The future of SF?

[+Brain32 265]

Top programmers and 3D artists have a cost EVERYWHERE! It's not like the Russians will work for peanuts either

[Do335 382]

Top programmers and 3D artists have a cost EVERYWHERE! It's not like the Russians will work for peanuts either

Well.. over here it's not last time I asked around. Only companies that offer global pay (read 1st world pay) are in the finance sector. Things could be different in Russia or changed ofc. Then there're the helper hands which surely are below min wage in western standards:p

[FastCargo 412]

FastCargo.... I can only speculate with TK's views that DCS is based in Russia, hence significantly lower cost is one factor. (As in "Made in China" which sounds familiar)

 

Well, and there are rumors (unconfirmed) that some development money comes from other parts of the company.  I don't know how much of that (if any) is true.  Also, the company could be taking the long view, eating short term losses for long term gain.  This wouldn't be new...Toyota is rumored to have taken huge hits in the initial generations of the Prius, but obviously has turned it around as development costs came down and sales went up.

 

FC

[+Brain32 265]

Well.. over here it's not last time I asked around. Only companies that offer global pay (read 1st world pay) are in the finance sector. Things could be different in Russia or changed ofc. Then there're the helper hands which surely are below min wage in western standards:p

Don't get me wrong many jobs are paid absurdly lower than in the west for sure, here in Croatia too but some are outside of that and if you are really good you will get paid...ofcourse you can always hire some kid to do the work from the basement but standards will be lower and other than that can't you do that anywhere in the world? You get what you pay for, pay crap-get crap ;)

[Do335 382]

Well, and there are rumors (unconfirmed) that some development money comes from other parts of the company.  I don't know how much of that (if any) is true.  Also, the company could be taking the long view, eating short term losses for long term gain.  This wouldn't be new...Toyota is rumored to have taken huge hits in the initial generations of the Prius, but obviously has turned it around as development costs came down and sales went up.

 

FC

Don't get me wrong many jobs are paid absurdly lower than in the west for sure, here in Croatia too but some are outside of that and if you are really good you will get paid...ofcourse you can always hire some kid to do the work from the basement but standards will be lower and other than that can't you do that anywhere in the world? You get what you pay for, pay crap-get crap ;)

Yeah, after all DCS is not that transparent to us. Maybe someone more in the know like Beach or the DCS guys can shed some light.

 

But when referring to DCS I was actually thinking more about some non-flightsim titles that share common traits, it's just DCS are familiar with ppl here. Anyway...

Edited April 13, 2015 by Do335

[+Brain32 265]

Well to tell you the truth I'm not even all that impressed with the DCS the game engine is upgraded version of initial Lomac heck it still runs DX9c correct me if I'm wrong. It's also completely beyond my understanding on how did they manage NOT to make atleast one other terrain. The only thing that saves it is the multiplayer as singleplayer users can hardly expirience anything new in that game.

I think SF2 has more potential to be a better game, maybe not a better sim but a better game for sure. With updated terrain(Iceland but more developed) and better AI and mission making options it would be totally epic...actually considering it was a one man show I consider it one of the worlds miracles but if one could do that what could 5 do...

[+Julhelm 266]

Game development is usually not very high-paid work. You are expected to put in massive hours in return for pay that is less than you would get at a programming job making commercial software. Even less pay if you are an artist. The only people who ever seem to get paid well are senior employees and the various leads and art/tech directors. Bottom line if you don't like it there's a thousand other young people passionate and dumb enough to work 80-hour weeks for peanuts. I cannot possibly imagine russian devs get paid better than we do.

 

As for TK my guess is he just got tired of working on the same thing forever. At some point you got to move on.

[Do335 382]

Well to tell you the truth I'm not even all that impressed with the DCS the game engine is upgraded version of initial Lomac heck it still runs DX9c correct me if I'm wrong. It's also completely beyond my understanding on how did they manage NOT to make atleast one other terrain. The only thing that saves it is the multiplayer as singleplayer users can hardly expirience anything new in that game.

