Flight Sim World: Closure Announcement

[fsafranek]

Not the right forum but whenever a sim closes it is newsworthy to all simmers.


Flight Sim World: Closure Announcement
APRIL 23 - DTG CRYSS
It is with great sadness that we announce the future closure of Flight Sim World.

As you know, we always had a strong ambition to bring a new experience into the
established world of flight simulation, one that deliberately overhauled both the flying
experience and the graphical fidelity, offering new ways to fly.

Unfortunately, after many detailed discussions, we regrettably don’t see a clear
direction that will allow us to keep to the development time we’d want, alongside
the player numbers we need.

So, slightly before a year since we first launched into Early Access, we have
made the intensely difficult decision to fully scale back all future development
on Flight Sim World and remove it from sale on 24th May.

[blanston12]

Well that’s a surprise! I had thought dovetail was being too ambitious but did not think they would give up.

they should have been more incremental but then they would still be in the shadow of P3d

[Blackbird686]

WOW!! A bit sudden to hear tho. Never good news to hear about another resource for FS going away.

BB686:US-flag:

[Mach3DS]

Honestly, this is no surprise to me whatsoever. It's precisely what I said would happen about a year ago. Always sad and unfortunate because these are peoples lives and livelihood, and I hate to see people out of work. But on the sim side, I just never understood how they would compete with P3D.

[blanston12]

I thought the had a chance, if the had built a sim that was 64 bit, as stable as FSX and compatible with it (as comparable as p3d is) and maybe upgraded the scenery and ATC I think they could have had a success, with steam to distribute and LM handicapped by the fiction that there software was not for entertainment purposes the had an opening. But the tried to do too much

[txnetcop]

I had high hopes they would make it. Competition is good for everyone...as it makes everyone else try harder and keeps prices reasonable.
Ted

[vortex]

It's sad. However, I think that the dwindling user numbers, the delay in releasing the SDK and the lack of any significant update since the introduction of trueSKY last year meant that the writing was definitely on the wall for them - trueSKY had so much potential!

[zswobbie1]

I think, it was purely a business decision (same as MS closing down ACES). At the end of the day, there is only so much money that can be thrown at a non performing project. Shareholders come first, not us.

Anyhow, let the postmortems continue..

[HyFlyer]

I think, it was purely a business decision (same as MS closing down ACES). At the end of the day, there is only so much money that can be thrown at a non performing project. Shareholders come first, not us.

Anyhow, let the postmortems continue..

https://www.facebook.com/pmdgsimulations/posts/1811627135543729

[IanP]

Ignore what "Mister" Randazzo says. His sour grapes come from the fact that he was denied special preferential treatment compared to other developers and the fact that he knows full well that what he's saying is untrue, but he keeps repeating it, makes his words utterly irrelevant. The fanboys will still hang on his every syllable, unfortunately.

For the record, there are a number of products available for FSW which have nothing to do with Steam either to install them or support them whatsoever. The evidence is in plain public sight that PMDG is posting the same tripe that they were before. DTG could never have given PMDG what they wanted anyway, given the way that the sim was being developed.

That said, in my opinion it is entirely DTG's management's fault that this line has reached such an abrupt end. All the way through from the time they announced it, a huge amount of the community (both developers and end users) were saying that if you release an incomplete product into this marketplace and claim that the rest is coming 'at some point', you'll just attract laughter and abuse from the people you need to buy your product. By releasing a GA-only, partially functional sim, they put themselves at a massive disadvantage from day one and apparently this has been borne out by less than anticipated financial return.

It's Flight all over again. Marketing demands/expectation and development/retail reality have a massive gap between them.

Ian P.

[DennyA]

I'm sad. Never spent much time in the sim because they didn't include VR and they came out right when everyone else started supporting VR, but I want to see a strong, competitive sim market. That's best for all of us.

Still, their business model seemed to be the same one that didn't work for Microsoft Flight (payware-based vs the mix of payware/freeware/donationware that the other sims get), so I'm not shocked.

If this means the FSX code license will be up for sale again, the ideal thing would be for a consumer company to work with LM to sell a version of P3D to the consumer/enthusiast market.

[Tom Burnside]

Really Saddened by this was really looking forward to the full product was even considering it my FSX replacement. Shame as well some companies had even developed aircraft for it.

[IanP]

They had no problem at all with freeware - both Aimee and Cryss regularly stated that the sim would support freeware and 3rd party installers. With an incomplete SDK and no external tool support (e.g. Arno's packages) there was never the opportunity to get a big uptake on that, though. It wasn't the "3DS Max only" limitation that stopped me putting my sceneries into FSW except as a copy and paste port - it was the fact that the SDK wouldn't allow you to create new airports, only alter existing ones. No idea why that was.

What angers me is the oft-repeated vitriol that DTG are just money grabbing and payware DLC driven. PMDG's stupid stance comes from the word "official" - that "Official DLC" could only be distributed via DTG/Steam. How many PMDG products did Microsoft publish and sell? Zero. There was one single "Official" DLC for FSX and that was Acceleration (which was almost entirely produced by 3rd parties, but was packaged and sold by Microsoft - hence it being "official" DLC). Everything else that we use is - and always was - "unofficial" DLC.

That's the reality. There is currently zero "official" DLC for X-Plane, zero "official" DLC for P3D, but you don't see people getting hung up on the wording there, do you? The only difference is that DTG produce internally developed and publish externally developed content, through their storefronts. MS tried to do that and we, the community, trashed Flight for it (again, not entirely without good reason!)

I, personally, disagree with the DTG stance of only promoting official content and generally ignoring (in public, at least) the great swathes of freeware and 3rd party content out there for Train Sim. FSW never got the chance for people to develop for it, so we have no idea how they would have handled that, but I doubt it would have been any different. I understand why they do it, but I disagree, because it fosters exactly the kind of incorrectly targetted hostility they receive as a result.

Ian P.

[Mach3DS]

You've got me curious, who created Acceleration? To me at least, it's pretty obvious why the SDK wouldn't allow you to create new content. But that's all irrelevant now.

[IanP]

You've got me curious, who created Acceleration? To me at least, it's pretty obvious why the SDK wouldn't allow you to create new content. But that's all irrelevant now.

The SDK just wasn't finished. They weren't blocking people from creating new airports, just hadn't got to it yet.

A whole bunch of people were involved in Accel. The scenery was by the people who made the moon for FS9 (and whose name I've forgotten, whoops!) the F/A-18 and I think a couple of other models were made by Captain Sim, the VC for the F/A-18 was made by Virtuali... I can't remember on the rest, sorry.

Ian P.

[Daube]

Sad news indeed.
DTG wanted to make the simulator attractive to gamers before making it usable. They should have focused on core engine performance, features and SDK before making any kind of addons.

The general marketing direction they chose was not that bad. They just didn't do the things in the right order.
The late versions of FSW were pretty much unsuable on my computer due to crappy performance, and the lack of addons (or troubles to install them) made the sim look terrible (not to mention the silly old limitations inherited from FSX, like very small autogen radius etc...). Despite this, the had the best sky rendition out there, thanks to finally getting the sky color and sunlight colors right, and the excellent TrueSKY system giving superb clouds. They should have focused on improving that part of the sim to attract the flightsim community, instead of creating missions to try to attract people who are already too busy playing Fortnite...

