Dovetail games acquires licensing deal with Microsoft; FSX Steam Edition coming soon

[ak416]

The award-winning creators of the best-selling Train Simulator franchise have today announced a global licensing deal with Microsoft, granting them the rights to develop and publish all-new flight products based on Microsoft’s genre-defining flight technology. The company is currently investigating new concepts in this area and is expecting to bring a release to market in 2015.

In addition to this licensing agreement, Dovetail Games is pleased to announce that it has also acquired the rights to distribute the multi-award winning Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition via Valve’s popular digital retail channel, Steam, entitled Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition.

First released in 2006, Microsoft Flight Simulator X is widely acknowledged as one of the most popular simulation products on the market. Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition will include the Deluxe Edition and the Acceleration Expansion Pack in one bundle. Dovetail Games will bring Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition to the Steam online gaming platform for the first time in late 2014.

“I am delighted to be working in partnership with Microsoft as part of this agreement,” said Paul Jackson, CEO of Dovetail Games. “We are thrilled to be exploring new flight simulation opportunities using Microsoft’s technology, and look forward to using our extensive expertise of Steam publishing to successfully bring Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition to a broad new audience on the Steam platform. This partnership is perfectly timed to support our expansion into new areas of simulation.”

Steve Bainbridge, COO at Dovetail Games added, “We are very proud of the strong community we have created around the Train Simulator series of products, and we are looking forward to extending our knowledge and experience into working closely with the flight simulation community. We know that they are a very knowledgeable, passionate and committed group of individuals and we welcome their feedback and involvement as we start to create the next generation of games in this area.”

“When it comes to licensing our simulation engine, Dovetail Games is the obvious choice for us to work with. We respect their approach in terms of delivering premium quality simulation games and look forward to seeing their vision of the next chapter in flight simulations unfold,” said Kevin Perry, Executive Producer at Microsoft. “In addition to that, they have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to launch simulation products successfully via online platforms, making them the ideal partner to distribute Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition.”

For further information please follow us at Dovetail Games Twitter and Dovetail Games Facebook.

http://www.dovetailgames.com/news/20...t-takes-flight

[Wingman]

Initial thoughts are more positive than negative, but I have little to no knowledge of both Dovetail and Steam on a broad spectrum of subjects that could pertain to the future of flight simulation software. I await with much anticipation the barrage of comments to follow. . . :emmersed:

Thanks AK, for always having your finger on the pulse of the industry!

[ak416]

Steam is essentially nothing more than a store front. The only thing substantial to me about the announcement that FSX is coming to Steam is that we'll get a lot of new faces around here. There is a very, very small potential for bug fixes and updates, but let's not get carried away.

Dovetail Games is known for their Train Simulator franchise, and it's a really great product. I purchased Train Simulator 2012 and have received a free upgrade to both Train Simulator 2013 and 2014 as they came out, and they brought substantial upgrades to an already robust platform. Some of the prices for their addons seem a bit steep, but I don't know my trains well enough to know if they warrant the price tag, but they do also have some budget addons. I picked up a Christmas addon for $1.99 that let me drive a toy train around a living room, navigating around the Christmas tree and through presents, it was something interesting and different that I ended up really enjoying. They also have Steam Workshop support, which is essentially just an easy way for users to share their own content, so stuff like repaints, missions, that sort of thing can all be distributed through there, or through other venues.

The only way I can really see this going wrong is if Microsoft has some stupid stipulations in their contract that prevent third party addons, or allow them but severely restrict what they can do. What I would do for a sim that uses the Flight engine, Steamworks, allows third party support, and not developed by Microsoft....

Also, I'm glad that it's Dovetail and not Gaijan (War Thunder). Not that there's anything wrong with War Thunder, but they make a weird mix of arcade/sim combat games, they arent the guys I want behind my next flight sim.

[Novawing24]

As Ak has said at least it means a very slim chance for updates and fixes. However my big concern is that as it will be a "Steam version" it may not support the existing range of addons.

