British Developer Done Good

Gimpymoo · 17 Nov 2010 at 10:51

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-11747076

BBC News said:
12 November 2010

A virtual train set produced by a Chatham company has made it into the top 10 most downloaded games in the world by selling 40,000 copies since it was launched in October.

Players of Railworks2 simulator can select a variety of railway tracks across the world, and choose which locomotives they want to run on the lines.

According to the firm RailSimulator.com, which also has development offices in Guildford, there are serious commercial uses for the game too.

Director Paul Jackman said: "With the help of the Scottish government we modelled the Glasgow airport rail link, now unfortunately in real life they've had to cancel that, but you can still drive their vision in our simulation."

People may knock the franchise but if it is making money and supporting the business, fair play to them.

They have done better than Realtime Worlds anyway

FoxEye · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:03

I'd be interested in a game where you get to build a rail network, sort of like Brunel did years ago

But not so much driving trains.

arknor · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:23

is this the trainset game where if you bought everything it would cost an obscene ammount of money?

TheMightyTen · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:25

FoxEye said:
I'd be interested in a game where you get to build a rail network, sort of like Brunel did years ago But not so much driving trains.

Transport Tycoon is what you want, OpenTTD is free and excellent, it may look ever so dated but it is a deep and engrosing game.

platypus · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:31

arknor said:
is this the trainset game where if you bought everything it would cost an obscene ammount of money?

Aye, all the addons are fantastically expensive when added up: £601.

Cooper · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:34

platypus said:
Aye, all the addons are fantastically expensive when added up: £601.

I doubt its expensive to the targeted demographic who this simulator is aimed at....

Educated professionals who sit comfortably in or near the high earners tax bracket...

Gimpymoo · 17 Nov 2010 at 11:35

It is a sandbox though so you pick and choose what you want to best suit what you are trying to achieve.

I would rather have a large choice than only a few.

arknor · 17 Nov 2010 at 12:53

but its the kinda of crap modders can knock up in a few hours given the right tools which i doubt are made available by the devs...

Baboonanza · 17 Nov 2010 at 13:16

I'm highly dubious of that claim. There is no way on earth that 40,000 sales in a month puts them in the 'top 10 most downloaded games on earth'.

They are only able to make that claim because very few people, notably Steam, doesn't release their download only sales figures.

Dj_Jestar · 17 Nov 2010 at 13:32

I bought this game when it came out (Railworks [1]). It was only a tenner or something. I've not felt the need to buy any of the extensions.

You get a map editor, so you can build any network you like - just be warned it will take you a while though.

There's a number of scenarios that come with it already. They also upgraded it for free (to Railworks 2) which doubled the number of scenarios and train models included for free. (now ~30 scenarios, and ~20 train models.)

It is also quite literally a Train Simulator, so most will be bored witless.