Sad to see the very same errors made in Microsoft Flight repeated once again.
If somebody buys the source code from DTG, I hope they will make a bit smarter choices...

[bazzar]

Unfortunately, for developers interested in FSW as a platform, one of the major issues was with the licensing rules. Unless a license was held for a particular brand, an add-on of that subject could not be supported. That made the whole thing too limiting and just too hard.

[StormILM]

Unfortunately, for developers interested in FSW as a platform, one of the major issues was with the licensing rules. Unless a license was held for a particular brand, an add-on of that subject could not be supported. That made the whole thing too limiting and just too hard.

On that alone, many predicted today's revelation. A number of us knew the rumors about P3D going 64bit were not just rumors despite the all the nay-sayers claims it's development didn't exist. The nail was in the coffin before FSW even saw the light of day with P3D development remaining virtually unchanged from previous versions. The sim road map was pretty clear last year and now today even more so.

[manfredc3]

Not a surprise. But still sad to hear.

I think that no one should buy the source code. Why inherit FSX limitations.

I think LM made the most out of the source code, and I can only see a possible successful sim out of that if LM makes their version available for the entertainment sector.

But with two or three very strong flight simulators on the market (P3Dv4, X-plane and Aerofly FS2) I think it will be very hard for another contender to find it's place in this highly demanding market.

[blanston12]

it will be interesting to see what DTG does next, as I see it they have a few options

1) They could sell the license to someone else like LM or the group of developers that were interested in it before. The developers did not have the cash before and probably still don't, LM passed on before, they could have gotten the whole thing when they got ESP if they were interested.
2) They could try again with a scaled down project that is more manageable and more incremental, but then they would still be behind P3D and XP instead of the grand leap forward they hoped with FSW.
3) They could partner with LM and sell a consumer version of P3D on steam, since they have the license they could probably do it but would LM bite.
4) Bankruptcy, they have spent way to much on this already.

[Mach3DS]

They don't own the license I don't think in that sense. DTG can develop ESP for entertainment. But out side of that I don't it's like that. MS owns the licensing. From what I understand. So anyone else would have to go through MS to purchase licensing options.

[zswobbie1]

Maybe they must just stick to their Fishing & train apps.
In retrospect, in all the time they had the sim franchise, it was a beta version that they wanted their customers to buy.
Secondly, getting advice from their users, or target market to what they want is now seen to be very problematic... everybody has their individual requirements for what they want out of the sim.
Yes, they did try....

I'm sure that LM will not be interested in an entertainment game that parallels their professional & acedemic products. Why should they? Even more licensing issues.

I always wondered why a simmer would consider FSW, when there are 'complete' & far more supported products out there.
BTW, FlightGear should also be added into the alternatives.

Regards,

Robin

[BendyFlyer]

No real comment on was it good or was it bad. Unfortunate because I am sure the code and rights did not come cheap from MS and they were basically restricted to the hobby-private market. From a business perspective two things stand out - the First is the you get a license to use but not the product, there is significant customer resistance to this in the consumer market but in the commercial world it is the way they operate, it is just another lease cost. Second, addons had to be a licensed after sale or no support. That killed addon developers interest too hard and DTG would not have had the resources to replicate what is done by thousands of keen amateurs in the spirit of communal collaboration and mutual interest and passion.

As for LM and P3D speculation, well I am currently doing work for a major international aerospace entity- future pilot training is all simulator orientated because that is what the military and the big end of aviation want and are introducing. LM upgraded P3D to 64 bit because of computer architecture and platforms not for hobby customers, as they say plainly the license is not intended for gaming purposes. What is really happening is that is cheap software development and so called student customers etc are actually helping them do the bug finding and get rid of other wrinkles, it is a win win for them but let us make one thing clear, LM is not in the consumer market it is a high tech heavy end of town aerospace company and that is the way it will stay - work it out - how many P3D licenses would you need to sell compared to say one F35? Sure they will probably turn a blind eye to the obvious interest from 'non' academics but P3D is a bolt on for the real world flight training sector not consumers. They might eventually flog it off to a business with that interest but not at the moment.

Sad to see the DTG folk lose out like this but the writing was on the wall generally just as it has been for a lot of folk trying to make money out of sim products. My money is on X-Plane for the future but as what I have is just fine I am not doing anything there either, so I am probably typical of the consumer market DTG faced, uncertain, not totally unsatisfied with what they have and not that impressed with what was on offer to go and buy. Why X-Plane, open source architecture, 64 bit and that will attract a lot more amateurs and enthusiasts than a pay as you go product after all most of us are cash stressed or broke these days anyway, I know I am. Have a look around the retail world the evidence is staring you in the face.

[Dino Cattaneo]

Sad to hear that - probably it was too ambitious for FSW to develop. But there were some thing they did right:

- The default aicrafts were actually pretty good. True, there were only GA planes - but in terms of quality they were probably the best around.
- The cloud technology was cool
- The idea of "reformatting" the XML gauges so that they can run through the GPU was good
- The adoption of ORBX Global textures and vectors meant that the base scenery was much better than FSX and P3D
- Some effects (like the rain on the canopy and the vibration of the needles) were well implemented
- The SDK did a good job in explaining the differences between FSW and FSX

Then, FSX/P3D developer the fact that P3D and FSW diverged was a burden - it would have been much better if they had a common format (dream world, I know).

[Naruto-kun]

It’s not sour grapes on PMDGs part. There were other developers who wouldn’t go along with it because of the restrictions mentioned. When questions about unofficial payware addons were asked, they were either met with silence or that DTG would take the developer to court. I remember when Stephen and Amy were asked at FlightsimCon about restrictions on developers and they had a very long pause followed by a very careful answer. They wouldn’t restrict developers to sell on steam but they didn’t say whether there were other restrictions either. If there was nothing getting in the way they would have been perfectly straightforward. It is a common practice today unfortunately, to tell the straight truth but with lot of it hidden.

[IanP]

Unfortunately, for developers interested in FSW as a platform, one of the major issues was with the licensing rules. Unless a license was held for a particular brand, an add-on of that subject could not be supported. That made the whole thing too limiting and just too hard.

Yes. That's DTG policy for things distributed by DTG - they and the add-on author have to be licensed to use imagery and names.

The same does not apply if, like JustFlight/JustTrains for instance, you don't sell through DTG/Steam - then it's your decision what licenses you get and your head on the block of you don't get them. One of the most popular TS third party developers, Armstrong Powerhouse, got a very snotty letter from Virgin Trains a while ago, which forced him to stop selling products with their branding on it - he evidently hadn't licensed it. Other developers have sorted out their own licensing and are happily selling properly branded products through their own sites, with no DTG involvement at all.

The FSW team said that they were going to be using the same terms that the TS team used, so the same would apply there. It's this whole "Official" versus "Unofficial" add-on thing, still.

