A game for gamers

[CptLucky8]

@SofaJockey

It’s also a flight simulator for amateurs.

Why is any of this contested?

@somethingbrite

As I understand it this was the original pitch to MS and it seems that it’s also the aspect that continues to get the greatest development attention. - they don’t appear to have got much beyond that original proof of concept either as a game OR as a sim.

@Maki152

It seems you have a main focus on using MSFS in a way that is different from others (the majority actually).

@DestructZero915

Like it or not, MSAsobo will continue to focus to some extent on the “casual gamer” and those of us who care about the planes we fly are simply in the way.

There has been a discussion lately about this very subject in a topic for the next Q&A. Here are some possible explanations.

@CptLucky8

@neil03113500

So I tend to think those who are “losing patience” are the kids for whom this is a passing fad, or the wannabe airline pilots who think they’re a captain and have tweaked the ■■■■ out of the app to try and live out that fantasy.

I could be wrong, but this seems like the classic 80/20 scenario. 80% of issues are experienced by 20% of users who make 80% of the noise.

You might be right, you might be wrong, everything is possible indeed.

Most of the people voicing their issues in this topic for the last few days though, has less to do with the game failing to deliver what it is coded for (i.e. bugs), it is more about the title not living up to the expectation they marketed it for (i.e. flight simulation). These are two different subjects in my opinion which are easily mixed.

This has been discussed in different topics, but I believe what @aracines is referring to is this (follow the links from this post): Why do Microsoft/Asobo not appear as exhibitors on this year’s FSExpo in San Diego? - Community / Dev Q&A: In Review - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

PS: I’m copying the full posts below for the sake of having it all in one place:

---

@cptlucky8

@pmb2019

But didn’t they state emphasis is on “simulator” (or similar, perhaps someone has the exact wording yet) in one of the first announcements?

I believe this might be what you’re referring to (re: first announcements):

This was mentioned twice in the following topic with references, among other things, to these quotes:

1. “DO NOT MAKE THIS A FRANCHISE THAT WILL COME AND GO”
   https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/why-is-the-team-releasing-reno-air-races-and-top-gun-while-the-top-voted-bugs-are-a-year-old/445813/79?u=cptlucky8

2. “We got to get this right with you guys first, and by you guys I mean the people that really have been propping up this thing for the past 35 years”
   https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/why-is-the-team-releasing-reno-air-races-and-top-gun-while-the-top-voted-bugs-are-a-year-old/445813/108?u=cptlucky8

There are lots of other comments about all this in this other topic too.

---

@Viralwhite

I’ll say it again for those in the back. Microsoft/Asobo needs to remember the promise they made to the community in 2019 when they were all sitting on their chairs and answering questions at the global premier event. I agree with the OP. Stop releasing add-ons and lets work on fixing what’s broken first. Atleast the big ticket items. I’ve been a flight sim user for 20+ years and I think they have a ton of potential, but they need to reprioritize and shift their focus back to the “simmers”.

I’m going to quote a comment in this video… “DO NOT MAKE THIS A FRANCHISE THAT WILL COME AND GO”

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cGQp06v8qTk

---

[quote="CptLucky8, post:49, topic:439972]

@EvidencePlz

To be fair though, and imo, Microsoft have not done and are not doing anything wrong. They are not selling it as a ‘flight’ simulator. In the store description and many other places, they clearly state it’s an entertainment video game that is now available on their console video game platform. So perhaps it is us ‘flight’ sim customers who made a mistake thinking MSFS 2020 will be as good of a ‘flight’ simulator as XP11, p3d and DCS? I don’t know anymore.

This doesn’t sound the same as what they sold us back then.

Go to 15:32 if the link didn’t automatically take you there:

“We got to get this right with you guys first, and by you guys I mean the people that really have been propping up this thing for the past 35 years”

Developers Q&A • Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020

@MSFSRonS

Instead of trying to prove a negative, why not try to prove what those of us have that is positive.

In retrospect “get this right with you guys first” can have a different meaning: “When enough licenses are sold to simmers in order to sustain financing the additional year of development needed for Xbox, then Market Place sales will be 20x more on Xbox than PC and we’re good for 10 years.”

Nothing really wrong with this, but to stay on the topic, and on focus, this raises the question of what direction the game will take if 20x more Xbox users concerns are different than 20x less PC users. I’m not saying here something about gamers vs simmers, but to illustrate:

• How many Xbox users are concerned with multi-screen so that it finally gets supported?
• How many Xbox users are caring about slandering a “vendor propping this things for the past 20 years” ?
• How many Xbox users are caring about more serious VR support?

Nothing wrong with the Xbox in itself, but if this is so huge a success, and given the limited resources available, the game can only be focusing for the largest population using the game, an in this case, it is not a question of gamers and simmers (although it could), but I have a strong feeling from the initial Xbox feedback it will be a question of how you use the game and for what reasons. This can be diverging greatly from the traditional “simmers” usage scope (offering in-game purpose in the form of missions which is good in my opinion, instead of letting people learning on their own). But on the other hand, for the last 20 years I’ve been contributing to building this industry, the goal year after year was making the simulation closer to reality from an operational standpoint, not just a visual standpoint. With FS2020 I can’t help seeing, just taking the avionics as an example, a decline in fidelity to the point what you do on the game is no longer equivalent to what you’d do IRL sometimes.

[/quote]

PS: In case it is misinterpreted, the above is only constructive criticism. I do like the game for what it’s worth, and I do entertain myself with it in VR from time to time. However this doesn’t mean one can’t see its faults and communicate about those either, unless believing those will automagically resolve by themselves.