose lost approximately $145 million. In fact, the only year that they made any money during that period was 1997, when they made $7.9 million. That was followed up by a $33 million loss in 1998. At the end of their FY1998, they were down to about $14.1 million of cash and cash equivalents. In short, they were running out of money, and desparately needed to get acquired to remain in business. Their FY1998 10-K (http://www.secinfo.com/dVut2.7p6e.htm) makes this pretty clear with statements, for example, like:

 

"Management believes that existing cash and cash equivalents, together with cash generated from operations, will need to be supplemented in the near term by cash flows from new financing arrangements, including asset-based financing arrangements, to meet the Company's liquidity and capital needs for the next 12 months...Failure to secure and maintain adequate additional financing could have a material and adverse effect on the Company's business, financial condition and ability to continue as a going concern."

 

"As discussed in Note 1 to the financial statements, the Company's liquidity has been adversely affected by continued losses from operations. In addition, continuation of operations is dependent upon the availability of additional capital and the Company's ability to generate increased revenues and improved gross margin on sales. These issues raise substantial doubt about the Company's ability to continue as a going concern."

 

and

 

"On May 19th 1998, the Company released fourth quarter and fiscal 1998 results. In that press release the Company's Management indicated that the Company can best prosper and leverage its assets in combination with another Company or through a strategic investment from a Partner."

 

The above are not words of a healthy company. Microprose was in deep trouble when it got bought by Hasbro.

 

With respect to Falcon4 itself, I love it dearly, and much of it is amazing both under the hood and on the surface. But, it was NOT a financial success. It spent years in development, and sales were very disappointing. Also, remember that the original release in 1998 was pretty disastrous. The sim was (and to a certain extent still is) plagued with severe bugs that have taken years to resolve. I am much closer to this than most people, so trust me when I say that while certain parts of the original code are beautiful, other parts are a disaster area. IMHO, commercial development for that kind of a simulation is simply not commercially viable, and it was not even in those days. The costs are simply too high for too small a return. To be honest, I am amazed that ED appear to have found it economically viable to develop BS, but I am not complaining...

With all due respect Feuefalke, I think you have this one completely wrong.

 

 

Honestly, I think you've got something wrong:

 

I never said Falcon4 was a financial success! I said that people are mixing up cause and effect and blaiming Falcon4 to have failed as a product and to have caused the death of Microprose as a producer and publisher and this is plain wrong as wrong can be.

Infact you support that point perfectly with the statements you posted, if you'd please read what you quoted!

 

 

Microprose made a lot of different games in a time when masses of software-companies were already dying out. They read the signs of their times too late and made some fatal mistakes. As a result of missing funds they cut down support and development costs for all their major brands and tried to sell them before the "merge" with Hasbro to get some refunds, saving on all sides, especially QA.

 

Falcon4 was rushed out of the door as well as B17II and other important brands (Master Of Orion, to name another famous brand of Microprose). There was even an M1 Abrams II in the pipeline, but it was not pushed far enough to be released.

That was the cause why it was buggy as hell when it was released and did miss out important features that were announced before.

 

 

So, saying that Falcon4 was an unsuccessful product is plain naive, as the economical and technological advantages of the Falcon-Series cannot be judged by looking at the pure number of sales of this single product that was rushed out unfinished and it most surely cannot be compared to a product 10 years later with a completely different market segmentation!

 

If at all, Falcon4 has to be judged in the historical context you posted yourself and with regards to the enormous changes and crashes in the gaming market during these times. And if you take that into account, you can no longer claim that Falcon4 was the problem for Microprose! Microprose was the problem for Falcon4!

 

Infact, your statements about the codes make that pretty obvious, as you can see for yourself where the normal production was still in charge and where coding was just finished to release the product as soon as possible, to at least get SOME money from it, to increase their own value before Hasbro get's it all.

 

 

So again, saying that Falcon4 failed as a product for Microprose and got it out of the business is mixing up cause and effect, as your quotes support impressively.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Feuerfalke

I never said Falcon4 was a financial success! I said that people are mixing up cause and effect and blaiming Falcon4 to have failed as a product and to have caused the death of Microprose as a producer and publisher and this is plain wrong as wrong can be.