I do agree entirely that they clearly hadn't fully thought through what they were getting into with the flight sim hobby/industry. They might have had a roadmap, but they didn't communicate it clearly, they had an utterly pointless "early access" period, where the product barely changed from a consumer viewpoint from it entering and exiting the EA period, plus they knew exactly what had happened with Flight and yet they did almost exactly the same thing again. You cannot enter a marketplace that contains a number of fully-featured incumbents and expect to get away with an unfinished product. Again, I also agree that they should have started small and marketed differently - like the bush flying sim currently in development is doing - if they weren't going to put in what is considered "core" content (particularly jet powered flight) at the time of launch.

XP11 and AeroflyFS2 should, realistically, be what we as a community are now pushing to become what we want. Both have most of it already and add-ons that provide the rest, but both could be improved upon as core products. Unfortunately, because so many people choose to misinterpret or blatantly ignore the P3D licensing, they have invested heavily in "what they know" and now want that to become the default sim, even though L-M have no interest at all in supporting them and could cancel pretty much all of the licenses that people hold with a broad stroke. It wouldn't put a tiny scratch in their balance books to lose the consumer market that they specifically state the sim is not to be used in.

Ian P.

[IanP]

@Naruto_kun Yes and no. Yes, it was and still is sour grapes. Robert Randazzo demanded effectively partnership rights, with open access to the DTG development team, but nothing in return for DTG other than the PMDG developing for the platform. You are, though, entirely correct that the cageyness and lack of communication was one of the major problems. We really had to push and push and push to get them to admit that they were going to use the same arrangements as TS has regarding add-ons. How many months and repeatedly asked questions did it take to get them to say "yes we will support freeware".

That said, I don't think it was malicious as such. Yes, part of it was because they release their own content - which neither L-M nor Laminar research do - and therefore they do want to push developers to publish through them. That I think is one of their biggest mistakes, because if you create an open platform, but then pretend that nothing that isn't published by you specifically doesn't exist, then you create the kind of hate that DTG get. It's their own stupid fault, in that instance. Also, I still say that they hadn't got the slightest clue what they were getting into. I don't think they had the answers to most of the questions people were asking them. They're also exceptionally closed and cagey when it comes to future development. They say that it's because they've got burned in the past when they have announced content and then, for whatever reason, it hasn't been able to be released.

In my opinion, again, I think L-M and Laminar have got it right. Release and support only the core package and allow 3rd parties to build on that. Because DTG are trying to both be the core package developer and sell content for it, they're creating a massive rod for their own back. If they admit that other paths are available, which are inevitably going to be more lucrative for add-on developers, then why should those 3rd parties publish through DTG? They're stuck between the rock of needing to push people to release "official" content and the hard-place that people think that only "official" content exists and therefore DTG are just trying to steal all your money because, obviously, you have to buy all the add-ons available, don't you?

Ian P.

[Mach3DS]

@IanP, out of curiosity, since there's a great many developers here at SOH, who/what products are you the developer for?

Also I agree with most of what you've said, but I have to respectfully disagree on one point. P3D would be the logical replacement for FSX users since most advanced FSX addons have been converted to 64 bit at this point and/or are in development by most developers. Such as A2A converting all their lineup to P3D. Also many developers have already stated that they are moving to P3D only.

LM is essentially ACES all over by again. Most guys went there from MS. I don't see any situation in which they would would wipe out the developers ability to produce content.

[falcon409]

. . . . . .Also I agree with most of what you've said, but I have to respectfully disagree on one point. P3D would be the logical replacement for FSX users since most advanced FSX addons have been converted to 64 bit at this point and/or are in development by most developers. Such as A2A converting all their lineup to P3D. Also many developers have already stated that they are moving to P3D only.

LM is essentially ACES all over by again. Most guys went there from MS. I don't see any situation in which they would would wipe out the developers ability to produce content.
Two points from someone on the outside who has "blatantly ignored the P3D Licensing", (although in my defense I do use it for training purposes) P3D would be the logical choice to replace FSX were it not for the licensing restrictions already mentioned. That makes any thought of P3D ever being an "Official" replacement a mute point. . .won't happen.

Also, developers, especially those who are producing GA aircraft, would still have the ability to produce systems heavy versions geared specifically to Flight Schools with much higher price tags and probably not lose any sleep over loss of revenue from those of us who are using the Sim for Entertainment purposes and don't want or need something that detailed. JMHO

[Mach3DS]

I don't understand why the argument as to why we are no longer able to use P3D all of a sudden? What is happening to cause the users that are using it now to be required to stop using using it? Are you guys saying that LM will just in a while decide to make all licenses"professional"? For what purpose? They already have set their licensing. And have it approved under contract from MS as valid. There's literally no reason for them to change it. Especially if they don't"need" our revenue, then there's really no need at all to change from what they have now. At any rate. I see just the opposite. LM has been making huge strides to increase the features and improve the development for developers. I don't see that as a step toward alienating single users.

[Ganter]

I don't understand why the argument as to why we are no longer able to use P3D all of a sudden? What is happening to cause the users that are using it now to be required to stop using using it? Are you guys saying that LM will just in a while decide to make all licenses"professional"? For what purpose? They already have set their licensing. And have it approved under contract from MS as valid. There's literally no reason for them to change it. Especially if they don't"need" our revenue, then there's really no need at all to change from what they have now. At any rate. I see just the opposite. LM has been making huge strides to increase the features and improve the development for developers. I don't see that as a step toward alienating single users.


Good points Rick. I also believe LM have the elephant in the room that is the fact they know perfectly well what P3D is used for by some of its customers from USN down - they have pitched the licences perfectly as they are.

[falcon409]

I don't understand why the argument as to why we are no longer able to use P3D all of a sudden? What is happening to cause the users that are using it now to be required to stop using using it? Are you guys saying that LM will just in a while decide to make all licenses"professional"? For what purpose? They already have set their licensing. And have it approved under contract from MS as valid. There's literally no reason for them to change it. Especially if they don't"need" our revenue, then there's really no need at all to change from what they have now. At any rate. I see just the opposite. LM has been making huge strides to increase the features and improve the development for developers. I don't see that as a step toward alienating single users.
I will only make this observation, it appears from your post that you are unaware of the licensing restrictions for P3D and everything that surrounds that as it pertains to our use of that program. Early on in the P3D Forum it was stated that no discussions would take place concerning the P3D EULA in that Forum. We have stuck to that and it probably shouldn't be discussed here either.

[Ganter]

I will only make this observation, it appears from your post that you are unaware of the licensing restrictions for P3D and everything that surrounds that as it pertains to our use of that program. Early on in the P3D Forum it was stated that no discussions would take place concerning the P3D EULA in that Forum. We have stuck to that and it probably shouldn't be discussed here either.

Thanks Falcon. Noted.

