With the predicted closure of FSW, it must be apparent to management at DTG that they have a fundamental massive problem with their company culture and business model. One of two things is about to happen. Either Paul Jackson is going to realize that he's not as smart as he thought he was, and he'll allow DTG to change, or, it's only a matter of time before DTG closes down TSW and TS also (the fishing sim died a long time ago). With DTG's massive overhead, there's no way they can continue on as they've been doing. It's clear the era of half baked releases and money grabs are over. DTG had better really start polishing up TSW and smashing bugs NOW. The only way they can be successful in any form is to: 1) Listen to customer feedback. DTG needs to realize what THEY want doesnt matter. It's what WE want. 2) Fix bugs BEFORE rolling out new content. Building on a sinking foundation is doomed to failure. 3) Be transparent about things and COMMUNICATE with the community. That doesnt mean popping on a forum every once in a while and saying "Thanks! We're looking at this issue" it means interacting with people in a GENUINE way EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Its by the way the second time FSW failed, first time with "Flight School" also removed from steam, then the renamed it to FSW. I hope they learn from that and change it in TSW, but I doubt it. And without editor and workshop TSW will fail too, the editor and workshop should be high priority now and of course bugfixing.
The thing that's always bothered me is that DTG seems to have a very big (undeserved) ego and they're clueless as to what makes their customers tick. The traction motor thing, for example. All of their behaviour indicates this (releasing it broken from day one, ignoring the problem, finally fessing up to it, "fixing it" which only compounded the problems, and now for almost 8 months "working hard" and "making progress" to fix it). Will it be fixed this time? If history is any indication, it's not likely. Despite all of the feedback from customers, they dont realize the importance of accuracy. Most of us would gladly wait twice as long for a release if it was polished and fully functional when released. And they'd develop a good reputation and sell way more copies in the end. Each time, it's like they say to themselves, "Oh this is just a choo choo game, people wont care, that's good enough" when in reality, train sim customers are one of the most passionate (read: picky and well informed) groups out there. I get the impression the company doesnt really have a passion for trains, otherwise many of the bugs never would even exist. MU hoses on locos that are way too short, or broken completely wrong physics. These are blatantly obvious mistakes that even a casual railfan notices. And they dont seem to realize that they're not going to pull the wool over our eyes. If they cluelessly release a product touting realism and then completely botch the throttle physics, we're going to notice. I honestly wouldnt be surprised if this one throttle bug has limited TSW sales in a major way - maybe even prevented 30% or more of the sales? It's all anyone talks about when I bring TSW up. "Oh, isnt that the game with the broken throttle physics?" DTG has two black eyes right now...only time will tell if they are smart enough to change their approach.
I hope that this brings about change at DTG, that they start responding to our posts and giving us timely updates going forward. They can now take the staff that were working on FSW and move them into TSW and that should make things better.
Several other well known developers have posted that the vast majority of the FSW team have been let go, not reassigned. So it seems the company just got a lot smaller and the TSW team did not grow in any appreciable way.
It seems DTG have bitten off more than they can chew. I’ve said this before - they keep releasing buggy and incomplete DLC which they are full aware of before it is released on Steam. Every new release they bring out the bigger the bug list gets and they are quite simply overwhelmed with it all. The amount of bugs is growing faster than what can be fixed and this is why it is taking longer for bug fixes to be released. It seems the days of releasing broken and incomplete DLC, as well as having the attitude of ‘oh we can make money from this and fix everything later, or just brush it under the carpet’ are over and this was reflected in the decline of FSW.
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/regarding-flight-sim-world.4515/ It does appear that Jay's forum account is now gone.
DTG really needs to improve its communication with players. DTG needs to reply to our comments more often and should revive the dev diaries. If they don't do this, they will lose customers and TSW will be cancelled like FSW.
I was just contacted privately and informed things are worse than they appear on the surface for DTG. I would not be surprised if it's only a matter of time before TSW is also closed and with it DTG.
We are hoping for better communication with the players in the forum, it's sad to see the Jay is no more. But maybe it's time for change in people and have people who will watch and respond to the posts in the forum. Then provide us with info we deserve to get in a timely manor.
We can only hope that nothing worse will happen it would definitely be a sad day if things were to get any worse than they already are.
You're right, who knows whats REALLY happening. But at this point it's far more likely something bad is happening than everything is smelling like roses over at DTG. I believe the PM I got - it seemed like the guy was an ex-employee based on his knowledge.
I was asked not to share specifics. But he? said that things would become clear in a short time from now.