I think SF2 has more potential to be a better game, maybe not a better sim but a better game for sure. With updated terrain(Iceland but more developed) and better AI and mission making options it would be totally epic...actually considering it was a one man show I consider it one of the worlds miracles but if one could do that what could 5 do...

Heck about the sim vs game sayings I don't even buy it. Sim just equals more switchology at the sacrifice of gameplay features. Done enough button pushing and no matter how hardcore you go you can never do the things the real guys do, because excluding the danger of facing death, real guys fight on the battlefield, which the so-called sims like DCS sacrificed so they can add the button pushings in! TK hits the right balance there and with a budget none less...

Likewise I hope there's a slim chance that this series can go forward. If not well... hopefully CA stays alive here and the mods will make it better. So many mods that can be improved quality wise with Mue's new tools...

 

 

----

TK's thoughts on Russian cost, just quoting here for ref. (Maybe there's a saying for it's TK so take it with a grain of salt, not sure if it's come to that heh)

 

And I'd much rather do airplane games on budget than chase the market (and do FPS or RTS or whatever happens to be "hot" at the moment) with big budget...  And I certainly have no intention of moving to a third-world country just so I can do this cheaper :)

 

They're based in Russia where labor is cheaper, anywhere from 1/3 to 1/6 depending on who you believe, so the same game that would've cost 25 mil here can be done for 4 mil...  But as their living standard increase, their labor cost will also rise, so it may not last forever...

 

 

Yep, we think our approach is the best suited for what we do, despite what other might say :)  

 

Also, just to throw some numbers here, because we're based in US where labor cost is about 3-6 times as expensive as some other areas, and software development is 95% labor cost, even if we did everything the same way as the other company in other another country, we still won't be able to charge only $8 per plane, it'll be more like $24 (8 x 3 = 24 for those math-impared) to cover the exact same development simply because of the labor cost difference.  And no, we're not moving to Russia or China or India or wherever the current popular destination for cheap labor is just so we can do this cheaper :)

 

And the "hard-core" combat flight sim you have listed as being successful (IL-2 and LOMAC) are all developed in Russia, where the economy is different - they can do the same things there a lot cheaper than we can do here in US.  And I'm not moving there just so you can have the game exactly the way you want it :)

Edited April 13, 2015 by Do335

[PFunk 198]

I kinda laugh a little whenever I see TK remark that he's so glad he no longer develops PC games.

 

He can code for an iPhone today because two years ago I (and a lot of other people) bought a bunch of his PC games and DLCs. Way to crap on us, dude.

 

I love a lot of what SF2 does. It's the closest thing we have to the spiritual heir to Fighters Anthology, but what amazes me is that EA managed to cram better AI subroutines in 100MB of space than TK did in several gigs of hard drive real estate.

 

I'm not really all that excited about MP in the SF2 environment, but there are a lot of improvements that could be done. SF2 still has a better single player mission editor than DCS in my opinion.

[FastCargo 412]

I kinda laugh a little whenever I see TK remark that he's so glad he no longer develops PC games.

 

He can code for an iPhone today because two years ago I (and a lot of other people) bought a bunch of his PC games and DLCs. Way to crap on us, dude.

 

I love a lot of what SF2 does. It's the closest thing we have to the spiritual heir to Fighters Anthology, but what amazes me is that EA managed to cram better AI subroutines in 100MB of space than TK did in several gigs of hard drive real estate.

 

I'm not really all that excited about MP in the SF2 environment, but there are a lot of improvements that could be done. SF2 still has a better single player mission editor than DCS in my opinion.

 

Here's the thing...did enough of us buy to offset his cost of development?  Everyone realizes SF:NA was rushed out of the door.  My suspicion is that the money was running out.  TK even remarks about maxing out his CC's at the time.  Sure, sales of SF:NA and DLC hopefully were enough to get out of the hole...but remember he did have a new terrain engine, new Avionics code, along with several new 3d assets.  I wouldn't be surprised if all the additional sales simply got him to the break even point.