[falcon409]

people are ignoring the licensing issue because LM is ignoring the licensing issue, they say what the contact says they have to say and that’s it, the don’t do anything to verify the terms are being followed and have never gone after anyone for violating it, they don’t even check that ppl getting the academic version are actually students. I think we can put that issue to rest
Oh, I agree completely, but it was brought up and I decided to elaborate in my previous post. Rick asked questions that made it appear (to me at least) that he was unaware of the EULA and it's obvious restrictions so I elaborated. . .again. I agree though, it's out there, it's being done on a daily basis, get over it and move on.

[Mach3DS]

I'm fully aware of all their licenses. Me mentioning that LM has licenses is not the same thing as asserting what each represents or which one applies to an individual circumstance. That's clearly NOT what is being said in my post. It's no secret that LM has 3 options, Professional Plus, Professional and Academic. Yup I mentioned them again, by name this time (Voldemort!) I was asking if the reasoning behind the arguments, is that you guys think that at some point they will abandon the Academic and stick with only the remaining (and factually more expensive options)? This in no way is a discussion of what option is best suited for whom. It's a clarification of the process in which the argument is based. That is all. I don't want to break any forum rules, and I don't think any have been...I agree, we can move on....I think it's a moot point anyway. I think we're actually all on the same page.

[zswobbie1]

Please guys, this discussion is not about P3D & it's licensing! Get over it & please move on, back to the real topic.:banghead:

[IanP]

000rick000: I've been involved in the FS community since FS4 and Compuserve FS Forum, during which time I have worked with, tested for, advised and done background work for a large number of developers, including a number who post here. I've not exactly been quiet over the past 25-odd years of involvement in this hobby and industry, including making my fair share of enemies and friends amongst commercial developers. I've reviewed FS products for Avsim, I was one of the editorial team at simFlight until health forced me to step down. For the past ten years or so I have produced freeware sceneries - something I started doing as far back as FS5, with the UKDT team, but it's mainly been for organisations I've been involved with, such as VAs or bush flying groups. I've never bothered Googling myself because I'm not that self-centred, so have no idea how easy it is to find mention of me, but I'm in a dozen or so commercial product manuals, have published around 100 reviews and have run or helped run a large number of websites throughout the hobby. I have been around a lot in the background, just not usually standing up and shouting about it, unless I get wound up about something. I've also been called all sorts of rude and derogatory names by people who disagree with me, so if anyone thinks they can come up with new combinations, feel free... No rewards for coming up with them, unfortunately, except maybe a congratulatory emoticon. Sorry! :)

A number of people I know, including a few I count as friends, have been involved with DTG FSW, either as part of the DTG team or with 3rd party developers. I met Aimee, for example, when she worked at Flight1. I've communicated with Dan Dunn on and off for donkey's years and finally got to meet him at last on the DTG stand at the JF/F1 Cosford flight sim show last year. While I am no longer involved in any commercial activities, on a personal level, I was constantly hassling members of the DTG team for answers to questions both because I wanted to get my own developed (yes, it's pretty low quality but it exists) freeware into FSW and because I personally wanted DTG to actually produce a viable sim. I'm also - just full disclosure, as it's irrelevant to this thread - a moderator on Matt Peddlesden's* personal Twitch stream and, as a result of that, got co-opted as a moderator on DTG's official Twitch stream. I don't envy anyone that job - the sheer hate that DTG generates, usually based on evident fallacies and partial information**, is incredible! When people on a FSW stream chat asked why I had a sword when I wasn't a DTG employee, Cryss's response was that my sword was forged in the fires of hell and that no mere human could take it off me, which was quite amusing. I guess it's up to the TS team to decide whether they're more than mere humans now, although I was invited told that I was free to wield the sword as necessary on the last TSW stream, too. I only swung it once, to give someone posting obscenities 10 minutes on the naughty step.

Doug actually offered me a job with DTG at one point, which I declined. I'm glad I did, given what has transpired since then. While I still have a huge amount of time for DTG's staff, my opinion of their senior management has taken a lot of dents recently, for a variety of reasons.

I've had my say on PMDG's statement anyway and have nothing more to add on that. The evidence that supports what I've said is all public domain, although as I said before, some of it has only been in the public domain since October/November last year. In fairness to PMDG, they had already decided to look no further into working with DTG, so may not have known that. In reality, they have enough contacts in the FS world who are aware of what DTG are announcing, that I very much doubt they were unaware of the answers that a lot of people - including me - worked for so long to extract, yet they still rolled out the same - already privately and now publicly - proven untruths to gloat about the failure of the product. That makes me angry, both because it's childish and unprofessional, but also because their previous statements have been widely used as reasons not to support DTG's efforts in any way. "Robert Randazzo said it, so it must be true" - even though he never actually said a lot of the things that have been attributed to him.

I think most of us agree that DTG engineered their own product's downfall by not learning from the mistakes of others and not listening to advice. My only contact with anyone in the FSW team since the announcement has been via social media to a friend, asking if they're OK (I haven't received a response yet).

I'm going to be quiet on this thread now unless summoned, because I think I've said everything I want to and I'm more than aware that I'm typing way too much.

Ian P.

* - The Senior Developer for Train Sim World.
** - Pretty much entirely DTG management's own fault!

[Mach3DS]

Very Good! It's just nice to try and place people with a face of some kind since there's no human interactions here. It's sometimes easy to forget that we're all real humans that if we met in person we'd likely treat with more respect that is sometimes shown in forums. I appreciate getting to know you better! It helps me understand context in what is usually a very poor form of linear communication (forum threads). All the best,

[n4gix]

Not to defend Robert's position, but DTG themselves were very ambiguous with their initial statements regarding 3rd-party participation. That history is still preserved at AVSIM in their forum postings. Their original statements did in fact imply that all sales would have to be made via the Steam platform. My own initial contacts corroborate this position as I was being told that ~60% of the sales price would be divided up between Steam and DTG, with the remaining ~40% being remitted to our company on a quarterly basis.

It was only about nine months later that this position was softened when DTG began insisting that there was no requirement that 3rd party sales had to be exclusively available via the Steam channel, but could also be sold via the developer's existing sales channels. That was a significant change in policy, but still not good enough in my considered opinion.

About seven months later, their position changed yet again with the requirement for the Steam portal being abandoned, and it was now apparently okay for anyone to sell for the FSW platform through their own existing outlets. At this juncture I'd not yet seen the numbers of active users DTG had forecast, so I pretty much lost immediate interest in developing, especially so since the (partial) SDK had yet to be released. It was pretty much impossible to develop for FSW without the tools, so I adopted a wait and see attitude.

Nonetheless, I did experiment with trying to get our C310R Redux Edition into FSW with limited success absent the SDK, but was not terribly impressed. I am hugely disappointed at the apparent failure of the management of DTG, and in no way cast any blame whatever on the passionate and dedicated development team they'd assembled. I do hope that they all find gainful employment elsewhere soon, especially where their talents are better appreciated!

[Bjoern]

Waiting for a clearing sale.