As an example HAWX2 DLC purchased from any other store will NOT work with HAWX2 Steam edition (same applies with the Sims addons)

The reason it worked for Microsoft Flight was that all one was purchasing was the activation key from Steam not an actual download or file.

DCS as I understand has also experienced problems between users that purchase addons directly from Eagle Dynamics vs purchased through Steam. (Hawg maybe you could clarify this)

For me the other interesting point is that this seems to be either a money grab on licencing by selling an old product that would require minimal support or serving as a basis to further develop. However if the latter that puts LM in an interesting position with Prepar3d. They will either have to look at opening it up to a wider market or risk losing a fairly high percentage of their already small user base or cut their losses and drop the academic line completely and go solely with Government / Professional line.

I can see this being very positive however plagued with potential problems. I would also be curious to know if people will be able to use their existing FSX Keys or have to purchase a new set of keys.

I am still hopeful that Flight will come back to life as well

Safe Skies

Novawing24

[Josh]

Steam and PC Gamer

Below was on Steam and PC Gamer:


There was a time when Microsoft Flight Simulator ruled the world. That time was the 1980s, admittedly, an era when a primitive but reasonably accurate flight simulator could provide untold hours of entertainment. Those days are long behind us, but good news has come out this week for fans of that particular kind of fun: The studio behind Train Simulator has signed a deal to bring Flight Simulator X to Steam, and the more recent (and apparently popular) X-Plane 10 is on its way too.

The last "real" Microsoft Flight Simulator (Microsoft Flight, the 2012 attempt to claim a piece of the free-to-play action, crashed and burned rather spectacularly and thus doesn't count), Flight Sim X isn't too far away from its tenth birthday, and yet it's never been released on Steam. That will soon change, however, thanks to a licensing deal between Microsoft and Dovetail Games, which has acquired the rights to distribute Flight Simulator X: Gold Edition on Steam, and to develop new games based on the Flight Simulator X technology.

Known as Microsoft Flight Simulator X: Steam Edition, the game will include the Deluxe edition of the original release as well as the Acceleration Expansion Pack. Sadly, the deal does not allow Dovetail to implement any graphical updates, so the game will have something of a dated look. It will, however, make as many bug fixes as it can prior to release, and is also working to find a way around its dependence on GameSpy for multiplayer functionality.

"As you may know, Gamespy is no longer available, and so we are looking for alternate ways of providing this functionality including using features in Steam," the studio said in a statement. It also confirmed that while it will be making "all-new flight sims using Microsoft's technology," it will not actually be making new Microsoft Flight Simulator games.

For joystick jockeys less prone to nostalgic indulgence, the coming launch of X-Plane 10 on Steam may be of somewhat greater interest. Laminar Research announced that the 64-bit advanced flight simulator recently made it through the Steam Greenlight process and is now being readied for release. The Steam edition of the game will be identical to the X-Plane 10 Global Edition currently available on DVD.

X-Plane 10 is expected to arrive on Steam "very shortly," while Microsoft Flight Simulator: Steam Edition will come out in late 2014. Do you know where your joystick is?

[ak416]

Great article Josh, thanks for posting.

So, no graphical updates, but they pretty much confirm that there will in fact be a "Service Pack 3". That is pretty big news. I'm also really intrigued by the idea that they are looking to update the multiplayer side of things, and looking at Steamworks as a possible solution. Really interesting stuff on the horizon!

As Ak has said at least it means a very slim chance for updates and fixes. However my big concern is that as it will be a "Steam version" it may not support the existing range of addons.

As an example HAWX2 DLC purchased from any other store will NOT work with HAWX2 Steam edition (same applies with the Sims addons)

The reason it worked for Microsoft Flight was that all one was purchasing was the activation key from Steam not an actual download or file.

