MSFS 2024 Questions That Need Answering
It is clear that the MSFS 2024 launch is an unmitigated disaster; ‘Overwhelming Negative’ on steam does not lie, together with negative headlines at places like Tom’s Hardware and in all sorts of gaming and business outlets.
We understand that this is a large and complex game. We also know, however, that there is not an independent publisher for this game and that there is a large team of developers and an enormous development budget. So out of respect for the millions of loyal customers have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars on a product that clearly doesn’t work, we need the following questions to be answered:-
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Why was the server load test carried out with 200,000 simulated users? This is less than 2% of the MSFS 2020 userbase. Did you honestly think that 98% of your customers would be uninterested in your new product on launch day? That was a staggering miscalculation that seems to be completely inexplicable.
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It was obvious from the Tech Alpha that there were many issues around plane control and graphical glitches (plenty of screenshots of those in the complaint threads if you doubt me) and it is clear that these are still present now. Why were these not fixed ahead of the full launch?
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Why was there no staggered release, e.g. at 8am in each separate time zone, to ease server load problems?
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Why was the game released without the marketplace functionality? We are told of a problem being discovered “late” about incompatibility of some third-party addons. These are not new addons, so why were they only being tested so late?
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Given that it was clearly apparent in streaming previews that there were serious problems and that the game had not been finished, why was the release not delayed until it had actually been completed? Why go ahead and release an unfinished buggy mess with inadequate server support and seriously damage your reputation and your customer goodwill?
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When can we expect the game to be reliably functional, i.e. to be able to login every time we try, not just at some times of day or if we happen to get lucky and for it to work properly when we do?
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Finally, what will you do to recover the goodwill of users who have paid substantial sums of money only to be given a dysfunctional substandard mess? We’re talking free planes, refunds etc. here, not just fixing the mess that should not have occurred in the first place. You need to give serious thought to this; if you think if/when it’s finally working people will just forgive and forget you are making another miscalculation.
These are not rhetorical questions, they require actual answers from MS/Asobo.