[swdw]

Originally Posted by mrbeast

IMO the simulation is largely a dying genre I can remember about 10yrs ago when there was a new sim out every month. I'm not being nostalgic, many of those simulations were only so so but its an example how far the genre has fallen. Few devs and publishers bother.

It's very simple why this has happened- economics.

Hard core sims do not give a good return on the time it takes to develop them. The target market is small and has decreased. Tis why I uttered the "ultimate heresy".

Ya wanna have more sims - devs you need more money- so you have to broaden your market appeal- so you have to put in some arcade type play to broaden the appeal

Hard core simmers hollering to keep arcade type play out of the sims and publicly looking down their noses at those that just want to blow s**t up are killing their own genre. (Same thing is happening in model railroading because of the "rivet counters"). Ya gotta be like the old proverb that a willow tree bends with the wind in order to stay standing. As long as the user can choose between historically accurate or "fun" and it brings in money to keep the sims alive, why bemoan the approach.

Such a change is needed because many younger users think of games like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor as sims. So when they encounter a true sim where they can't go on a rampage, they lose interest. Yet through playing a simple version after a while, it leads some of them to want to play the game with historical settings. Now you're building the user base instead of losing it.