Dovetail Cancel Flight Sim World

Vern1961

Vern1961

Vern1961

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https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/flight-sim-world-closure-announcement.4514/

A kick in the teeth for those who bought into early access as apparently no refund forthcoming. I already tried - twice - but just got knocked back with the standard Steam rejection about owning and playing the game longer than the standard period, no consideration of the circumstances.

Only 20 quid, but at the end of the day if you paid a builder to work on your house and he only finished half the job before walking off and still working elsewhere it would be called fraud and the guy would be in court. But because it's software everything gets tucked behind EULA's and T&C's. Quite amazing viewing the flight sim forums the number of people defending Dovetail - talk about Stockholm syndrome! Guys, these people took your money then ganked you!

Will be a long time before I think about buying another DTG product and it makes me ultra cautious about paying for early access on anything.
 
Is it normal for developers to keep kickstarter money if the project flops ? seems mad to me, I guess the argument is they still had to pay the devs whilst they were working.

Seems like a perfect model for scamming...
 
insideline said:
Is it normal for developers to keep kickstarter money if the project flops ? seems mad to me, I guess the argument is they still had to pay the devs whilst they were working.

Seems like a perfect model for scamming...
Click to expand...


Reasons like the above I'll never go for beta again, or kickstarter etc.
 
This is the risk you run when you back kickstarter/ early access. There have been a number of examples of this so I'm not sure why you are surprised. If you don't want to get stung then don't back a EA project.
 
Didn't Frontier Developments eventually concede over Elite Dangerous though and rebate backers when they pulled the plug on having full off-line single player game?

In any event, to me there is a difference between KS where you are gambling on an idea and early access where the concept is proven and they sell it on the basis of community feedback to finish the product off. The rub here is that Dovetail are still trading selling their train sim and fishing stuff but have pocketed the £100,000's they must have had from those who bought into the EA for FSW.

As I said, only in the wonderful world of software does this situation seem to pertain and most people know you can't push Steam too far on it as you risk getting blacked and losing access to all your games.
 
And still the mugs queue up for early access and kick-starter, waiting for the golden eggs to fall from the backside of the giant's chicken.

A fool and his money and all that...
 
The games I've backed its been part of the agreement when backing them that it might not result in a fully released product or the product you were hoping for - if you are going to back games it is part of the risk you take.

So far though the games I've backed such as Elite Dangerous have been released in some form or other. I've not actually played much ED though as I was personally hoping for a more accessible scope of the game as well as the ability to play it more hardcore/sim style as I don't have the patiences these days to spend a lot of time getting to grips with basic game mechanics or investing a lot of time to deal with sim like functionality to do basic things.
 
MikeTheNative said:
I don't do early access or kickstarter
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Same here. I refuse to be mugged off by this latest fad of getting people to pay to alpha/beta test games. I bet devs these days can't believe just how gullible the gaming community has become as they laugh all the way to the bank. I remember the halcyon days of when beta testing was free and, more often than not, you got yourself a free copy of the game upon release.
 
Unfortunately, after many detailed discussions, we regrettably don’t see a clear direction that will allow us to keep to the development time we’d want, alongside the player numbers we need.
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That reads to me like not enough players to make it financially viable.

What was a niche yet lively market in 2005 is not what it once was.

What was needed was serious investment to get it made and shipped out the door and see what could be made of it.
 
Gimpymoo said:
That reads to me like not enough players to make it financially viable.

What was a niche yet lively market in 2005 is not what it once was.

What was needed was serious investment to get it made and shipped out the door and see what could be made of it.
Click to expand...

A lot of the continued popularity of FSX (and now Prepar3D) was thanks to third-party developers. Dovetail wanted a (big) piece of that and didn't seem willing to open up the platform enough for some of the more complex devs, and so most third-party developers said no, which led to a lack of interest from a good portion of the flight sim communities.
 
MikeTheNative said:
I don't do early access or kickstarter any more not till the last game I backed is released, Star Citizen................... so probably never. :p
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So Star Citizen scared you for the rest of your life? :p

insideline said:
Is it normal for developers to keep kickstarter money if the project flops ? seems mad to me, I guess the argument is they still had to pay the devs whilst they were working.

Seems like a perfect model for scamming...
Click to expand...

Star Citizen....
 
insideline said:
Is it normal for developers to keep kickstarter money if the project flops ? seems mad to me,
Seems like a perfect model for scamming...
Click to expand...

It seems that is the case, made doubly worse when the company is still otherwise trading and the cancellation is entirely down to streamlining their business model, but hey-ho we'll be keeping your money folks!

There's a few discussions on the Flight Sim forums where I have been quite surprised at the number of people defending Dovetail and the "no refund" policy. As I said earlier, Stockholm Syndrome especially when it comes to developers of simulation software!
 
Gimpymoo said:
That reads to me like not enough players to make it financially viable.

What was a niche yet lively market in 2005 is not what it once was.

What was needed was serious investment to get it made and shipped out the door and see what could be made of it.
Click to expand...


I haven't seen any evidence of decline in the serious flight sim community, and were that the case, then Dovetail ought to have done some market research before taking people's money.
 
I wonder how many sales of FSW there were compared to FSX:SE? The general flight sim world has been used for so long now, with open systems where 3rd parties can develop payware or freeware, the limited FSW was doomed, not to mention all the features they removed like big tube liners etc. It's half the game FSX was, being 64 bit was not enough. I bought Flight School so got FSW without further payment. I think Flight School clearly showed that Dovetail would drop FSW if it didn't work out.
 
It stays in your Steam library I assume? I always wanted OutRun but Sega pulled it after they lost the ferrari license :(

I don't have an issue with paying for and playing a alpha/testing game - i usually enjoy them more.
 
Being fair, I can see why they bailed.
If you haven't already got a good foot in the door, from an external viewpoint, seems to have some SERIOUS barriers to entry.
Think of a normal game development, and then the additional research required to make a genuine "sim". In the case of DCS, they own some warbirds, spend potentially man years researching aircraft systems and flight dynamics, hire ex pilots to verify that their models fly well. That's a whole bunch of costs that the developers of say PUBG are simply not faced with.

Then look at the competition, which right now appear to be Xplane, FSX (now P3D), IL2 and DCS. They all have years of working in what is clearly a niche market, and each of those groups will have already amassed a LOT of research to support their sims.

For all that, hard to be nice to the development group. After all, it's fairly obvious just how complex this area of the industry is and it should have been ringing bells well before they started asking potential customers for cash.
 
Only game I backed was Rust, which to date I have the most hours in of any game in my Steam.

It’s grown from strength to strength too.

I wouldn’t buy into EA unless I was happy with the game in its current state.
 
What happens to Flight Sim World if I already own it?
It will remain in your Steam library, available to play in its current format.

You bought what you saw, Can't say anything tbh.
 
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