[blanston12]

I think all those that say LM does not need the revenue from simmers are missing the point as to why LM makes P3D available to the public in the first place, they need the community of third party developers creating add-ons aircraft, scenery, weather, etc to flush out there simulators, those third party developers would not be so eager to do that if they only place they can see there add-ons in on an official lockheed simulator. If the community migrates away from the FSX/P3D environment to something else they are in big trouble because now they have to do all those extra pieces themselves.

LM does have a marketing problem in that 'not for entertainment purposes' clause what will cause many ppl to not buy it (as you can tell from some of the comments in this thread). The end of FSW may give them an opportunity to renegotiate their contract with microsoft and or DTG so they can drop that pesky clause, relabel 'Academic' to 'Personal' and secure the future of there franchise.

[Naruto-kun]

I would also like to clarify my earlier post about the long silence and very careful answers given by DTG team members at FSCon. I hope no one took it as coloring Stephen and Aimee's characters, but rather focusing on the tight situation they were in, knowing that if they said everything the project would have died right there and then, yet unable to make statements that would have put everyone at ease without getting nailed by the senior management.

[DennyA]

I didn't realize that FSW allowed freeware or development outside their store environment. (Probably because I never saw any FSW freeware.) I've bought a stupid amount of payware add-on products for just about every sim out there, but it's taking cool freeware planes for test flights that keeps me engaged. I own FSW, but only have about four hours in it right now due to limited available content and no VR support.

Licensing aside, LM as a business will never prioritize a consumer product. It's outside their core business, and when they're making $109 million-plus on each F-35, simulation software is going to remain a niche no matter how successful their platform becomes.

What I think would be cool is if someone bought the consumer license DTG holds and does a deal with LM to a consumer-focused sim based on P3D. For that licensee, the consumer market would be a primary focus, and LM and the licensee would both benefit. But I'm just brainstorming here -- don't know of anyone who would do that.

And despite my history with flight sims -- started on FS2 on the Commodore 64, was CGW's flight sim columnist in the 90s, etc -- I'd have to think twice about entering a market where the potential customers can react with the hostility and emotion that DTG saw.

[StormILM]

Regarding the P3D licensing, the line between "Entertainment" & "Learning" purposes is very fine. You're not required to be a licensed pilot nor actually plan to become a pilot to purchase the Professional license option. If you're using the program for your own purposes (training/learning), you're good to go, no one is going to question the fine details that usage. LM is very aware that there has been a cross-over segment of users from this side of the fence into a more true and focused definition of Flight Simulation vs a Gaming aspect of the overall platform. Many of the users of FSX and P3D are individuals who come from some form of Aviation background or are people who are interested in learning more about the various and vast aspects of Aviation. That fits well within the end user scope of P3D far away from violating it's intended use. LM is also very aware that the developers from this circle are absolutely vital to the long term success of their platform and drawing in more users which will ultimately grow the platform. Let us be honest here, most people who're looking for a arcade flight simulation aren't going to spend the serious money for P3D and it's addons. This realm of ours hasn't been am entertainment game now for a number of years. It's become a very effective learning tool.

[fsafranek]

Waiting for a clearing sale.
They just finished up two sales back to back.
The results may have just confirmed what they had already decided.

Not a lot of DLC for it at this point anyway.
:ernaehrung004:

[Ganter]

I didn't realize that FSW allowed freeware or development outside their store environment. (Probably because I never saw any FSW freeware.) I've bought a stupid amount of payware add-on products for just about every sim out there, but it's taking cool freeware planes for test flights that keeps me engaged. I own FSW, but only have about four hours in it right now due to limited available content and no VR support.

Licensing aside, LM as a business will never prioritize a consumer product. It's outside their core business, and when they're making $109 million-plus on each F-35, simulation software is going to remain a niche no matter how successful their platform becomes.

What I think would be cool is if someone bought the consumer license DTG holds and does a deal with LM to a consumer-focused sim based on P3D. For that licensee, the consumer market would be a primary focus, and LM and the licensee would both benefit. But I'm just brainstorming here -- don't know of anyone who would do that.

And despite my history with flight sims -- started on FS2 on the Commodore 64, was CGW's flight sim columnist in the 90s, etc -- I'd have to think twice about entering a market where the potential customers can react with the hostility and emotion that DTG saw.


Yes, but what would be the point?

DTG have just aptly demonstrated that the core ESP really, quite honestly, has no future. LM have it stitched up - whatever you want to call the license levels.

Come on chaps - let us not descend into some Avsim to'oing and thro'ing; that's why we're in the Out House; we don't buy into that sh1t.

Peace.

[stearmandriver]

Directly from LM's page on the "professional" licensing option :

"The license is available to those that are training, instructing, simulating, or learning."

It's a pretty hard sell to argue that anyone using a sim of this caliber isn't "learning", even in spite of themselves. Thus, I don't understand the argument that personal users are somehow running afoul of their EULA?

... Says the guy still on FSX, so what do I know? ;-) (It does seem pretty clear though...)

[Stefano Zibell]

And we're back to the usual discussion about p3d licenses.

[blanston12]

I agree, let that be the last comment on what the P3D license allows and lets get back to the original topic.

[awstub]

True LM wouldn't make a consumer product a priority, but if they can make more revenue from work they have already done, simply by negotiating a new license, you can bet that they would go for expanding it to the "entertainment" market. It's all about the $$$ and the second it becomes a revenue burden they can sell it off or simply drop it from their licensing options.



I didn't realize that FSW allowed freeware or development outside their store environment. (Probably because I never saw any FSW freeware.) I've bought a stupid amount of payware add-on products for just about every sim out there, but it's taking cool freeware planes for test flights that keeps me engaged. I own FSW, but only have about four hours in it right now due to limited available content and no VR support.

Licensing aside, LM as a business will never prioritize a consumer product. It's outside their core business, and when they're making $109 million-plus on each F-35, simulation software is going to remain a niche no matter how successful their platform becomes.

What I think would be cool is if someone bought the consumer license DTG holds and does a deal with LM to a consumer-focused sim based on P3D. For that licensee, the consumer market would be a primary focus, and LM and the licensee would both benefit. But I'm just brainstorming here -- don't know of anyone who would do that.

And despite my history with flight sims -- started on FS2 on the Commodore 64, was CGW's flight sim columnist in the 90s, etc -- I'd have to think twice about entering a market where the potential customers can react with the hostility and emotion that DTG saw.

[Desert Rat]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there wasn't a business deal somewhere at the back of all this. I'm not talking about lack of revenue making the suits at DTG pull the plug on the unsuspecting FSW dev team. More that there is a deal on the table somewhere regarding said recreational license. Say, for pure speculative example, that LM wanted to get hold of FSW features they didn't have, Truesky, PBR, updated airport data, career mode, etc. I wouldn't be surprised. Money talks. LM already has a license for ESP development, all I'm saying.

I only hope we as the community and the FSW dev team come out as winners in the end.

