Dovetail Games Bought By Focus Entertainment

They cater to a still fairly niche market. So it is fairly impressive on that front. It's not exactly GTA fanbase.

 

I miss Westwood Studios and Bullfrog Games....
Thanks EA

 

Just some thoughts I’m having on this (or lack of understanding in all fairness)

seems the announcement of the sale of DTG seems quite “celebratory” by the official announcement post (even added in free content to celebrate…) though I don’t quite understand why it’s good ? Usually selling a company says either “bailing out of a problem” or something else I ain’t quite sure on…

I don’t expect dramatic changes, I do always hope things will be better as always going forward, it’s just nothing seems clear to me why yet… I worry their may be bad for TSW decisions to come (“season pass idea’s” I’m not really a fan off, I much prefer personally to buy and own instead of instalments that are only cheaper for a customer in the short term)

maybe it will be like nothing changed, not sure my thoughts on that either tbh.

 

What did they say again? New monetisation opportunities?

 

I hope nothing awful, something mediocre I’d prefer on that front tbh over a bad marketing/selling “method”

or just hope it means Coca Cola or something has jumped on the Pringles band wagon in the game

 

Just wanted to point this out this quote from the DTL article

Are releases like Trenton, where the timetable is in the top 3 list of worst in the game, clipping issues, signalling issues, included rolling stock not having livery designer functionality, patches that don’t even fully fix what’s mentioned in the patch notes, etc. being considered high quality now?

Many more recent examples than just Trenton too. BNSF SD70ACe, German LocoBundle2, MidlandMainline, EdinburghGlasgow (at launch), UP Heritage Collection, Bremen (at launch), and CornwallSteamRailtour off the top of my head all had or still do have significant quality issues with them. Quality issues with DLC have increased massively post-TSW3’s release.

Can we expect TSW to improve if these recent releases are being considered high quality by DTG?

 

I totally agree with whats been said here. This is the most important take-away, in my opinion.
There's obviously passionate and talented developers here when we get something like the Niddertalbahn, London-Brighton, Riesa-Dresden, and others. The game clearly has potential. At the end of the day, the most important thing that should be done from this new acquisition is a step-back to sort out the core issues, and a renowned focus on giving the developers the time they need to produce the great-quality products that this community wants.

 

without being too cynical on my account, I think the statement is (hopefully) just marketing talk or something official for they’re new owners rather than a representation of things currently.

I definitely picked up on that part of the read and another similar part slightly further down… it didn’t go down well as a frequent player of TSW. You really have to focus on the positive only for that statement to go down with an agreeing view.

 

Yeah I really do hope so

 

Probably not.

 

Laughs in practically AAA title to ever exist.
Bethesda's F76 is a bug fest, but did microsoft scrap it and just make their own post apoc franchise? No

Your logic is idiotic at best, it sounds like you hold a grudge against DTG and just wish to see a new, shiny game to replace it.

Focus aren't the saviours that you are making them out to be, they have had a number of equally poor or buggy games, like Snowrunner, Saber's Dakar rally (which was broken on launch). If you think they're going to start again... then keep dreaming.

It's most likely that Focus just want to increase their dominance in certain genres and also on their financial records.
DTG most like looked like a stable to positive investment.

I suspect everyone is just reading into something that just simply doesn't exist.

 

Jeez even when some DLCs are for a limited for free some people are complaining… it’s because Focus HQ is located in Paris and to celebrate its purchase by them, DTG decided to give for free every DLC that are in France and yeah you already paid for it like many others but hey no one knew that DTG would’ve been bought by Focus. How many times we bought games and the next day it’s on a huge sale you just want to break your TV.

 

How is it a good business move for companies to do 'free samples, Buy one get one free, complimentary products' etc. I play World of Tanks, I paid for premium tanks, years later they are given out for free? Do I complain? No, because I wanted it earlier.

You're being given literal free stuff, stop whining.

Why complain? If you already own it, then, It's simply just bad luck.
If you don't WHY THE HELL ARE YOU COMPLAINING.

Seriously, what is wrong with this community.

 

True, however 15 million doesn't leave much to pay employees let alone pay for facilities and running costs. Really seems like a "save me" desperation sale. The press release will of course always put a happy spin on things, that's natural. I seriously doubt a buyer would allow DTG to continue running "as is". Again that word "hope" comes up. Hopefully Focus can refocus the team towards making something of quality rather than rush jobs.

 

Lets face it, things couldn’t carry on as they were. DTG and some of it’s staff have clearly needed a rocket lighting under them for some time. Something absolutely had to change and one way or the other this is it. Couple of other points;

- £15million revenue (or turnover) does not determine profit or loss. I worked for a company that turned over much more revenue than that but was losing money. DTG is a private company and therefore the accounts can largely show whatever the accountants wish them to show. Only they know the true state of play. The company I worked for largely hid the true state of their finances for years like this. Thankfully I recognised what was going on and banged out before the inevitable happened.
- DTG’s CEO staying in post (for now) means absolutely nothing one way or the other. It really really doesn’t.