 

Now, lets look at it from the business point of view.  You've just put in all this time and money, and you might have made your money back, but had to stretch yourself thin to get there.  For the future, you have to patch up the code you put out, try to keep any new bugs from appearing, and hopefully make some money with DLC, as well as look toward the future.  What you see is disheartening...a dumbbell effect is forming.  Air combat sims are either very arcade, or very hi fidelity, with very little in the middle...and mobile is rising.

 

The advantage of mobile are the following:

 

1) Very low cost of entry...the Unity engine is licensed for $800.  And that engine is cross platform compatible....one build can be ported to several platforms.

2) Very low bar of entry for a usable game.  You're not trying to model everything you are trying to do on the PC in features, AI, UI, etc.

3) Reuse of most of your existing assets (terrain, 3d models, effects) and simpler 3d assets. 

4) No or very little piracy issues...the game is already free.  Yes, you charge for additional aircraft, but only if the player wants to buy.

 

Coming to those conclusions, does anyone honestly think a small developer wouldn't consider a move to mobile?  No modding to try to accommodate, no or little piracy to worry about pulling away revenue.  Max reuse of assets.  Iterative builds...reaching an audience in the millions verses the thousands.

 

It could be as simple as Julheim says...he got tired of dealing with the same stuff.  Now he's in mobile, and yea, there's stuff to deal with, but it's different stuff.

 

For us, this is a hobby.  For TK, this is a business.  Sometimes...they don't agree.

 

FC

[+Julhelm 266]

There's another advantage with mobile, and that is that people still have no real expectations when it comes to core games. Unlike on PC where customers will compare a one-man sim like SF to AAA works like DCS or FSX, only to conclude the one-man show doesn't measure up.

[Stratos 3,167]

The first to create a FC3 level Phantom or even a F-16C for DCS will get covered in gold...

[beachav8r 360]

Regarding mobile though - at the risk of sounding like an old, crotchety Luddite, I wonder what the depth and longevity of that user base is? I mean, once you publish a game or two for mobile, that crowd has a really short attention span. I mean, I bought an iPad a few years ago, and initially I went app buying crazy. But now - not so much. I just don't "play" much on that platform near as much as I did. It was novel..but I'm over it. This big bubble of iPad/iUsers that has come down the pipe has got a huge app selection menu now..and the dilution of that market is probably only going to increase. Whereas most of us PC flight simmers (well..many of us) probably buy nearly everything that comes down the pipe with the exception (perhaps) of some of the very, very light sim titles (like those air action/simulation games you see that have the 3rd person view where you are shooting down planes with health bars and stuff..blech..). Obviously there is, again, a crossover point. On one line of the graph you have a fairly steady base of users that will buy pretty much anything you put out, and on the other you have a huge number of app type users that is an enormous pool, but how many are you going to keep and retain? 

 

If money is the issue for TK - I have a really easy suggestion for him to rake in some cash and that is to unify all his titles under a "Gold" install because I would buy that for $50 in a heartbeat. I'm tired of having SF2:Vietnam, SF2:Israel, SF2:Europe, + DLC, +Editor, etc... We are through the individual sales period for each of those titles. Bundle them together, and sell them as a "merged" title.

 

Then there is the possibility of DLC for SF2 that I don't think TK has even scratched the surface of. Personally, I would have no problem with an ala-carte system of in-game purchases. I mean, why hasn't TK put out a payware quality Harrier? The ones that are out there by the community are fantastic - hell, buy one of them, mod it up a bit more, and release it for $10.

