I think you’d still run into the same issue you have now, making built up areas is just taxing & if anything compressing them further would make it worse. Imagine B2C compressing all 3 cities into half the length, I’m not sure it would do any favours considering how tile loading works. You then have the dispute ETS has always had, the game starts to feel like a toll booth simulator because as soon as you leave one city you’re ontop of the next, which then leads to next issue of cities don’t feel like cities as they consist of a couple of main roads. They of course aren’t 1:1 comparisons that a prospective rail simulator would need to worry about, but I think they’re factors which would still be a relative issue. It’s definitely something that could work, but I think it only works at a large scale, TSW can’t really make 100+ mile routes work now & the ones that do exist tend to avoid major cities, I think many would just prefer to have 70ish mile runs from a major terminus to a regional hub.
It would be impossible to represent big stations with such a scale down factor. Not the station platforms themseves but the switches on the approach would take up a too large of a distance to be able to condense a route. In ETS the depots can be literally to 1-1 scale, and as far as I know even within city limits the scale is a tad larger so its not a constant scale shrink of the world. And in such a title great liberties will be taken in terms of realism of scenery, you might get a few landmarks but nothing that looks like the actual place. Overall good idea, but not for a sim of train driving, more for a transportation sim/train driver life sim. Oh wait I just described something that already exists: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1330660/Train_Life_A_Railway_Simulator/. It had an earth shattering peak player count of 400, which is less than the concurrent players of TSW6 by itself in the middle of the day in Europe. Most likely reason for that is that the game is garbage, and simply the idea is not something that catches. ETS2 built on top of a decade legacy of 18 Wheels of Steel games much the way the TSW franchise is. Doubtful that a new entry to market can hit like a big bang, unless the budget and quality is of a triple A title. I much rather spend my time driving in TSW and enjoying scaled down worlds in something like Transport Fever, both filling in a niche that enough people enjoy to make a sustainable business for releasing sequels.
On a Christmas LiveStream a couple of years ago the SCS CEO said they had looked into trains, and boats as potential additions to their successful ETS and ATS games, but decided on both accounts that the market was too small and niche for them and (at the time) games like Train Simulator Classic had a strong dominant position.
Indeed, the same points that have been touched on when this was previously discussed. And of course with ETS2 and ATS the change of scale between the open country and built up areas mean it can take nearly as long to pass through a town or city as travelling to the next one. And while later maps did a better job of towns resembling how they appear IRL, many still just appear as a generic cluster of buildings and delivery locations.
Sony introduced a beta programm last year, so players can test games. I don't know how easy it is for developers to get their games on there, and how easily they can decide who has access and who not. It's also meant to be for early access, so I guess that's how reviewers get early access to TSW and DLC. However, Dovetail seems to port the DLC to consoles themselves, so that's why 3rd developers do not test their DLC on console in advance. It looks like, it's the easier to test the DLC on Xbox then on PS, as Firefly stated they tested a lot on Xbox.
The end result though is that whatever Firefly did with testing, should be the standard. I have some pretty strong feelings about the PS5 sound problem though, if Firefly ever do a loco DLC or a route that has a star of the show train & the issue repeats, it’s going to be a massive problem IMO. That aside, even disregarding the extremely high quality of the route itself, the technical quality is a huge leap for TSW.
Not to speak on behalf of Firefly but I've heard good news about the PS5 sound issues, they seem to have made a breakthrough and hopefully it's not too much longer now until a hotfix
Agreed, they did a pretty good job there. They didn't rush it out of the door and did test the DLC themselves.
I did have more confidence in the Firefly team hearing about who was on the team and how prominent they've been in the community. And you're right with the standards they've reached I think it's definitely set the bar higher for all releases going forwards. It's just whether third party's and DTG will sit in their comfort zone or push the boat out a little. I think with regards to the unfortunate sound issues once they sort this one out you'd hope that it can be learnt from and checked going forwards.