I hope this is the start of something good for this game. This forum is testament to the complete mess DTG had got themselves in (no need to go over it all yet again), so change had to happen. The warning signs have been there for so long, high turnover of staff (I hadn’t realised Sam had left, what a shame), the fire and forget nature of their release policy, the poor levels of quality, the lack of promised fixes for broken content, the lack of an editor and so on. Remember that ultimately we, as the customers, control the destiny of this game. If you/we don’t like where it’s going then we ALL have it in our gift to stop purchasing the software. I wonder if people reaching the end of their tether (and verbalising it here in ever increasing numbers) was beginning to show in the numbers.

Far from doom and gloom however, I think this is a good thing. Excuse the cheesy nature of this, but if DTG needed one thing it was some damn focus. Now they have it.

 

TSW breaks when changes are made. When did CSX heavy haul beta come out 7 years ago? What the new owners have here is a chance to start again. They have the experience of taking on the DTG team and their own expertise. TSC stuff and TSW stuff still generating sales but I can see some thing new cooking. Anyone can see that the satisfaction level with TSW is dropping so I would hazard a guess at something new that can earn cash and keep the faithful happy. A new version of TSC would be an ace score as the lack of editing in TSW for us mere mortals is a serious lacking in many eyes....

Not surprised though of the news.

 

For those of you who worried about matt will quit, check out the train sim world community on facebook and you’ll find matt says firmly and no doubt that he will be stay in dovetail game

 

I think DTG is now at its end of growth potential. You cannot push the amount of DLC much higher than what they are doing now. Players will not have money or time to play them all and the only result of pushing it will be dilution of profits.

So, the only way up is new markets. You can do this in two ways:
- New games
- Move to other countries.

Both are considered high risk, though I believe DTG can expand to countries like the Netherlands, Austria, Japan and China without much risk. Also France and Switzerland are barely explored yet.

It may be thta Focus Group will help to fund this and take part in the risks. That would be good. On the other hand, by games like Sow Runner and Hotel renovation manager in the simulation like games I am not very impressed.To be honest, I am not very interested in gaming except for train simulation. So I do not see a lot of advantages for Focus Group.

The other way might be new games, but which games would fit nicely in the competence area of DTG?

I think they have two core competences now:
- Train simulation (I know, some of you will deny that)
- Multiplatform development

Maybe especially the latter is very interesting.
Maybe DTG can learn a lot from testing strategies, which is into my opinion the weak point of DTG. They are not yet good enough in software development.

 

Abstract from what I just posted in the TSC forum…
Kind of interesting this coincides with the big core update to TSC. It may be nothing more than coincidence but given talks about the acquisition have probably been going on for months, perhaps Focus see a revitalised and updated TSC as the way forward rather than TSW?

 

I think you should reconsider your language. Sure, nobody knows what the purchase from Focus Interactive ultimately means and this topic is purely speculative, but if nobody is allowed or supposed to post their thoughts on this topic, we can direct close the forum as well.

 

I doubt it.




Although TSW3 player number are lower than TSC (and thus TSC is certainly still popular), this is only the numbers on Steam, excluding any other platforms, and also excluding those people still playing TSW2 or TSW2020 (although those are probably not the most profitable customers).

Both games are probably profitable and have a way forward.

https://steamdb.info/app/24010/charts/
https://steamdb.info/app/1944790/charts/

 

I only found out about this today from watching YouTube first thing over breakfast. Wow amazing news, also I don't see Matt in the photos re, staff, what's happening with that?
I believe DTG returned profits of £15 million last term, so it doesn't appear to be because of financial problems, so not a hostile take-over by the looks of it. Consequently I'm hoping the new mega company can prove to be a positive thing for our train sims. I'd like to see more care taken over each route and the policy of 2 new trains with each route returned, we can wait a bit longer for each release. Also I think we'd all request longer routes or at the very least some driveable branch lines with each route. In other words for TSW3 to raise it's game and be more like TSC in that respect.
The free French dlc's are welcome and a sign of goodwill from the merger. I don't have any of the TSC ones.
Finally lets hope that they can widen the route base to cover more countries. But on the whole I think our future looks brighter.

 

Matt will still be in DTG as will everyone else that isn't mentioned

 

Almost inevitable there will be a reshuffle and re tasking even if no one goes “down the road” just like a Government cabinet reshuffle!

 

The marketing department did not allow pictures of people with pink cat ears

 

Personally I doubt that will happen and I hope it doesn't, I hope both continue. I like both but having to go back to having a simulator where you get a handful of scenarios or spend time making your own or downloading them is not something I want to spend time doing anymore. A simulator which combined the best of both worlds would be the best of course but for me timetable mode in TSW is too much of a boon to see it discarded.

 

Revenue (or turnover) and profit are not the same thing.

re TSC and TSW, I too hope they both continue, and that TSC continues to be developed.

If it were me taking over DTG though I’d be having a very blunt sit down with the senior team behind it asking why, after 6 years, it hasn’t left TSC in it’s wake. The malaise with TSW has gone on far too long and it needed something like this to give it a kick up the backside.