 

Anyway - I hope TK does read all this and knows he has huge fans here and elsewhere. Personally, I don't think it's all that helpful to disparage the man because it might just reinforce his attitude of being happy to be away from the rigorous expectations of the PC sim community. He has to hear the message that we are pretty darn happy with what he's created so far, and we are supportive of continued development even if it is in small steps. In this day and age of Kickstarters and other crowd funding - if money were the issue I'd be surprised that TK wouldn't explore some trial balloon type of DLC Kickstarter to gauge the interest. I can think of a dozen aircraft or theaters or features that I'd throw Kickstarter money at.

 

Fun little round-table - hope TK has a seat at it.

 

BeachAV8R

[+Stary 2,426]

if there is one thing I can't agree here is the quote from TK via Do335:

 

"to make bigger and bigger games that appealed to less and less gamers (only to hardcore simmers, like they all did back in the 90s"

 

last time I was in the 90s, the flight sims were quite far from hardcore and enjoyed by many outside of the VOR2 frequency is what?! the then-niche I think FS95 or so folks, even my computer AD&D/Role playing friends flew this or that for a break, mostly stuff from Novalogic (including Armourde Fist) or some of the lite Janes'

 

Was EAW, one of my all time favourites hardcore? No. Was Janes' ATF? Was WW2Fighters? Was the Novalogic series?Only really hardcore sim from the later 90s I can think of, Falcon 4 aside was JSF. I wonder how hould we describe it now? Challenging? Perhaps. Hardcore? I doubt.

 

What turn of century and early 2000s brought was the rise of really hardcore (by the times standards) flightsims, speedy oversaturation of market with WW2 titles and the demise of the genre for quite some time afterwards

 

Plus one factor every seems to forget when talking about the flight simulators and early 2000s -the rise of stable non-dialup based internet aviability that in turn skyrocketed the expectations of the previously medium-lite folks who now quickly transformed into nickpicking rivet counting forum trolling armhair experts screaming all across the dev boards "how dare you model the canopy with only five screws on the  bar in question while my photos in linked sources clearly show it whould be seven to hell with you nueducated noobs!!! MY LINKZ SAY IT IS SEVEN! Well, I think that was working this way anyway, your mileage might vary

 

but you get my thinking I hope -the more common access to the detailed sources on the net are the higher the expectations and thus more labour intensive development per plane. Plus ofc all the rise of graphic representation fidelity but that's something else (I've seen 4-5 kilo cockpits that still look better than say mine 35 kilo representations of the same, matter of skills and creative thinking)

 

Ohhh one more thought that came to my head that might be a key factor. When I was playing WW2 Fighters or EAW of even the JSF, I was around 18, 19. Now 34 I look at DCS and think that my way of perceiving the flight sims has changed. I simply grew up. But you know what? Somehow DCS is boring. Not because I managed to hit that MiG-15 two times without any effect with my Sabre. Boring because if that was all I managed to pull off in the spare 30 or so minutes I had for flying yesterday evening I could shoot 15 migs in Janes' ATF back in 1997

[beachav8r 360]

There's another advantage with mobile, and that is that people still have no real expectations when it comes to core games. Unlike on PC where customers will compare a one-man sim like SF to AAA works like DCS or FSX, only to conclude the one-man show doesn't measure up.

 

Yeah - that is the old adage of "We've seen the enemy, and he is us.." with regards to how we pit one sim against another. I'm always baffled at how people want, want, want..then when you give it to them, they either point out you a) Did it wrong. b) Did it too slowly. or c) Someone else did it better. <g>

 

To me - there is no real comparison between DCS and Thirdwire sims. I think of DCS as a platform where I can play pretend fighter pilot in a deep way. I can spend 20 minutes getting the cockpit ready for takeoff and shooting an instrument approach in DCS and get an enormous sense of satisfaction out of going through those procedures successfully. As a real life pilot, it is really cool that I can get the same depth in a Ka-50 or A-10C or UH-1H that I I do in my own real cockpits. The depth and accuracy of the systems modeling is simply jaw dropping for a consumer product. I mean..the Ka-50 ABRIS alone is probably worth several hundred dollars if you were looking at buying an avionics trainer on the open market. People under-appreciate the amount of VALUE you get for DCS modules.