Sadly, former DTG Community Manager Nat has been affected by the recent events of job loss at DTG. This is saddening, I remember Nat was a fantastic community manager from 2021 - 2022 This is just rough speculation but, This is significant, as far as I’m aware, Nat wasn’t a part of Metro Rivals in its development?, so this could suggest the problem with jobs being lost could be greater than we originally thought. The situation at DTG must be BAD and my sympathies go out to all affected.
Could be a sad future for TSW… which I really hope doesn’t happen… I really want to see TSW have years and years of content and support…
Seeing DTG staff members slowly get wiped out over this situation is really worrying, I’m gonna be honest. this is having a really negative impact, not only on this games future, but also the livelihoods of individuals and people who have worked on it. I never like to assume the worst. But this is bad
Ah man, Nat was easily one of the better community team members TSW had, huge loss for DTG IMO. That being said, looking at what she’s described, she’s really risen up from just a community manager role, so hopefully she’ll have no issue landing a decent role.
Looks like Nat and some others are currently in the 1st phase of the redundancy process where an employer has to put affected staff on notice of a consultation process where alternative options are discussed with each employee. The problem for those who've risen-up the corporate ladder is that there are usually fewer alternative options within the company higher up. I hope Nat is snapped-up by another developer, I hope everyone involved in the consultation ends up in a better situation soon. Having been through the process myself, it can sometimes be a good thing if you can find work quickly so that the redundancy money can go on something nice. Back in 2014 I was lucky to start a new job when my gardening leave ended which meant my severance pay paid a bit of the mortgage off and allowed us a holiday of a lifetime in the Caribbean.
Venture capitalists with big debts to service fully own DTG. They only really want revenue now and nothing that isn’t currently making money or is projected to do very well. It’s in their Q4 report. They’ve taken an axe to new and unfinished ventures. The gaming industry is facing huge challenges right now. Increased costs and a big drop in consumer spending. DTG will have been reduced to just TSW now.
Aye and i have zero empathy for those VCs, they were warned by gamers about pushing stuff nobody wanted, guess Karma came calling
The producer of MR does most likely not have a project anymore, so it's possible Natalie is afraid of that producer getting her job. It's not like she is fired atm, she is afraid her role is at risk. It's also not sure this is greater then MR, if you cancel a project you will have redundant jobs and a company has to choose who is staying and who is leaving. It's quite logical the company has to restructure the organization after canceling a game and it's to early for doom-mongering.
yes, and that's why I'm almost certain the order to suspend metro rivals development came from above they must have observed that there would be no market and/or interest for metro rivals nor any other project besides tsw therefore they gave the order to prioritize where the profit is (that is, tsw) this becomes evident in this specific part of the statement
Yeah I can’t tell if people are just being dramatic for the sake of it, or just naive. Companies don’t just keep staff on with nothing to do for the sake of it. DTG are done with CTS, Catan, TTE & MR. TSW has a dev team in place & they have what, over 5 community managers? I bet that number of CM’s gives AAA studios a run for their money in comparison.
Well, in general people can be dramatic or just not seeing signs and being naive. In this case I would say it's to early for being dramatic about DTG and TSW. Yes something happened why MR is cancelled, did they realize this project would not gonna be profitable or did they have issues with UE5, like other developers have? Lumen and Nanite are quite resource hungry, so good performance and good resolution are really a thing on console. But there where also enough signs, this game was not gonna be popular, so when the men in suits also did realize this in the end......
DTG really should remove their MR promotional from YouTube. It features four of their staff saying how wonderful and exciting it will be, and knowing some of them are now at risk of being made redundant is so sad.
Funny how some were calling the coming of Metro Rivals an ominous sign for the future of TSW, and now the suspension of MR is an ominous sign for the future of TSW.
Probably stuck in the QA/patch backlog! Anyhow I notice this thread has been quietly shuffled to the bottom of the board in the Off Topic section.