[Mach3DS]

Who knows what LM will do... My gut feeling is that I believe it's doubtful they will get the entertainment option. Their revenue stream is alternative. They needed to fill a training gap and didn't want to create it from scratch. The USAF had been Fielding "off the shelf" Solution proposals for a while now and I believe this fits right into that low risk low cost solution, where you don't have too start from scratch to build a tool that will help USAF, it's partners LM, and any number of civilian training needs via a high Fidelity simulation platform. Plus, let's be honest here, they know as well as the rest of us that it's just Symantecs, they offer something on par to the entertainment package already. There's no need to go that route. This let's then be as flexible as possible and do basically whatever they want with zero expectation of getting sales based on increasing consumer demand. If you think about it for a second it's actually FAR and AWAY better for us as users that it remains as is. Because the developers are basically the original FSX guys. They're getting to make the sim what they wanted FSX to be and more. Motivation is not based on needing to fill a quota. I'm not native enough to know they don't also have internal business goals and objectives. However there are likely Enterprise in nature.

I hope they do have something...I would love for them to incorporate TrueSky and PBR. However P3D had already Incorporated new terrain modeling with bumps and specukar mapping. As well as heat mapping.

[blanston12]

I suspect that DTG is up to something. They probably had targets they needed to meet to satisfy the contract with MS in terms of selling/developing for a certain period of time and once satisfied, they were done.

While the revenue may not compare to a F-35, it would not be insignificant to the manager of the team that runs the simulation division. According to SteamSpy FSX-SE has sold 1,000,000-2,000,000 users and FSW has 50,000 to 100,000 users. So if they could match the low end of FSX-SE did and sold copies for the same prices as the academic version your talking about $60m, thats not insignificant.

[BendyFlyer]

I actually find this an interesting discussion. On one level some contributors have put a 'face' or that little bit of detail about product development and the ebbs and flows of this sector of the computer software industry, flight simulation and/or generically what is called gaming. Gaming as we know is a very active and profitable business but very faddish and fickle. I have followed both sides over the years ever since I first started seriously learning about and using computers as they first began and have now become. Many of us share similar journeys. Shows that a lot of us are also getting older.

Here is some more points that I think are worth considering as to why DTG failed. I am not really interested in the personalities or the obscure chicanery of licensing rights etc of DTG or LM or commenting about it.

I do not develop or make flight simulator products but I have the highest regard for those that do and my only observation is this as far as flight simulation is concerned it morphed from a originally being a way or the means to solve and develop the problem of 3-dimensional pixel management and graphics display on a 2 dimensional television screen. The area of flight was an obviously clever means of doing this because flight takes place in a 3 dimensional realm with lots of multiple vector equations to be solved. The second major issue and they ran side by side was graphical display moving from monochrome to colour then from code line interface to GUI style interfaces. As we all know at the heart of this was the critical issue of operating systems (O/S) for actually managing what the hardware did in response to what the program was coded to do. There was substantial effort and money put into O/S development by a lot of companies and for a while a multiplicity of systems (there still are but that is another story) but to make it work you needed unit sales, the right O/S the right equipment (micro-computers) and some savy marketing and voila Microsoft. MS used flight simulation as a computing problem solving tool and as a marketing tool. The same way they put those little games like solitaire etc as part of the O/S bundle. While sales of all the above held up they achieved a level of market dominance which made MSFS the dominant sim (There were quite a few others about in the late 80's and 90's but they were gaming orientated. As the market grew it also started to mature until it was overtaken by new technology the microcomputer with a flat screen and telephone with digital data connections and www connectivity the size of bar of chocolate or smaller, voila the I-Phone and or Android. That has been a major game changer for lots of folks it brought an end or seriously damaged a number of businesses who had invested heavily into older style telephones, tower computer systems etc. HP, Nokia, Motorola are good examples. MS conquered the business market via Windows and then Networked Windows systems and also were savvy enough to make them work with via communication protocols to heavy hitting systems that required different software and O/S such as produced by IBM and Sun etc. If you run a bank or similar high volume transaction business MS Windows won't do the heavy lifting it is just a pretty interface. Apple was always a niche player until they came up with the IPhone but they had the graphical entertainment industry sector cornered and it was large enough for them to build on those Apple systems and O/S. All I am trying to do is put a perspective on where we are and suggest that DTG is not the first to hit the wall in this sort of computing and electronic environment.

Perhaps more specifically lets us look at Flight Simulation. I am a retired military-civilian pilot, a QFI, a C&T captain, low level, aerobatics etc. I have done a lot of operational flying over my life but I was also a training specialist a teacher if you like. I liked it and still do and that is why I was asked to come out of retirement and do some more for a major international aerospace company that does hardware, software and other stuff for the military all over the world. I have been involved in FS from day one, I could see the potential once the hardware and software progressed and caught up. For example early full motion simulators were hideously complex mechanical electrical simulators but the computing power behind them was actually less than any desktop computer I had at home or the office. The role of a FS styled system for flight training and education was obvious the tools or the equipment though seriously lagged behind what was needed. MSFS has actually been used quite extensively but only as training aid or if you like a procedural tool and reasons were simple, immersion and fidelity. You could use it as a teaching tool but not for serious flight training, that has/had to be done in an aeroplane or for the big stuff in a full motion simulator. That is why LM have P3D not for consumers but for flight training, military and civilian and let us not of course forget the rise of UAV's driven by somebody at a PC nowhere near the UAV itself.

For me MSFS has been a hobby, a past time and very enjoyable but it's standout characteristics were the passion and skills of thousands of like minded people all over the world, taking the time to do aircraft designs, painting, scenery etc. That community is a very rich and valuable resource and lots of people have been good enough to spin it into a business others have preferred to remain committed amateurs. DTG simply failed to see the bigger picture and I think had a gamer-development mentality to the product they had and failed to understand the passion and commitment of people like all of us at SOH and elsewhere who enjoy it, appreciate the hard work of those doing it because they have a passion for aviation and its history in all its facets.

Sure FS will continue and so will some competition but the market is now in what economists call a tertiary phase, the days of exponential growth are over. In this environment, reliability and meeting specific customer demands will keep you afloat, albeit there will be some products that bomb occasionally but that is the way it is. Trying to herd your customers into a particular shute wont do it for you. after all why would I get locked into a license buy system that does not let me fiddle and modify things to either improve them or add value to them? More importantly -Why would I want to support a business that effectively locks out the wonderful work and obvious talent as demonstrated by work of you folk here at SOH? I am not buying that, what we have is too precious. And I would not buy a product that does not do anything better than what I have on the promise that it might. Simple.

[Mach3DS]

I actually find this an interesting discussion. On one level some contributors have put a 'face' or that little bit of detail about product development and the ebbs and flows of this sector of the computer software industry, flight simulation and/or generically what is called gaming. Gaming as we know is a very active and profitable business but very faddish and fickle. I have followed both sides over the years ever since I first started seriously learning about and using computers as they first began and have now become. Many of us share similar journeys. Shows that a lot of us are also getting older.

Here is some more points that I think are worth considering as to why DTG failed. I am not really interested in the personalities or the obscure chicanery of licensing rights etc of DTG or LM or commenting about it.