 

Feuerfalke, I was responding specifically to your quote that "Microprose was bought up was not because of the failure of their products, but because of the SUCCESS of its brands!" That quote has nothing to do with Falcon 4 specifically, and seems to suggest that Microprose got bought because it was doing well. It was not doing well, and its business and products were failing from a commercial standpoint. The quotes I posted from its 10-K show that it was failing quite effectively.

 

With respect to whether Falcon 4 itself caused or contributed to the "death" of Microprose, there is not much point in speculating. The only people who would know that are the insiders at Hasbro that made the decision to shutter the Microprose facilities. My offhand guess is that the disappointing sales of Falcon 4 did not help the case for keeping the studio open.

 

A few other points:

 

1) The fact that Falcon 4 was "rushed" to market did not change much about the product. As I said, the code had/has severe problems, and it would have taken much more than a few months to clean it up. The fact that it took years of work after the source code leak to get a stable product demonstrates that.

 

2) I think you are splitting hairs with respect to the "success" of Falcon 4. Pretty much everyone agrees (and you appear to admit above) that Falcon 4 was not a financial success. Further, everyone agrees that because of the subsequent work that occurred with the leaked source, the Falcon 4 became a very "successful" simulation. Which measure of "success" is more important depends on who you are, the consumer or the developer. If you are a consumer, all you care about is a successful simulation. If you are a developer, you care about both producing a successful simulator, and having a financially successful product (though probably more the latter than the former). What I believe ED are attempting to do with DCS is to create a simulation that succeeds both on a financial level and on a simulation level. In the recent years, very few companies have been able to achieve this, and so I wish them the best of luck.

 

3) Finally, I really would not use prior iterations of Falcon (e.g. Falcon 3, Falcon AT etc) in judging Falcon 4. AFAIK, Falcon 4's codebase was basically all rewritten, and the the only relationship with the prior products was the name.

Edited February 27, 2009 by wombat778

Feuerfalke, I was responding specifically to your quote that "Microprose was bought up was not because of the failure of their products, but because of the SUCCESS of its brands!" That quote has nothing to do with Falcon 4 specifically, and seems to suggest that Microprose got bought because it was doing well. It was not doing well, and its business and products were failing from a commercial standpoint. The quotes I posted from its 10-K show that it was failing quite effectively.

These 2 points are not contradictory.

 

Microprose had a LOT of successful brands and it was several times attempted to be overtaken by other publishers.

 

Microprose has surpassed it's competitors for YEARS in terms of longlivety and independent production of PC-games, especially in the simulation sector. When Microprose ran into bankruptcy, it was YEARS beyond it's competitors like Dynamix, Janes, LucasArts and the simulation-part of Sierra.

 

That is not a sign of a weak company, but that of a STRONG one.

 

But of course Microprose could not change the things going on, releases of consoles and the loss of markets to the ego-shooter-genre. It's undoubted that Microprose made mistakes that lead to it's financial status you posted, but you won't tell me, that all these things in the world did happen because Falcon4 had bugs, do you?

 

 

To point 1 you stated:

That would be the first project, that did not suffer from being forced out of the door. Honestly, do you think dropping QA and development staff does not change the quality of the final product? How long did ED test BlackShark before it was released?

 

To point 2:

My statements have nothing to do with the effect after the code was leaked, but before Falcon4 was released. :smilewink:

And my personal opinion to that point: There is no such thing as a commercial success without a success with the customers you want to please. And I don't agree that ED is the only producer succeeding in this. The art of marketing is to create a label that speaks for quality and for continuity and gives you the chance to cut development costs by building on that basis, upgrading and gradually expanding it. And DCS is a vital first step into that direction, much more than LockOn was, IMHO.

But funny enough, this directly support my point again:

You can't take the last step (Falcon4) of this marketing strategy from one company (Microprose) and compare it to the initial phase of a new brand (DCS) from a rather fresh company (ED).

 

 

To point 3:

If you mean what you wrote in your Point2, you can't be serious in point 3. Either creating a brand and expanding it is the goal or it's to create a single product.

 

 

If you want to continue this, I suggest drop me a PM. I don't want to hijack the thread and we've gotten far enough from the OP and AI. ;) (sorry for that)

Edited February 27, 2009 by Feuerfalke

from a rather fresh company (ED).

 

Just a quick note:

Microprose lived from '82 to about '02 depending on how you count. That's 20 years.

Eagle Dynamics has been operating from '91 to the present, about 18 years.

 

Eagle Dynamics, a "rather fresh company", has been around just as long as Blizzard Entertainment.