Wot TK thinging with this iPad business?

[+Julhelm 266]

How many except people on this board even knew about the ME to begin with? The trend among other indie developers is continuous communication with their target audience throughout the entire development cycle. Not keep everything hush-hush, refuse interviews and free exposition.

[column5 63]

How many except people on this board even knew about the ME to begin with? The trend among other indie developers is continuous communication with their target audience throughout the entire development cycle. Not keep everything hush-hush, refuse interviews and free exposition.

 

I remember emailing him back in the 2003-2004 timeframe asking if he would be willing to do an interview and answer some questions. I told him we wouldn't ask anything that was related to the sales side of the business and that he could skip any questions he didn't want to answer. Flatly refused.

 

He talks about low sales but does no marketing and no outreach to potential customers. Apparantly, if you build it they DON'T magically come...damn you Kevin Costner.

[FastCargo 412]

I'm going to don my tinfoil hat for a second (because it's warm...).

 

What if TK does not WANT mass knowledge of his sim.

 

Let me explain.

 

One of the reasons TK is relatively successful is that he doesn't specialize into areas that other sims do. I'm not talking about sims from 10 years ago, I'm talking about now. Name one large sim company doing a combat sim about 60-70s aircraft.

 

(sound of crickets chirping)

 

Now, other than First Eagles (which was funded by someone else), TK stays strictly within that realm...no WWI, WWII, or ultra modern scenarios. Even aircraft where he has some overlap with guys like Eagle Dynamics (A-10, F-15), he stays toward the simpler avionics and gameplay.

 

Now he's been very cagey about earnings and future plans too. So, lets think about this:

 

1) Little to no active advertising.

2) Specializes in aircraft that aren't in other military combat sims.

3) Prices are typically below other sims.

4) Doesn't reveal finances, other than 'We are always tight on money'.

 

What if the concern is that all it takes is for another large game maker to step in if they realize the actual potential that segment of the market could have. Think about it...TK's budget probably doesn't get above a single percentage point of a large PC software maker's budget. What could be done if someone like Sony or Microsoft jumped in there...especially if they can leverage technologies already developed for their other, similar projects.

 

Before someone says that TK could do better...it doesn't matter. Those sitting on the fence of buying a sim would probably buy from one of the big names because it's a known quantity. TK isn't a big name...and isn't ever going to be for the casual audience...he doesn't have the budget.

 

As long as he's shown as a struggling indie flight sim maker, he's not considered a threat because that part of the market isn't considered a money maker. If that perception were to ever change by the big guys...

 

I'd rather make steady money and keep off the radar, verses trying to make a big splash and painting a target on my forehead...

 

FC

[Streakfalcon 57]

I never thought of it that way.Valid point

[Lexx_Luthor 57]

I never thought of it that way.Valid point

Yea that's a neat idea FC.

 

The mission editor -- it was alreadly done with the KMD and LMD. Those who really want a mission editor would have no problem with KMD and LMD. I never saw the point in the ... TKMD ... lol.

 

848::

I don't fly SF because I like easy, light and fluffy "games". I fly it because I like aircraft from the 1960s and 1970s.

XACTLY mee too :drinks:

[Icarus999 70]

Still have not sorted out the issues with the thirdwire mission editor, read a little bit of the thread on the fixes to get it working with ships and such just have not had the time to play with it yet... mainly because it is so much simpler to just use Lemissioneur in WOE and then import the mission into Sf2E and convert the file to unicode.

[Icarus999 70]

False, I'm on December 2010 with Exp2 now and everything is still as used to, clouds base heigh including

 

Seriously? The reason I did not upgrade was all of the issues people were having, and I am sure that is when the cloud problems were first noted. I remember exp2 raising all kinds of issues and like 4 patches needed to straighten it all out... in the end the clouds were gone.

 

 

This is what i remember- CA thread 1

 

and this - My link

 

and these issues too props

Edited February 28, 2012 by Icarus999

[Icarus999 70]

can't agree. You're showing the approach that had very negative impact on flight sims games in the past and almost killed the genre -the approach that "we" those "flying" "simulators" need thousands of Ghz and countless GFX onboard -because in your thinking flightsimmers are elite and such FS9/FSX-nuts related crap. Really? Don't wanna break it to you, but you're still playing a game with planes in it, no matter how serious you'd like to call it Icarus. Wanna fly the real simulator? Have 200.000$? So buy yourself one.