I do not develop or make flight simulator products but I have the highest regard for those that do and my only observation is this as far as flight simulation is concerned it morphed from a originally being a way or the means to solve and develop the problem of 3-dimensional pixel management and graphics display on a 2 dimensional television screen. The area of flight was an obviously clever means of doing this because flight takes place in a 3 dimensional realm with lots of multiple vector equations to be solved. The second major issue and they ran side by side was graphical display moving from monochrome to colour then from code line interface to GUI style interfaces. As we all know at the heart of this was the critical issue of operating systems (O/S) for actually managing what the hardware did in response to what the program was coded to do. There was substantial effort and money put into O/S development by a lot of companies and for a while a multiplicity of systems (there still are but that is another story) but to make it work you needed unit sales, the right O/S the right equipment (micro-computers) and some savy marketing and voila Microsoft. MS used flight simulation as a computing problem solving tool and as a marketing tool. The same way they put those little games like solitaire etc as part of the O/S bundle. While sales of all the above held up they achieved a level of market dominance which made MSFS the dominant sim (There were quite a few others about in the late 80's and 90's but they were gaming orientated. As the market grew it also started to mature until it was overtaken by new technology the microcomputer with a flat screen and telephone with digital data connections and www connectivity the size of bar of chocolate or smaller, voila the I-Phone and or Android. That has been a major game changer for lots of folks it brought an end or seriously damaged a number of businesses who had invested heavily into older style telephones, tower computer systems etc. HP, Nokia, Motorola are good examples. MS conquered the business market via Windows and then Networked Windows systems and also were savvy enough to make them work with via communication protocols to heavy hitting systems that required different software and O/S such as produced by IBM and Sun etc. If you run a bank or similar high volume transaction business MS Windows won't do the heavy lifting it is just a pretty interface. Apple was always a niche player until they came up with the IPhone but they had the graphical entertainment industry sector cornered and it was large enough for them to build on those Apple systems and O/S. All I am trying to do is put a perspective on where we are and suggest that DTG is not the first to hit the wall in this sort of computing and electronic environment.

Perhaps more specifically lets us look at Flight Simulation. I am a retired military-civilian pilot, a QFI, a C&T captain, low level, aerobatics etc. I have done a lot of operational flying over my life but I was also a training specialist a teacher if you like. I liked it and still do and that is why I was asked to come out of retirement and do some more for a major international aerospace company that does hardware, software and other stuff for the military all over the world. I have been involved in FS from day one, I could see the potential once the hardware and software progressed and caught up. For example early full motion simulators were hideously complex mechanical electrical simulators but the computing power behind them was actually less than any desktop computer I had at home or the office. The role of a FS styled system for flight training and education was obvious the tools or the equipment though seriously lagged behind what was needed. MSFS has actually been used quite extensively but only as training aid or if you like a procedural tool and reasons were simple, immersion and fidelity. You could use it as a teaching tool but not for serious flight training, that has/had to be done in an aeroplane or for the big stuff in a full motion simulator. That is why LM have P3D not for consumers but for flight training, military and civilian and let us not of course forget the rise of UAV's driven by somebody at a PC nowhere near the UAV itself.

For me MSFS has been a hobby, a past time and very enjoyable but it's standout characteristics were the passion and skills of thousands of like minded people all over the world, taking the time to do aircraft designs, painting, scenery etc. That community is a very rich and valuable resource and lots of people have been good enough to spin it into a business others have preferred to remain committed amateurs. DTG simply failed to see the bigger picture and I think had a gamer-development mentality to the product they had and failed to understand the passion and commitment of people like all of us at SOH and elsewhere who enjoy it, appreciate the hard work of those doing it because they have a passion for aviation and its history in all its facets.

Sure FS will continue and so will some competition but the market is now in what economists call a tertiary phase, the days of exponential growth are over. In this environment, reliability and meeting specific customer demands will keep you afloat, albeit there will be some products that bomb occasionally but that is the way it is. Trying to herd your customers into a particular shute wont do it for you. after all why would I get locked into a license buy system that does not let me fiddle and modify things to either improve them or add value to them? More importantly -Why would I want to support a business that effectively locks out the wonderful work and obvious talent as demonstrated by work of you folk here at SOH? I am not buying that, what we have is too precious. And I would not buy a product that does not do anything better than what I have on the promise that it might. Simple.

Where's the flippin "Like" button!!!????

[heywooood]

Trying to herd your customers into a particular shute wont do it for you. after all why would I get locked into a license buy system that does not let me fiddle and modify things to either improve them or add value to them? More importantly -Why would I want to support a business that effectively locks out the wonderful work and obvious talent as demonstrated by work of you folk here at SOH? I am not buying that, what we have is too precious. And I would not buy a product that does not do anything better than what I have on the promise that it might. Simple.

this is the perfect summation - MSFSX/Aces actually got almost everything right...considering the age of the software and the scope of their project as they envisioned it. But the key to this genre more than any other is the open participation and contributions of the community. the community has enhanced everything in the sim from scenery, to weather, to aircraft..everything inside the box was taken from placeholder to first rate, indispensable component by the community of free and payware developers / fans of this simulator. In the case of FSX and now P3D it is the open ended community that have made FSX - P3D what they are today. There is NO OTHER WAY to do this folks. If anyone is thinking of developing a new flight simulator learn this lesson and be successful - or don't - and fold in six months or less.
Let the flight simming community participate with as little restriction or interference as possible. Passion drives this thing - Passion and talent. Thanks to ACES for really creating an almost perfect skeleton of what is now and still the best flight sim money can buy, and thanks to all who develop addons for FSX P3D - you have fleshed it out and made it fly

[zswobbie1]

Quite right.. A tip of the hat to Aces for giving us the basic sim engine onto which the developers has built on.
Have a quick look at FlightGear... this has been totally developed by the community & is actually quite good. (& free)

[Bjoern]

They just finished up two sales back to back.
The results may have just confirmed what they had already decided.

Not a lot of DLC for it at this point anyway.
:ernaehrung004:

Was talking more about a "5$/€, grab it while it's still here" sale, not a "-33%" one.

[bazzar]

I see Chevrolet are closing their doors. So all their existing stock should be free or in a flash $5 sale. Yeah, that makes sense.:engel016:

[fsafranek]

Its not like there is a warehouse of CD's to be cleared out. It's a clump of ones and zeros on a server.
Make a sale, send a copy. The available quantity doesn't change one byte.

All of a sudden folks who didn't support it before want to get a copy of everything on the cheap. Too little too late folks.

Instead of hoping to gain from this you should be thinking about all the employees who probably came
to a weekly company status meeting and learned that their source of income was shutting down in 30 days.

[Bjoern]

I see Chevrolet are closing their doors. So all their existing stock should be free or in a flash $5 sale. Yeah, that makes sense.:engel016:

Sale - $5 from me.
No sale - $0 from me.

The car-based example doesn't work. If retailers are clearing their stocks for the new model or due to the end of production, there is usually quite a bit of rebate passed on to the customer.
Same for clothing. End of season means low prices before it gets shipped back to the warehouse until the next year.
Heck, even food that's about to expire is thrown out at lower price!