 

Thirdwire (to me) - is all about fun and accessibility. The flight models are great, weapons work, the graphics are actually quite good, and the march through the campaign is relatively quick and immersive. It is a great simulation/game that has the added bonus of an enormous mod community that can pretty much come up with any platform you want to fly (cough: F-35B?)..

 

Why anyone would slag the other when they aren't even in the same category really is baffling to me. Even sims that ARE in the same category (say DCS and BMS) - why bother throwing stones at each sim and community? It totally makes no sense. I can understand requesting features and comparing them to other sims..but the whole rah-rah flag waving of each camp is silly. I have a dozen sims loaded on my PC and each of them have their high and low points. I can't think of one that I don't enjoy playing though...

 

BeachAV8R

[PFunk 198]

Keep in mind, the tablet market is receding, people figured out that it wouldn't replace your laptop. Since its inception, the iPad actually lost sales for the first time this last quarter. Tablets are here to stay, they're too convenient not to. But, you can't work with Word very well without a snap on keyboard and you look like a dork holding one up to take a picture. Phones are still a winner, because everyone has one.

 

I reviewed SF2NA for another site and that game was broken coming out of the door, no question. There are bugs that still haven't been fixed, enemy carrier ops, for one. I don't know why it was released in the condition that it was. Perhaps you're right, the money was running out. If true, that means the business model wasn't working. The one he has now apparently does, and I'm sure it is much cheaper to code for a mobile and the target audience is arguably less demanding. To that end, it makes sense. I'm observing that ThirdWire began with loyal PC game fans, it's just funny to me.

[+gerwin 449]

So it was just like he told us, it was about what he could afford, and indeed he could not afford a proper SF2NA.

That game also lacks most distance lods, as if he did not have time to make these. (Having a dozen Hawkeyes parked on an airfield will seriously impact FPS)

 

I agree with Beachav8r that we should not forget that it is a great series as it is, (at least if you agree with that).

 

What i missed in the last posts is any mention of the 30% commision that Apple takes on purchases in the app store.

This is huge. Good for apple, very bad for the world.

 

I won't complain about Third Wire's marketing, or the game bundels as they are. Maybe it is less then it could be, but it should not matter. As long as the SF games are for sale, that is the main thing. Merging the games is easy enough as it is. Marketing could be compensated for by user marketing: Swamp Youtube with vids, Revive TW facebook with new releases, create a few dedicated websites about the game or mods. I don't say we have too, it may very well be too late to change anything. I just mean there is not much use discussing about TW doing such things, They created the game engine and top notch assets already.

[+russouk2004 6,951]

Apple in my opinion is overrated   vastly....rip off comes to mind....

[Do335 382]

I've said enough but regarding forum noise... We and likely TK read too much about it. Ones that show up on the forums are a tiny fraction of the paying customers. Many game devs don't generally care too much about what's said, unless say a bug gets reported multiple times which needs public addressing or roadmap for next year etc. Last thing they wanna do is take game change suggestion from the forums and go ahead to implement it IMHO, because 90% of those are either from other games or just end up satisfying a few individuals. The forums most likely isn't feedback from the market although it can appear to be.

[Do335 382]

....

Stary those seemed to be what TK said altho in not that many words... I totally agree about the internet being available thus resulting in skyrocketing dev cost in, say, making a 3D pit. In the process you're essentially sacrificing gameplay, since everything is a tradeoff of dev resources. Here it is literally a question of.. knowledge is power, or ignorance is bliss.

[beachav8r 360]

At the end of my DiD article I tried to send some business TK's way with a bit of encouragement to readers to make it known to ThirdWire that they like their products. *shrug* Can't hurt I suppose..(now watch, TK will shut down the PC purchasing page tomorrow..lol..)