That's such a shame, honestly that community team of Sam, Nat and Jamie were just on another level. Nat was actually just so great to have on stream and on the forums. But as said the amount she's grown and pushed onwards and upwards I'm sure she'll find something great! If she was involved in WOS could this mean that it was a flop and could be pulled too?
and apparently we don’t get censored. turns out that whenever lots of people engage with something negative to do with dtg, they want to put a stop to it
I got a bit flamed in the WoS forum for having the temerity to suggest the game might not have been a success, given the relatively low number of concurrent players coming up on Steam DB. It certainly raises the question of whether it will become a one hit wonder or see further development. Obviously wish Nat (and all the other poor folk DTG just canned) all the best for the future.
I mean it’s hardly the sort of title you can make a ‘live service’ out of similar to TSC or TSW, not saying there isn’t scope for content but it’s hardly ever going to be a basis for steady output. The success of that game starts and ends with how much it costs to make & how much it gets back in sales.
It’s not been censored but moved out of the TSW general discussion subforum because MR is not TSW. Off Topic is the right subforum for it to be in. We can still post here. I’m doing it now… Hello everyone. And we can be as negative as we like about Metro Rivals and DTG here. If DTG wanted to get rid of everything negative said about them on this forum there would be about 10% of the posts there are. We are free to be as negative as we like as long as we aren’t breaking rules and being nasty to staff or each other. Tip… I use the “New Posts” link which makes all current conversations as visible as each other across all the forums. It’s the best way to use the forum for me. Off Topic is just as visible as anything else.
WoS is a product now, so if she was instrumental in the production of it (which seems the case) future DLC might not require such a high calibre person heading it up. Also with MR being canned its more than likely a number of staff are now surplus and DTG is going through the entire structure making decisions on who they retain for the future. Nat could be at a calibre where she competes with/and/or sits at the same level Matt does, the business may not be able to sustain numerous people of such high calibre.
I think they like to call it corporate restructuring, more likely YIKES!! our Bonuses are under threat we need to save money LOL
I think MR has completed its task, whether that be exploration of UE5 or tax write off, I don't know. It never seemed like a seriously fleshed out game to me. The Sodor game would probably be best assessed via console usage rather than PC.
Now I'm remembering that MR never even got its own subforum when it was announced, unlike Thomas, Catan, etc. which was remarked upon at the time. I wonder if that's a sign that DTG knew this was a more risky experiment, and so didn't put as many eggs in the basket to lose if it did get cancelled. Joining in the well wishes for Nat, although her post did express worry that she might be made redundant, not that she has been. I hope that the best that can happen for her, whether at DTG or elsewhere, is what does happen.
The big question is "What was Metro Rivals supposed to be?" - I mean was it an arcade game (it seemed like it was going for that type of gameplay) but what was the actual point of it? I'll be honest, I didn't care for it and haven't really sought out DTG's videos on the matter but from a pretty much outsider's view it seemed like some weird arcade game that takes place by racing subway trains. I feel bad that some folks are likely to lose their jobs over this of course, however I honestly think Metro Rivals was doomed to fail from the outset. DTG has a habit of misjudging things (look at the "season of reveals" ending with Thomas and the massive backlash to that) and Metro Rivals looks just like another one of those misguided things, who was it supposed to appeal to? Certainly not simmers but it'd struggle with the casual market... Personally I think their plan was to cancel the game, sink a load of money into learning the UE5 engine, maybe try and port a few things over from TSW in UE4 behind the scenes but then drop the whole hot potato and claim a tax-write off instead. I think the confirmation of this would be if TSW7 or TSW8 makes the leap over to UE5.
It will have been the tech testing and learning platform, which needed to be train based to test trains in UE5 but not a game that overlapped with the serious train sims, that then released to a largely different audience with the hope it could pay for some of that R&D work. It will have needed to release for some of the real world testing aims. Not a bad idea to maybe reach out to a new audience as well. It was seriously flawed as a concept though and without that testing side would not have passed the planning stage. Arcade racing games need vehicles you steer to make them exciting. The lack of steering is what makes train sims the niche product when compared to car games, bus games, truck games and flight sims. The racing element doubles the need for steering. It may have found a small audience but it would not have been a big hit. I don’t think it was expected to be a big hit. It was definitely meant to release though. There wouldn’t have been a plan to ditch it before release, that has come about due to current circumstances.
https://pullupent.com/en/ir/results-revenue There’s the report and webcast links on that page. In the webcast it mentions Train Sim World is strong, Wonders of Sodor did as well as expected, and also that several upcoming titles have been cancelled, and specifically mentions Metro Rivals. That info is in the Q&A section of the webcast.