Its not like there is a warehouse of CD's to be cleared out. It's a clump of ones and zeros on a server.
Make a sale, send a copy. The available quantity doesn't change one byte.

All of a sudden folks who didn't support it before want to get a copy of everything on the cheap. Too little too late folks.

Instead of hoping to gain from this you should be thinking about all the employees who probably came to a weekly company status meeting and learned that their source of income was shutting down in 30 days.

I don't think it was a "sudden death" since all companies have regular performance and status reviews.
And I'm pretty sure the devs will get on their feet again. It's not that the entertainment industry is choking on an excess of manpower.

[Alan_A]

I don't think it was a "sudden death" since all companies have regular performance and status reviews.


Yeah, you'd be surprised. At various times I've been asked to blindside staff - and in good karmic fashion, I've been blindsided myself. It's one thing to have the sense that sales aren't running as expected. It's another to be called into a room, told your whole unit is being let go, and then you're given an hour to pack your stuff while the security guards watch you - all without warning. The decision often happens in some other part of the business, and it catches everybody completely off-guard. Sometimes the higher-ups haven't made up their minds 'til the last minute (and I've been part of that dynamic, too, poring over spreadsheets and trying to save at least some of your people while they keep changing the parameters on you). Sometimes they've made the decision well in advance and decided to keep it to themselves. And sometimes something changes suddenly in the business, and it's a bad shock for everyone. In any case, it's usually an ugly scene. I truly hope the team lands well - but in a world where businesses don't like to carry full-time employees with their attendant costs, it's by no means guaranteed. Wishing all of them the best.

[bazzar]

Why is it that when a business fails for whatever the reason, people feel they have an entitlement to expect free or discounted product as a result of that failure. Whatever happened is done and is between the principals of that business and their employees and shareholders. It really is nobody else's business.

Why it happened is also of no import to anyone except creditors and staff. What is the average most people are "down"? $20? you can still play the game, for those that have not yet got the game, you missed the boat. Tough.

We are saying that the true value of the thing should be a few dollars? How does that help or reward all the hard-working people who worked on it? How does that show them any respect?

The fact is that, unfortunately for those involved, it has happened and for all but those unfortunates it is time to move on. Get over it.

[Bjoern]

Yeah, you'd be surprised. At various times I've been asked to blindside staff - and in good karmic fashion, I've been blindsided myself. It's one thing to have the sense that sales aren't running as expected. It's another to be called into a room, told your whole unit is being let go, and then you're given an hour to pack your stuff while the security guards watch you - all without warning. The decision often happens in some other part of the business, and it catches everybody completely off-guard. Sometimes the higher-ups haven't made up their minds 'til the last minute (and I've been part of that dynamic, too, poring over spreadsheets and trying to save at least some of your people while they keep changing the parameters on you). Sometimes they've made the decision well in advance and decided to keep it to themselves. And sometimes something changes suddenly in the business, and it's a bad shock for everyone. In any case, it's usually an ugly scene. I truly hope the team lands well - but in a world where businesses don't like to carry full-time employees with their attendant costs, it's by no means guaranteed. Wishing all of them the best.

Things do seem to be tougher in other parts of the world, but I assume that workers in the UK do enjoy some rudimentary legal protections against all too sudden job termination.




Why is it that when a business fails for whatever the reason, people feel they have an entitlement to expect free or discounted product as a result of that failure. Whatever happened is done and is between the principals of that business and their employees and shareholders. It really is nobody else's business.

Why it happened is also of no import to anyone except creditors and staff. What is the average most people are "down"? $20? you can still play the game, for those that have not yet got the game, you missed the boat. Tough.

We are saying that the true value of the thing should be a few dollars? How does that help or reward all the hard-working people who worked on it? How does that show them any respect?

The fact is that, unfortunately for those involved, it has happened and for all but those unfortunates it is time to move on. Get over it.

Don't worry, I won't lose any sleep over it.

[Alan_A]

Things do seem to be tougher in other parts of the world, but I assume that workers in the UK do enjoy some rudimentary legal protections against all too sudden job termination.

Fair enough. My experiences, as you can probably tell, were with publicly held companies in the U.S. I spent many years in that environment and don't miss it. I have a nice cardiac stent as a souvenir. I hope things are a little better for workers in the UK.

[fsafranek]

I don't think it was a "sudden death" since all companies have regular performance and status reviews.
The employees were told one hour before it went public.
:ernaehrung004:

[Naismith]

I see Chevrolet are closing their doors.

Not so amusing today considering what Ford just announced. :pop4:

[wombat666]

Not so amusing today considering what Ford just announced. :pop4:

Not to get too far OT but it's the way of the World at this point in time.
Australia doesn't have an automotive manufacturing industry now, we simply have vehicle importers or maybe assemblers.
And despite employees having around 12 months or more 'notice' many remain in difficult circumstances or worse, especially those who have spent their entire working lives with the same company, an object lesson in the Corporate "tough s--t' mentality.
'Their employees were told one hour before it went public.'
One hour or one year, it must feel just as bad for the people caught out by Corporate hypocrisy.
And FTR, I paid for FSW, quite liked it despite the glacial pace of development, and am dissapointed to see a relatively promising concept vanish, so unless the posters in this thread did the same, they do not have a dog in this fight.

PS: Unlike many people I've had a long 'career', never been forced to sack staff, only required to 'terminate' malcontents who attempted to do me harm!

:173go1:

[Alan_A]

The employees were told one hour before it went public.

So things are appalling all over.


PS: Unlike many people I've had a long 'career', never been forced to sack staff, only required to 'terminate' malcontents who attempted to do me harm!

That's fortunate - much better than having the overlords (who come from another industry and have no idea what your work actually involves) show up and say, "Good job hitting the 15 percent profit target we gave you last month. This month we need 17 percent. Who are you going to cut to give us the extra two percent?"

I currently work in a network of solo practitioners and small firms - all of us are refugees from the big firm that got bought by a public company. We live better - no visits from the inquisition - and nobody I know would ever think of going back.

[Bjoern]

Fair enough. My experiences, as you can probably tell, were with publicly held companies in the U.S. I spent many years in that environment and don't miss it. I have a nice cardiac stent as a souvenir. I hope things are a little better for workers in the UK.

Well, the "hire and fire" culture isn't as prevalent on this side of the Atlantic. There's always some degree of social security to at least cushion the fall.





The employees were told one hour before it went public.
:ernaehrung004:

Out of the blue?
In that case, I'd set the f'in place on fire on my way out.

[Stefano Zibell]

They could at the VERY least release the beta branch that is now inaccessible. There was a career mode that is now lost.

[simondix]

Very sad, especially for the people who now have to look for new employment. I brought it on offer and although I hardly used it I kept it to see how much progression would be made. There was just something about it that although I could not put my finger on it I did not like. I dipped into it when updates were made and although I liked the aircraft available I was not using it seriously. I thought it might progress to something good given time. The closure has meant really that I can now concentrate on P3D and free up space on my PC. I am still using FSX on planes I cannot use on P3D and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

[stovall]

This thread has run its course, time to close.