 

Surely, go ahead, but how many of members here have you mention. Me, I'm still at 12801024, resolution my good old monitor allows, 8400 onboard with 4 gig of ram and single 560Ti. I'd say pretty casual system that allows me to play latest games at full detail and good stable >35-40 frametares (BF3, Skyrim)

 

You show your ignorance to casual gamers who would like to try flightgames on their mere 2 Gb dual core Vista systems. TK doesn't, that's why his sims play well on cheap laptops, mods aside. So, the perspective of them being able to play something like TW titles on a crappy tablet (as much as I'm not fan of the technology, time WILL force me to buy one in the next years) makes you instantly calling them names? that's how I get that "not for anything serious" of your. Yess, you're so serious pilot in you chair, you!

 

---

Disclaimer: User Stary had much pity and disrespect for "pilots" "flying" FSX "simulator" with 5000.0$ worth of addons and yokes. Get a life, it's still a game.

 

 

Did not mean to hurt your feelings bro, I was not comparing the size of our E-penisis My current rig is not any where near monster stats I just quoted... but my next one will be.

 

Just pointing out the huge difference in power between the top end systems that are available as of this year: massively powerful hex core chips -amazing GPU's - motherboards loaded with 64 gigs of memory. You wont see anything in tablet form that will touch an average desktop let alone an Enthusiast rig in the near future... no mater what Steve Jobs said about the issue. If you read my post you will see that I did not call any one names, what I said was it was a basic tool for the average joe.. meaning that it is extremely limited in power and wont do anything particularly well.

[+Julhelm 266]

As long as he's shown as a struggling indie flight sim maker, he's not considered a threat because that part of the market isn't considered a money maker. If that perception were to ever change by the big guys...

...the likely result would be that a publisher like EA contracts the studios that have a demonstrable track record. As you said for yourself, it's been over 10 years since the old studios were all shut down by publishers. All that talent is now either out of the game industry or split up into other studios. So any big publisher wanting to get in on the cold war crowd would have to contract an outside developer because they simply lack the in-house talent and tech necessary to do it themselves.

[+Dave 2,322]

Still have not sorted out the issues with the thirdwire mission editor, read a little bit of the thread on the fixes to get it working with ships and such just have not had the time to play with it yet... mainly because it is so much simpler to just use Lemissioneur in WOE and then import the mission into Sf2E and convert the file to unicode.

 

The 3rdWire is awesome and so much eaiser to use than the 3rd party ones. Now that I know how to use it, there is nothing I cant do with it. I have even set up A2A refuel training.

[FastCargo 412]

...the likely result would be that a publisher like EA contracts the studios that have a demonstrable track record. As you said for yourself, it's been over 10 years since the old studios were all shut down by publishers. All that talent is now either out of the game industry or split up into other studios. So any big publisher wanting to get in on the cold war crowd would have to contract an outside developer because they simply lack the in-house talent and tech necessary to do it themselves.

 

But how much of that cost could already be paid for developing another project?

 

Look at Microsoft (the upcoming Flight) Sony (Ace Combat). Now Flight we don't have a real good read on yet, and AC is an arcade shooter. But in both, a graphics engine, physics engine, and AI have already been developed. Obviously, AI, gameplay, and physics (for AC in particular) would have to be expanded upon. But a cold war aircraft certainly isn't any harder to build than a modern aircraft in a 3d engine. You wouldn't even have to get to TW level of fidelity to cause a serious competition problem for TK sims...remember who the audience could be.

 

Also, it's not just the total budget dollars, but the fraction of total budget available for a genre. If TK nets 100k a year, 10k for say mission editor development is a significant fraction of investment (10%). But if MS nets 1M per year, even if they throw 20k at the same problem, it's far less of their overall budget (2%). And I'm pretty sure I'm being really conservative with how much money they could throw at the development. The only thing stopping them is the perception that the payoff is not worth the investment.

 

I'm not in the gaming development trade, don't even pretend to be in the trade on an internet forum. So my ruminations may be way off base. But in my opinion, the logic is not unsound.

 

FC

[+Julhelm 266]

The problem with conventional proprietary engines and middleware like the ones used in Ace Combat or HAWX is that they are pretty much optimized for arcade shooters and lack a whole set of features needed to build a "proper" flightsim engine. Flight manages because it has about 20 years of MSFS tech to build on. Whereas AAA console titles usually use smoke and mirrors to appear large-scale and as such cannot be easily modified to fit a whole different type of game.

[FastCargo 412]

Okay, I can understand that. That still leaves MS leveraging their 'Flight' engine to use in a sim. The question is how much additional effort (ie money) would be needed to program an air combat version of the program.

 

FC

[+Julhelm 266]

From what I can see, Flight is basically the FSX engine tweaked and optimized for multicores.