As someone working in corporate finance/accounting, several things stood out to me in the financial statements: There is no way to disentangle DTG's numbers from the overall total for Pullup, so keep that in mind. "FY26 revenue was down 27.8% vs FY25", that's obviously not a great topline number. Without any expense figures provided, it's impossible to accurately calculate profitability at this point. They've revised "expected EBIT for 25/26 to be between 10-15M Euros". You'd have to look back to see what their historical averages for interest and taxes have been to get somewhat close to an actual profit number. More info will be provided on the FY25/26 earnings call scheduled for June 11th. The figures are provided for FY25/26 in comparison to FY24/25, and also FY22/23, but NOT FY23/24- this is strange to me- i would never just skip a year like that when preparing a financial statement. At least not without an explanatory note. Maybe it's a typo on the year? "With a robust cost discipline, and an even more selective approach to our projects...." corpospeak for layoffs and cancelled projects (we've already seen this for MR). And yet, even with them trying to get out ahead of things with cost-cutting: "Within this context, the previously communicated targets for 2026/27 are suspended" Absolutely blaring warning signal, folks. Investors HATE this cause they're essentially flying blind between now and when the revised targets come in almost two months from now. Should they pull out? Should they trust the board/CEO to turn it around? June 11th is gonna be a big day for TSW (good or bad) i think. Hoping it's good.
Pullup investor call to discuss earnings for FY25-26 is scheduled for after the market closes on June 11th. We'll then be able to see how profitable (or not) Pullup was for the year that just ended on March 31st. According the the revenue statement, management will also be providing revised FY26/27 revenue targets, and presumably will provide more details on cost savings (i.e. layoffs, cancellations) they've been able to achieve so far and others that have been identified but maybe not yet implemented. There tends to be a lot of corporate PR babble on these calls, but also a ton of good info cause lying to your investors (especially for a publicly traded company) is super illegal so they have to keep it within some truth guardrails. Tl;dr we'll know a lot more about the financial health of Pullup after June 11th. How that directly affects DTG and TSW specifcally remains to be seen, but we've already seen the MR cancellation come down very quickly. Hoping for the staff and players alike that it's not a painful restructuring.
The report does state that they’re working on “the next installment of Train Sim World”, so I guess that’s TSW7 (no surprise there, of course). Sounds like they’re going to be watching the pennies closely though, so I guess that’s a continued emphasis on new DLC and less on bug fixes. In short, business as usual. That’s my expectations set accordingly, anyhow Tough times ahead, I feel for the staff but couldn’t care less about the investors.
If you want the DTG accounts then take a look at Companies House. https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/SC451539 The annual accounts get published online towards the end of the calendar year (it depends how quick CH get through processing them) so the 25-26 financial years accounts won't be available for quite a few months. The 24-25 are however and look quite good at first glance, a pre-tax profit of £3.6 million which is an increase of £1.6 million on the year before, also the taxation is different to what I am used to as computer games/software has various reliefs that aviation doesn't.
Well technically they did focus less on new DLCs - They have produced so few stuff after TSW6 launch that I worry about the next title's Special Edition.
Safe to assume it will be a 50 to 60 mile modern UK route built by Rivet. Another 40 or 50 unremarkable interurban German route with mostly recycled DB red trains. Another NE USA commuter route that isn’t the NYC Subway everyone actually wants.
This is exactly what players of TSW have said they do not want. Procedural generation works in large masses of identical things or "randomized" assets. It doesn't work when you are expecting a specific recreation of a real life thing. Pretty much the opposite. Where would it work better? Island of Sodor. Which is probably where the loose team members would go if they aren't fired. That's the team they were trying to expand, not TSW.
Correct they did, although i believe the (god awful) Timetable for WCMLs was created by DTG in-house. Rivet have definately improved, Skyhook dropped off, DTG never cared.