DCS as I understand has also experienced problems between users that purchase addons directly from Eagle Dynamics vs purchased through Steam. (Hawg maybe you could clarify this)

This is a problem with developers, not Steam. Steam definitely allows for the functionality, it's up to the developers to make their games consistent on all platforms. HAWX and the Sims both require third party DRM on top of Steam (Uplay and Origin) so I'm not sure those are the best examples to use. DCS, I'm not familiar enough with them to comment, but something like FSX would be almost impossible to restrict unless they encrypt all of the files like they did with Flight, and I really can't see them doing that. I would hope that Dovetail and Microsoft are smart enough to realise that FSX without user created and third party content is not worth selling. I just don't see them locking everything down in FSX like they did with Flight, but hey I could be wrong. That will be up to Dovetail and Microsoft though, not Steam.

It's also important to note the substantial difference between a game like HAWX and FSX. HAWX was never intended to have user created content, neither was DCS (well, at least on the same scale as FSX) so I think comparing it to something like KSP would be a bit more fair. KSP is distributed via Steam but also available DRM free and allows mods without restrictions regardless of where you purchased it from.

As far as having to purchase another key, me thinks that will be up to Microsoft, not Dovetail. The way it's worked in the past is that it's been up to the developers to implement that functionality, it's not something that just happens by default once a game is added to the Steam database, so I guess we just have to wait and see.

[Vidken]

Steam rather forcibly dropped support for enabling module keys purchased from the DCS website. I'm not sure if it'll work the other way around, but I'm not sure what the point would be. The DCS website store has new modules before they appear on Steam (such as the Dora preorder), and DCS has it's own updater, so the convenience is more or less the same. I used to toss my keys onto Steam all the time so I could have a backup platform to redownload the game if I need, but because of this recent decision to disallow registering DCS website keys, I no longer bother.

As for Dovetail, I was gifted a copy of Train Simulator a long while ago, back when it was called Railworks. Trains aren't my thing, but from what I gathered over a few nights of doing scenario tasks every year or so, it's a solid game that gets good updates.

"all-new flight products" carries at least a shred of hope for a modern civilian flight simulator to exist, which is better than nothing.

X-Plane 10's multiplayer is not very user-friendly. Unless there's a new, user-friendly multiplayer system involving or coming out alongside the Steam release, it's presence on that platform probably won't mean anything new for community flying. I like it as a sim by itself though. Ridge soaring works nicely out of the box, the aircraft creator app is fun (I'd love to see that in sync for multiplayer), and the orbital dynamics are fun. No upper speed limit and no terrain blurring, even at mach 50.

[Alec]

Hopfuly more will come out of this that "FSX: Steam Edition". Something in the field of MSFlight and continuing development for it.

[Waterman981]

Well.... that sucks. From the people bringing you FISHING simulator... (Will they buy Goat simulator next?)

I was hoping for someone to pick up Flight, not FSX. In my gut I get the feeling they are going for a cash grab. Bugfixes are great, but not "allowed" to make graphical updates? It'll stay stagnant, but you can buy new planes through steam for $20-$40 each from them. Just look at the prices for the 179 DLC packages on Steam for Train Simulator... http://store.steampowered.com/app/24010/ Maybe there is hope in the "new products" based on FSX tech...

I guess I'll be sticking with P3Dv2 (once I can finally set up my gear and fly again... )

[Vidken]

Microsoft Flight Simulator was brought to you and abandoned by the creators of Clippy, Bob, Windows Me, and GFWL. It's not really relevant.

The "worst" thing that can happen is the Steam version of FSX is incompatible with the addons and multiplayer of the normal version, in which case it's still possible to hang out there and recruit people over to the normal version and into this community.

MSFlights was born in Microsoft Flight before moving over to regular FSX, after all.

X-Plane 10 and FSX coming to Steam generates more interest in civilian flight simulation. If everybody complained about Flight being a horrible representation of civilian flight simulation to the modern gaming public, this is the best solution for the time being.