Flight Simulators Dying

[element1108]

10 years ago with a fraction of the computing power we have today who would have thought the number of flight sims being released would also be on a serious decline.

 

I honestly believe now a days there's enough room for ALL flight sim developers to share a market that's (apparently shrinking) but none the less starving for more sims.

 

I can't think of too many developers off the top of my head currently in development.

 

- DCS (Not only in development, but have delivered on their word so far as well)

- Fight Ops: Not much coming from that area, and have been in the works since 2005...phantom ware?

- Jet Thunder: also phantom ware?

- FSX: TONNNNNNNNNNS of planes and scenery mods, but without air to air combat/ground combat it's very limited. (Even though they laid off their development team) aerosoft and lots of companies producing high end planes.

-Rise of Flight (Not sure who the developer is off hand and too lazy to check online). Should be interesting, but WWI may not be the most popular amongst jet heads.

- Seven G: Early stages, looks like a higher end version of Graphsim's F18 Operation Iraqi Freedom series. May be nice for F18 heads and carrier ops.

 

Anybody know any other projects in the works?

 

 

I've seen a few of the "cockpits" a lot of the guys in the community have hand made (and invested in) themselves. It's OUTSTANDINGLY AWESOME (and nerdy at the same time but who cares). I know one thing, flight sims may not have a HUGE fanbase anymore...but the fanboys are fanatical by fanboy standards. Simming has become a delicate hobby much the same way model air plane, photography, snowboarding, bottle cap collecting WHATEVER. It's one thing to play video games as a hobby, it's (IMHO) entirely different to SIM as a hobby.

Edited May 20, 2009 by element1108

[Safari Ken]

You forgot Storm of War: Battle of Britain, the MUCH awaited follow-up to the IL-2 series. It was originally supposed to come out in June 2003, but lately signs have been pointing to it getting close to being, you know, actually released. Looks fantastic, too!

 

Also, this is pretty close to the same topic: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=40160

[JG14_Smil]

dying? you mean dead until lately.

[Kuro6]

Flight sims are dead. Only a handful of people still play flight sims. I love black shark, and I hope they come out with many more aircraft. But in order to survive, they need to put FPS into the game as well. Think Arma and OFP2. Those games suck, because they are just that flight / vehicle sim wise, games. Even personal arms like rifles are being badly simulated nowdays. It really pissed me off when Crysis made claims of realism in their game like bullet drop, penetration, etc. and it was all a lie. There's no bullet drop or penetration whatsoever. I can hit a guy all the way across the map with a pistol. The UT mod infiltration got close to small arms realism but the engine is 10 years old. If ED can put in some better ground graphics / terrain and stick an FPS into the works they will have one hell of a sim. Imagine going against live ground forces. With Stingers! Better learn to use NOE flying.

 

Youv'e got the air sim down, now you need to add drivable vehicles and playable infantry. Though again, you need much better terrain ( like Crysis ).

[Acedy]

There is also:

 

- Lead Pursuit's next project

- Third Wire products

- X-Plane

- Flight Gear (free ware / open source)

 

Besides that don't forget the various modding groups that continue to develop and improve older sims (Lomac, Falcon 4, EECH, BoB2:WoV, IL-2, YAP2 for Wings over Vietnam, Over Flanders Fields for CFS3...). :)

Edited May 20, 2009 by Acedy

[159th_Viper]

Personally - I'm Happy with One at a Time......I honestly do not have enough time for more, what with 2 Rugrats and my Better Half.

 

To tinker around with more would be doing DCS an injustice......that is, until SOW comes around.......then I'm gonna be in trouble! :D

[leroy1964]

Sadly I agree

 

I remember 'many' flight sims for the C64, Amiga, and then the PC and some serious nice sims I have owned and played over the years, ready?

 

Gunship (on C64 and then the Amiga)

F-15 Strike Eagle

F-19 Stealth Fighter

Knights of the Sky

Gunship 2000

Nighthawk F-117A Stealth Fighter

Harrier Jump Jet

B-17 Flying Fortress

Fleet Defender

 

They were just a few 'flight sims' from microprose and there where many more, such as:

Fighter Bomber (F11A)

Tornado

Flight of the old dog (very tough for it's day)

Flight of the Intruder

 

It seems there was a time there was an abundance of great flight sims and other military sims, ie

M1 Tank Platoon

Red Storm Rising

Silent Hunter

 

Others:

Pirates

Airborne Ranger

 

but with regards flight sims, my friend and I were just saying the same as you guys and gals "it has been a long time between sims" sadly I hope they will not die out, but just the other day I was in a major store and they informed me they were phasing all thier PC games over time:cry:

 

I would like to think someone will keep making a few decent flights sims, oh and before I forget, I forgot to metion all the excellent "Janes Sims" that were around, believe it or not I owned all of these titles at one time or another, nostalgia eh?:thumbup:

 

Cheers all

[JDski]

Flight sims are dead. Only a handful of people still play flight sims.