 

http://www.mudspike.com/sf2-war-for-israel-did/

 

BeachAV8R

[ZoltanTheHun 101]

If money is the issue for TK - I have a really easy suggestion for him to rake in some cash and that is to unify all his titles under a "Gold" install because I would buy that for $50 in a heartbeat. I'm tired of having SF2:Vietnam, SF2:Israel, SF2:Europe, + DLC, +Editor, etc... We are through the individual sales period for each of those titles. Bundle them together, and sell them as a "merged" title.

 

Then there is the possibility of DLC for SF2 that I don't think TK has even scratched the surface of. Personally, I would have no problem with an ala-carte system of in-game purchases. I mean, why hasn't TK put out a payware quality Harrier? The ones that are out there by the community are fantastic - hell, buy one of them, mod it up a bit more, and release it for $10.

 

 

Till there are people like me whom buy the pieces individually (I spent more than 150 bucks in the last 5 month on the series), it is worth more to sell the individual pieces for a higher price. The series can be quite addicting. The rather big problem is availability. Like I mentioned before, I know about this game because Strategy First decided to discount Wings over Europe on Steam, and I learned only from the comment section that this is someone else's intellectual property.

 

Steam would make it easier to manage the DLC-s and the merged installs by the way, and it would give us Steam Workshop. Like it was mentioned in some of the reports for the Cities: Skyline game, Steam Workshop is the best copy protection, because you receive all the fun through the copy protection method.

 

Next, instead of flyables, which are costly to develop, If I were TK I would rather concentrate on the coding stuff and let the community to do the rest of it. Just get the code ready for the ejection seat, the HUD-based RADAR(Mig-23), fix the HUD flowing out of the glass and a few other minor things, and release it as SF3. If development is well communicated, modders would be ready with the assets by the time it is needed. (The changes I listed are biased to my taste, but my point is that I think coding is more important and valuable in this series than the assets)

[Stratos 3,167]

The problem I see with your reasoning Zoltan is that TK assures that coding is really time consuming so he's not interested anymore in adding new code. As you I will like to see some new features in the code, the ejector seats, A-G radar, etc. But I'm pretty sure is not going to happen.

[JediMaster 451]

I do have to wonder what TK pays himself. For instance, if as mentioned here he does 90%+ of the coding himself, and he says "to put in feature X will cost $100,000," and coding is all labor, what is he saying about length of time to make the feature? Does he mean it's going to take 2 years, or that for 9 months of work it will cost $100k? Um, you charge yourself too much, dude.

 

I think TK should either officially dump SF2 and let us have at it, or state that he will be going to back it/is working on it at a low rate for an eventual new release. He said more than once "no SF3", so I don't think that will happen. He should have soldiered on with the new stuff he introduced for NA and got a return on that investment with more than just AI planes and skins.

 

The fact is he spent a LONG time (and apparently a boatload of money because he doesn't let himself work for cheap!  ) to make the new stuff for SF2:NA, and now he's just going to walk away from it? Like FC said about Toyota and the Prius, what if Toyota had just given up after the first gen came out? Sold the same model with nothing but cosmetic changes for a few years and then let it die out? Answer--big writedown for Toyota, that's what!

 

As for why many other companies gave up sims--they're publicly traded. Investors want a certain level of profit, not just a profit. 777 wasn't public. ED isn't AFAIK. 1C is, but they're in Russia. MS is public, EA is public, Ubisoft is public, Activision is public, none are interested in low-rate-of-return sims because the investors have no patience. They want their super return on investment and they want it NOW. It's not enough for the rich to get richer, they need to get richer NOW.

 

TK isn't publicly traded...or is he? Anyone here own stock in him? That could explain a lot...

[Saavedra 5]

Perhaps he could do something like put the Strike Fighters games up on Steam? Making them more visible to the average player would no doubt help, particularly if we give them some nice reviews on day 1 of publication there. Put all the SF2 games up in Steam at a discount as a weekend sale or something similar like that, and you are guaranteed to get attention. And money.

 

You all know how much we love those little green squares...