Ubisoft exploited cheap labour for SH4 and SH5 by doing the development in Romania and got pretty much a cheap quality product out the door. Ubisoft Romania eventually got itself into producing more high quality software later on (Assasins Creed) but those early projects didnt go well for them.
A sim game requires a whole bunch of subject matter expertise, research and functionally involved coding. As opposed to a shooter which has wider appeal and more straightforward environments and objects.
What tends to happen is smaller studios decide to take the risk on, and appeal to things like the greater shelf life of a sim game as opposed to the often rapid loss of interest with this weeks current shooter game in a way to get a publisher. Usually the publisher screw them over on dates, and the smaller studio wanting to establish itself accepts unrealistic publisher terms.
So increasing you find titles like SH5 and IL2 Cliffs of Dover failing miserably with unstable and buggy outcomes.
I dont mind the freemium model and I dont mind spending here and there on my gaming....Each of my graphics cards was over a thousand dollars....As opposed to other hobbies one might do like motorsport or sailing yachts this is pretty cheap.
My concern isnt the fremium model, its the loss of high quality, robust and detailed simulation games.
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