 

I bet there are more people flying then ever. But the percentages are lower then they used to be because so many more people are playing games now.

At first there was a larger percentage of tecky type people using PC's and playing games on them. They wanted detailed sims and such.

But now that so many more people are playing games, not all of them have the time or dedication towards sims and just want to be able to jump in and out of games when they have spare time.

With the industry more geared towards making the quickest and biggests bucks, it caters now more towards those casual gamers and thier consoles and not the simmers on thier PC's. So that hasn't helped either.

[leroy1964]

Good point

 

I bet there are more people flying then ever. But the percentages are lower then they used to be because so many more people are playing games now.

At first there was a larger percentage of tecky type people using PC's and playing games on them. They wanted detailed sims and such.

But now that so many more people are playing games, not all of them have the time or dedication towards sims and just want to be able to jump in and out of games when they have spare time.

With the industry more geared towards making the quickest and biggests bucks, it caters now more towards those casual gamers and thier consoles and not the simmers on thier PC's. So that hasn't helped either.

 

Yeah sadly your right, the move seems to be towards consoles, XBox360, PS3 and such:cry:

 

Oh well, thank God for DCS and Blackshark.:thumbup:

[HansRoaming]

I think it is a smaller percentage of the gaming market than before but then the market is now bigger than hollywood.

 

Get the right sales medium like direct download and steam and the genre can thrive. Also if DCS lives up to its promise of keeping releases current with updated engines then DCS Blackshark has no reason no to be gnerating income for years to come. Loose the game mentality.

[spyda]

hopefully DCS will become the new benchmark like fsx etc is for the commercial market

so when people talk about buying a fully detailed combat flight sim DCS is the standard.

 

the best part is if you have been playing ED flight sim's from the start you know how it works eg the view buttons have always stayed the same F1 - F12 etc since flanker1.0 and the crimea area i love it :thumbup:

[TangoRomeo]

My take is that simulations in general are, always were, the red headed stepchild of the gaming industry, a niche market that caters to the few - though there are exceptions to this; FS, IL-2, SH series.

On another note, here in germany Steel Beasts Pro Pe sells for 120 Eur (~165 USD), still, people are buying it. Image HAWX with a pricetag like this ...

[Mugenjin]

If HAWX had that pricetag, it'd better be like lock on with the realism of the DCS series :P

[MrHelicopter]

I think that if DCS can go into mass production with a lot of aircraft, such as realease 1 game that has multiple aircraft... something like name it Digital Combat Simulations and it should have a variety of detailed aircraft. That might get things going for flight sims.

[HansRoaming]

I believe DCS will over time have a rich stable of aircraft, just keep the same core engine with different aircraft in a sandbox world. Perfection!

 

There is no reason why Blackshark can't be going in ten years time appealing to a new generation of simmers. DCS if it lives up to the promise can loose the release and age problem sims of the past have had.

[Total]

They're not dying, they're just becomeing mroe of a niche genre.

 

In the old days (C64 through the early x586 days) it was primarily adults grabbing the games on for the computers. The computers themselves cost a good bit back then, so they weren't considered a toy for the kids.

 

My first online gaming team back in 1998 had over 80 active members and none of them were below the age of 22. It was just that there was a plethora of adults online.

 

As kids infiltrated the scene though, many adults gave up the past time as they didn't want to babysit online as well.

 

Kids don't have the patience for a vertical learning curve. They want to turn on, load, and immediately start blowing things up. Definitely not a flight sim generation. So, with market demand for high learning curves down to an all time minimum, the flight sim genre was bound to take a serious hit.

 

Suits me fine though. At least I know that in the sim community, I am more likely to be playing with adults rather than whining, screaming children. I'd rather play with 300 adults rather than 10,000 smack-talking brats who feel entitled to do whatever they want with no regard to other people at all.

[104th_Crunch]

Work on the multiplayer aspect! Look at all these games still around years after release because of the replayability of MP. I have posted about it before, model a sim that taps into the MP market big time. DCS I hopes can become this sim in an even greater way than Lock On has.

 

Anyway, sims are not dead. Where ever there is a demand, even for a niche market, someone will fulfill that demand if they can turn a profit. If they charged $100 for DCS:x and it means that ED will stay in business, i'll pay it and I know of some other that will also :)

Edited June 1, 2009 by Crunch

[pauldy]

I don't know any other air combat simulation simulation games besides those mentioned. Although some classics are still around. Falcon 4, F-18, F-22 TAW, etc.

 

Pretty much most people can't dedicate their time to steep learning curves. I only have 2 flight simulation games installed, Jane's F-18 & Lock On, although i own an F4AF copy too...

 

Maybe majority of modern jets are still classified to be "fully" modeled.. Most people would rather have fewer, but fully modelled aircraft than a gamut of "scripted" planes.. That's why sim developers are few.. not? :) Just my thought.