The END of Flight Sim World.

[Oz-Flyer]

From Steam News. 23rd Apr.


Flight Sim World - 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.

FAQ
What happens to Flight Sim World if I already own it?
It will remain in your Steam library, available to play in its current format.

Will the sim be taken off sale?
Yes, and we’re working to the date of 24th May 2018. We want to give anyone who does not yet own a copy of the sim enough time to get a copy and keep it safe in their library for future play.

What will happen to any Add-Ons?
Add-Ons will also come off sale, but those you already own will still also be in your Steam library.


We hope you can give the team the respect they deserve for their tireless hard work to date. Please know that all of us here at Dovetail hold flight simulation, the creators of add-on content, and especially you, the community for this sim, in incredibly high regard for both your support and time with Flight Sim World.

- The Flight Sim World Team

[Novawing24]

A sad ending for a long term promising development.

For some thoughts grab some snacks and enjoy this dissection....

Safe Skies

Novawing24

[Travis]

I think this is a good example to what can happen to an underfunded developer trying to tap into a market with a 1% to 10% market interest that tries to release products before they are basically finished, to try to gain that needed funding. I believe after making Flight School, and showing us that they will release an unfinished product, gave the harsh flight sim community an easy reason to attack. By pushing out FSW into "early access" I think they made the same mistake again, but in a slightly different way. Making a good flight sim is a crazy undertaking to do. The fact that Lockheed Martin and Dovetail both purchased the FSX core supports that theory. These are the same reasons aviation is expensive in real life. It is very complex. Sure, even I criticized Dovetail negatively, but I really didn't do it because they are the new kids on the block. This is how life works in an open market. You have to make hard choices and hope to get them right. In this case, they didn't. In my opinion, I think it would have taken 3-5 more years or more to have a finished product that they wanted. Yes, it would have never been truly finished if they plan to support it, but that is like the P3D business model. P3D also had a rough start too. But, since they were not aiming for the general public, they didn't get as much of this. They still did get a little though. Now they just charge for each upgrade every so often. And everybody complains again. But like dovetail, at least it is positive development for simulation.

I would not worry about this so much and be that sad about it. Sure, it was a good opportunity for everyone, and added to competition. But they did a lot of stuff that ended with bad results. They could have started by putting their name out there, and generating cash flow with add ons. This would create their reputation in the flight sim industry. I bet if A2A or PMDG said, we are going to make a new flight simulator, there would be a lot of excitement (Except for the price lol).

Anyway, people want a professional level simulator, and the technology is here to support it. (Supply and Demand!) The gap between desktop sim and professional FTD's are getting closer together all the time, and general aviation is looking into using home simulators to support currency for real pilots. These things were mentioned at the last NTSB meeting(2 days ago from this post) and software such as VATSIM and IVAO were mentioned by name in this meeting as examples of flight simulation methods to help general aviation safety in particular scenarios(Yes i know they are imperfect for real use now, but the methodology is supported). So, it may be a little bit of a wait before we see some major changes, but things are still going in a great direction, and the gap between real aviation and sim aviation is getting closer together. It will take time, but we will all be the winners. The demand is there, It just needs a little more push, and im sure we will get it. For now, just enjoy the current show. We have xp11 and p3d battling for first very competitively I would say. Look at all of the community users here that now use xp11, even with its lack of features we are used to in FSX/P3D. Some examples of closing the gap between real and sim are the use of EFB's (electronic flight bags) natively supported in P3D and XP11 I think.Other tools are being developed to bring in real world traffic into the sim, and so on. In my opinion, this is the prime time to be in flight simming. Though changes have slowed down after FSX, they look to be ramping up again.

Rambling over.