Joined the forum today; has mysterious insider information from DTG. You say it was a PM so just point to the account.
https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/tsw-northeast-corridor-new-york-update.4222/#post-27341 Yeah, he also said Jay was fired when he was just on his Easter holidays. He doesn't work for DTG.
Just to set the record straight since now my name is being shared from a private conversation.......I do not and have never worked for DTG. I was simply sharing some dialogue that has been batted around these forums, twitch, and Discord so a new member would be oriented. There have been concerns about the future of DTG for some time now. PMDG (http://www.theskylounge.tv/topic/10361-pmdg-statement-on-the-closure-of-fsw/) and Aerosoft (http://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php...flight-sim-world/&tab=comments#comment-875709) have both shared their views, as have many others, that the organization is in turmoil due to poor business practices. That's what I told Mark3. Jenks
I’d guess that the most likely reason for the demise of FSW is the general performance results of DTG. DTG have at least one investor, Alcuin Capital Partners, a private equity firm. In reality a company like that is focused on their return on their investment rather than whether the new Pendolino makes the right noises on braking. They may even have performance targets in place that DTG have to respond to. If the financial return isn’t what they believe is adequate (or in line with the digital games business) one of the ‘solutions’ is cutting back spend. If FSW was a drag on the financials and or the development was proving to be more expensive than planned then it would be an obvious target. Glassdoor is a very interesting site that people post reviews about what it is like to work at companies. The DTG postings show that a) staff were under pressure to get stuff out of the door and b) that management and project management generally aren’t loved and respected. Now that’s not unique but for DTG to make progress there are clearly issues they need to sort out.
And what give a positive return on investment is good sales, and what gives good sales is whether the new Pendolino makes the right noises on braking. It may seem trivial even to those in Management at DTG, but that's the very heart of the problem. When your only job is to make simulators, your whole world needs to revolve around making trivial things accurate. Or...you fail.
That depends on how much it costs to make Pendolino make right noises on braking, and how many people would actually be bothered if it doesn't.
I just read the Glassdoor reviews. Yikes! Now I actually feel bad for the employees at DTG. They sound like talented people being handicapped by a greedy and clueless management staff. It wont be long before they push all the talent out with that kind of attitude. And maybe THATS why it's taking years for them to solve the throttle problem. They cant hold on to skilled employees.
Alternatively, maybe if they cant record the right sounds (dont have access or whatever) maybe that should be a clue to them NOT to do that model yet. For example, instead of releasing CSX Heavy Haul as the first product, they could have focused on UK based trains for a while to build up their capital so they CAN afford to travel and get the right sounds on bigger products later. I've always focused on the low hanging fruit first, and once I get nourished, I go for the bigger stuff. lol.
That is a phrase to mean you do the attainable first, and then move on to more difficult things. Not start with a really tough challenge and become hopelessly overwhelmed.
Sorry to break the fun here but after playing the scenario ‘Drag Line’ which has acceptable amounts of A.I traffic in, does anyone know why we don’t get this amount of traffic in service mode? In service mode, there is a lot less A.I traffic making this feel much less realistic and is somewhat boring. The extra traffic does not affect my frame rate as playing the scenario resulted in acceptable performance. So what’s the reason? Could DTG not get enough time or couldn’t be bothered to add in more services?
This is the real timetable, boring or not, for trains that were released along with GWE addon. Service timetable should get more packed over time with new DLCs being released.
Yeah; as Jef said that timetable is actually pretty realistic for the time period. At least as far as the Class 166 and Class 43 are concerned. What's missing is every other train that runs on that portion of the GWML. Like the Class 165, Heathrow Express, Heathrow Connect and so on.
Looks like after Trainsim-Jay is gone this forum is now community only and we don't see any replies from DTG here in the future.
Yes. It is all crickets now. Absolutely no DTG activity at all. I'm concerned about the fate of the company. Matt or Steve - can we get an update?
I agree things have gone extremely quite, and that is usually not a good sign. Hoping that I am wrong and that things are okay but until someone from DTG starts replying to the posts it is any ones guess as to what is going on.
Matt's official statement's already been posted saying in essence saying "Don't worry about FSW, all is fine here in TSW land". My guess is that DTG is hoping we'll just talk ourselves to a stop and get distracted by the latest announcement/teaser/ beta. I think that's a misguided hope but DTG have shown in the past their thought processes tend not to mirror those of the punters here.
So in the scenarios, where does all the extra traffic come from compared to service mode if it is based off a real-life timetable? Are these just extra services to make it look busier?