What Microsoft Flight can teach us about Silent Hunter online.

0rpheus · 08-21-12, 01:21 PM

I think his point was more that Flight demonstrated what happens when you attempt to 'retarget' an existing hardcore franchise towards a more casual model - and in that respect I think he's spot on.

The reaction to SHO from most of the subsimmers I know (both here and elsewhere) has been pretty poor, meaning there's a good chance it won't take off with the 'sim' community. But it's the sim community that makes these games a success, and in that respect Flight is a good example - it veered away from its base, simplified the flight model and left most of the people who're into flight sims with a sour taste in their mouth.

If it turns out that there's little or no interest from the 'casual' gamer, then your product is basically boned - you've alienated your hardcore, long term fans, but failed to replace them with new ones - and so the whole thing falls on its arse.

Flight didn't sell well enough and was canned early to prevent any further losses. I'm a flight sim fan, but after reading about it, I didn't fancy it - purely because it's 'dumbed down'. I'll take DCS A-10 over an arcade sim every time, and the recent success of Dark Souls and the forthcoming DOTA2 are indicative of a trend (back) towards greater difficulty and player challenge, as the sub-AAA developers begin to realise that complex systems aren't as off-putting as the marketing chumps thought. People love learning.

Forcing previously complex franchises (especially sims, of any kind) into a more 'casual' mindset is an easy road - to failure.

08-21-12, 01:21 PM	#3
0rpheus Grey Wolf Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: UK Posts: 857 Downloads: 87 Uploads: 3	I think his point was more that Flight demonstrated what happens when you attempt to 'retarget' an existing hardcore franchise towards a more casual model - and in that respect I think he's spot on. The reaction to SHO from most of the subsimmers I know (both here and elsewhere) has been pretty poor, meaning there's a good chance it won't take off with the 'sim' community. But it's the sim community that makes these games a success, and in that respect Flight is a good example - it veered away from its base, simplified the flight model and left most of the people who're into flight sims with a sour taste in their mouth. If it turns out that there's little or no interest from the 'casual' gamer, then your product is basically boned - you've alienated your hardcore, long term fans, but failed to replace them with new ones - and so the whole thing falls on its arse. Flight didn't sell well enough and was canned early to prevent any further losses. I'm a flight sim fan, but after reading about it, I didn't fancy it - purely because it's 'dumbed down'. I'll take DCS A-10 over an arcade sim every time, and the recent success of Dark Souls and the forthcoming DOTA2 are indicative of a trend (back) towards greater difficulty and player challenge, as the sub-AAA developers begin to realise that complex systems aren't as off-putting as the marketing chumps thought. People love learning. Forcing previously complex franchises (especially sims, of any kind) into a more 'casual' mindset is an easy road - to failure.