Understandably, the bug-reporting forum is limiting posts to bug-reporting, and this is widely reported already. For anyone looking to discuss the outage, resolution, workarounds, hopefully this is the appropriate place to have that discussion.
My $0.02…
Game or not, MSFS 2024 has likely sold over 2 million copies (correct me if a more concrete number is available), generating $200M–$300M in revenue since launch. It’s safe to assume that over 100,000 daily active users have been affected by the Career Mode outage, given it’s a core experience for most players.
Asobo has a development team of at least 100 people focused on Flight Simulator, with likely 20–30 developers assigned to Career Mode. Calling in a fraction of these developers to address a multi-day outage during a peak holiday period seems reasonable for a product with this scale of revenue, reputation, and global user base.
No, this isn’t critical infrastructure, but the standards of customer service for a $200 flagship product should reflect its importance to the paying community. Any professional IT organization managing a product of this magnitude would have set expectations for resolution and 4 days of silence is simply unacceptable.
I get that not everyone feels this outage impacts them deeply, but for those who planned their holidays around a game marketed as a premium experience, this is a legitimate disruption. Suggesting people ‘go for a walk’ doesn’t address the poor communication and lack of accountability here.
It was annoying to lose the VIP and SAR missions, as I was trying to save up for the PC-24. However, instead I’ve been working on licenses (1 to go) and unlocking specialisations, quite enjoying firefighting with the Air Tractor.
I was so disappointed as just before the glitch I bought the vision plane for VIP and sold my cargo plane in order to buy the vision.
Now have to do employee misions in order to raise money.
Gutted that I cannot do freelancer missions.
I did the opposite. Sold my vision jet too early to see if buying the 208 cargo would fix things. Now I have a broken 208, no vision jet, and no way to fly missions to pay for the needed repairs on the new (used) 208
What annoys me most in career mode is that 90% of the missions don’t fit the runways. I’m supposed to land on a 300m runway with a Pilatus. Then I’m supposed to climb to 30,000ft with a Cessna 172. What nonsense. Then the enter key doesn’t work on some missions, so you have to enter the runway without takeoff permission and end up with deductions. You should get the right missions for the right aircraft. Heavy cargo transport doesn’t even exist yet and I bought the Saab 340 especially for 11 million. So career mode isn’t fun like that, nothing fits.
I will disagree with you and explain why.
When I started playing I was a total noob. This is my first flight simulator and I bought it only because of the career mode. I was relaying on all the assistances and stuff because I felt overwhelmed. But with time things got better as I learned and got experience in both this game and general knowledge about flying.
I rarely rely on Enter now, I prefer to use ATC menu. I always check departure and arrival airports if they fit my planes nearby. I remember about my planes’ constraints (either regular or due to bugs) so I check things like flight level in EFB.
I think that at least for me career mode was more of a slow intro to the flying world and because now I pay attention to things I didn’t even know existed makes me feel good. To the point that I decided to do PPL in real life (assuming I pass medicals, I am 44).
PS: I am a software developer, bugs don’t annoy me that much when there are workarounds
This situation makes me really worried with this title. What did they expect ? The devs took 3 days to make the game playable on the launch and now they simply destroy career mode in the holidays. The non-sense is so intense that I would not spend any time with these guys again.
Bye career mode and fs2024.
I’ve tried a refund but it was denied, but I will try again since the product they sell does not work as expected, even after weeks of launch.
Who knows when is the next outage !!
It is the lack of public statements and deletion of discussion threads that have really turned what should have been a very temporary outage, into a rage induced feeling that we have all been defrauded of a Simulation Products stated features at launch. And that the management team have learned nothing since “Day 0”.
I looked at Xplane 12 for the first time last night. Might be time to head that way. Revisit Microsoft Flight Simulator when a few major bugs/features have been resolved and it isn’t such a Pre-ALPHA playtest level product.
The communication is a complete disgrace and treating the paying community with contempt.
They are on holidays but unless they are in the Amazon without wifi they can get on their phones and post something, instead of leaving us in the dark. Jorge should lead and have done this a long time ago
This reminds me a lot of SimCity 2013. Hopefully it is just deja vu and does not end with the same outcome (an irretrievable mess). However, both games were traditionally singleplayer experiences (going back decades) which forced always online connectivity in the latest iteration.
I said some of this on the other thread but it was hidden / removed for being off topic of a “Bug Report” but any other software corporation that has a global outage for a full week on a $130+ USD software product will offer partial/full refunds, gestures of goodwill, and in-store credits for future products.
The lack of even a formal acknowledgement that something is broken is wildly concerning. And if @streamfire 's sentiments above are true, that management is limiting any external comms about anything related to the game, it shows the situation is much more grave than “ope, missions broke”. And that there is little to no concern about the users, followers, or community.
At the end of the day, software is still largely written by imperfect humans, and things go wrong. That is unavoidable. But had we gotten a heartfelt “We’re sorry, we messed up. We know you all were looking forward to this and we are trying hard to fix it. We’ll keep you updated along the way”, I’m sure all of us would have been more considerate.
Now, going on 6 days later and absolute radio silence on one of the largest possible outages the game could experience and they have dug themselves into an unnecessary and extremely damaging position. Don’t bite the very hands that feed you.
I’m looking forward to how valuable Asobo / MS believe our time and disruption is worth as they try to clean up and make up for this mess.
It’s not surprising it’s the suits that are behind the radio silence. I would bet it was also them that pushed for the release of the game in such a bad state.
If you’re still talking to him ask him if they have a roadmap about fixing the game .
