The wider commuity

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The wider commuity

Postby Tonydb » Wed Aug 24, 2016 12:15 am

I was moved to write this after reading an article on another flightsim site that stated that the flight sim market was in decline. It urged simmers to get more involved, create more scenery, aircraft etc. After I thought about this for a while I realised that the article was really in error and focussed narrowly upon one part of the community. Across the world flight simming is in growth in terms of users. The real problems are more involved with hardware and software. All the most popular flight sims are based on software engines that are decades old and cannot take advantage of modern computers. Hardware, even at the simple joystick level is becoming too expensive or unobtainable. Those factors along with the rumours of new software on the distant horizon does not encourage creativity. However the real world flying market has changed a lot in the past 10 years, most of the world uses aircraft other than Cessna for training, navigation systems are becoming more sophisticated even at the PPL level. This gives a new lift to existing and future flight sim software. Here at simviation with its great crowd of members there is an opportunity to move this forward by lots of small steps rather than big leaps. I believe that the future of simming is stronger than ever. We just have to work towards embracing a larger community and maintain our sense of humour.

To Simviation I ask please make it easier to receive payments from East Asia. Emsisoft seem to be the only company that understand how to do this.
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Re: The wider commuity

Postby ftldave » Tue Jul 26, 2022 8:53 am

I don't agree that the article referenced was in error. Everything, including hobbies, has a life cycle and does not last forever, no matter how much we wish it would. I'm old enough to remember many other hobbies - and other forms of entertainment - that were much more popular than they are now - model railroading, i.e. "electric trains", for example, that are just not very popular as they once were those many years ago. And, no matter what, computer simulated flight simulation is going to require some investment, is never going to be easily accessible to those who don't have discretionary luxury spending, payment method notwithstanding. I've not seen anything of interest past beloved FSX that I still occasionally enjoy. Sure, there were, at first, some real high hopes for P3D and that it would "replace" FSX and become just as popular and widely supported. And there's a small and loyal group there, but its legal and marketing limitations keep it in its small place. Microsoft's Flight - remember that one? - came and went. And the latest "sell now, fix later" MSFS doesn't appeal to me. I admire the aircraft models in X-Plane, but the Saint Austin cult of personality always creeped me out, and its scenery limitations were too long ignored by its divine creator. No, I must agree, the peak has passed, for me anyway, so I can easily understand why flightsim sales and interest are observed to be in slow decline, especially as we dinosaurs slowly go extinct and eventually make our last flights. Hopefully, in our favorite planes. :D
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Re: The wider commuity

Postby ConcordeError404 » Sun Jul 31, 2022 2:34 am

ftldave wrote:I don't agree that the article referenced was in error. Everything, including hobbies, has a life cycle and does not last forever, no matter how much we wish it would. I'm old enough to remember many other hobbies - and other forms of entertainment - that were much more popular than they are now - model railroading, i.e. "electric trains", for example, that are just not very popular as they once were those many years ago. And, no matter what, computer simulated flight simulation is going to require some investment, is never going to be easily accessible to those who don't have discretionary luxury spending, payment method notwithstanding. I've not seen anything of interest past beloved FSX that I still occasionally enjoy. Sure, there were, at first, some real high hopes for P3D and that it would "replace" FSX and become just as popular and widely supported. And there's a small and loyal group there, but its legal and marketing limitations keep it in its small place. Microsoft's Flight - remember that one? - came and went. And the latest "sell now, fix later" MSFS doesn't appeal to me. I admire the aircraft models in X-Plane, but the Saint Austin cult of personality always creeped me out, and its scenery limitations were too long ignored by its divine creator. No, I must agree, the peak has passed, for me anyway, so I can easily understand why flightsim sales and interest are observed to be in slow decline, especially as we dinosaurs slowly go extinct and eventually make our last flights. Hopefully, in our favorite planes. :D


I may have to admit that a generation of old flight sims may be gone soon, and indeed the peak is far gone, but really doubt if the end is near for FSX or even FS2004 any time soon. Yeah, it's almost 15 years old, older than the first Modern Warfare and all, but still a newer generation still does keep that interest up there.
If you are unable to fly an aircraft, become the aircraft
-the guy who came with concept of a wing suit, perhaps
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Re: The wider commuity

Postby pete » Sun Jul 31, 2022 3:12 am

Very interesting posts. It is a fact that the traditional flight sims are not as popular as they once were and development has indeed focused more on MSFS2020. But .... avsim for example seems to do very well with FS2004 files still, and simviation still has healthy download numbers for FSX/P3D.

Don't forget that FS2004, FSX and even FS98 and earlier - can be considered classic sims. Like anything classic - these will always have a following!

I like the quote 'buy now fix later' releases for MSFS2020! It's also very disappointing (and very odd) to see the 'exclusivity' aspect that microsoft/asobo has given to flightsim.to - meaning that the old true hobbyist community (meaning widespread development, free aircraft and scenery design tools, etc) is not anything like what it was or even gone completely. This underlines how little microsoft care about the sites that basically extended the lives of MSFS for more than 20 years, up to version 2020.

There may be a possibility of LM from bringing out a 64bit P3D - but if they did there may not be an affordable version.

So things are as they are. We will see what the future holds.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. – Leonardo da Vinci
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