The list of more fundamental issues with TSW, aside from all the obvious, is endless. No DX12 support even though the engine supports in natively (we could actually end up with a situation where TSC has DX12 and TSW doesn’t which is farcical), no DLSS support (again, engine supports it), no direct controller support, issues with multiple DLC on consoles, repeated promises for multiplayer which have never materialised etc etc. The game has barely moved forward since CSX:HH, I pray the time has now come for that to change.

 

I really wonder where this figure comes from. And what it really represents. PNL? Revenue? Liquid profit before / after taxes?

I don´t know the margins practiced at the game industry. In the ´real world´ a 15% margin would be motive to blow quite a lot of Champaign bottles. If the figure above is really return profit, then why would somebody want to sell the chicken that lies golden eggs?

All speculation, we´ll never know anyway.

 

It’s from an article about the acquisition. However, as noted before it is £15million in revenue, they could have lost £30million on that £15million revenue.

Revenue is turnover generated by business activity, it is not profit!

 

Oh at heart I hope so too, but they need to get TSW back to its halcyon days when titles like NTP or the classic diesel releases were Day One purchases and not a bug fest. I’m currently having a spell of TSC but to be honest yes you do miss the comprehensive timetable and ability to properly walk and interact with the environment. Last night having a go on Cross City. The 323 is dead quiet, far more than its TSW counterpart and I instinctively reached for the cab drop light to admit some exterior noise but it is just a solid model, can’t lower it or even open the cab door into the saloon. Also TSC scoring can be LOVE if the compiler doesn’t understand how to change the career scenario parameters. I was losing +-600 points for being three minutes late at stations into New Street.

 

I know, that´s why I made the exercise with a margin assumption. They´d need a revenue of 100million, if you presume a "real" industry margin. Which would be not too bad. Or left with 2.25million as liquid profits. Which would be poor for a company that size and portfolio.

 

Matt, come on. Under the hood things may have changed but from our point of view it has barely moved forward at all. The game you play if you download MML and the game you play if you go to GWE is to all intents and purposes identical. In many ways it’s actually worse. The gameplay in CSX:HH and GWE was way ahead of what we have now. The properly voiced tutorials, voiced scenarios etc, remember them? I do. The scenarios in GWE were streets ahead of anything we’ve seen since. I also remember the features of CSX:HH that have been removed as the game has developed. We’ve even gone from having a scenario where you as a driver positioned, as a passenger, into London to operate a service out on GWE to not even being able to sit down in the carriage in the latest DLC. Is that what we’re calling progress? That scenario was quietly removed from GWE wasn’t it? Why was that, no one ever did say?

There has been some tinkering around the edges but in the grand scheme of things the features the game offers are the same now as they were then. If you’re talking about things like mastery, scenario planner, livery designer, dynamic weather etc they’re all relatively small things that actually offer little to enhance the experience and in virtually every one of those there are issues that render them all but unusable. Good ideas but half developed and in my opinion things that were chucked in to the ‘annual refresh’ to make it seem more than it was. Dynamic weather, for example, is utterly useless, to such an extent that you even no longer use it on a stream, and what use rain if developers set their locos up such that the drops don’t land on the windscreen? I believe that still hasn’t been fixed on Edinburgh to Glasgow. I have no interest in creators club, but all I hear about Scenario Planner is that is massively limited and promised new features have never materialised. Mastery is, and has always been, a total waste of energy. Half the time it doesn’t work at all.

Of course there has been some development, there should have been over 6 years, but if that release of MML is something that is held up as the latest and greatest and representative of 6 years of constant development from the original release of GWE then forgive me, but I had hoped for better by now.

This game has so much potential but for whatever reason it isn’t or hasn’t been realised. This game should have left TSC in it’s wake, not to have died a death, but TSW should be the go to for train simulation and for a lot of people it isn’t. You’ll know more than any of us why that is. No one (I’d hope) is doubting your personal commitment to this hobby/game/whatever you want to call it, and I hope that this change of ownership allows this game to flourish into what it should be.

 

I share the same sentiment, sure, stuff like NTP didn’t have massive timetables or loads of the new features, but look at MML. Timetable is woeful, the new features are mostly bugged & it’s more expensive. So in the end NTP is a better route to me.

 

This reminds me of when Cor! Joined up with Whizzer And Chips (one for the teenagers)

 

I hope it does Matt, as I posted above TSW potentially has many benefits over TSC. However there can be little doubt that TSW quality has taken a nose dive of late as seemingly has the commitment to fix things. Most routes still have one or two journeys that cannot be completed. Routes like Clinchfield seem abandoned, where are the banking comms that were promised. SoS - still waiting for the fixes to the erroneous SPAD’s and getting steam physics on a par with MSTS or TSC. We are seeing shorter and shorter routes, still don’t understand why Peak Forest has been commissioned to run from nowhere to nowhere instead of the logical start point of Derby and doesn’t get the diesel layer which would actually be quite prevalent in the time period set (Class 104 on the Buxton shuttle). Not to mention no additional DLC to flesh out SoS and enhance the timetable, maybe even a buffet car (sorry had to work that one in!).

 

Yes Chinese whispers re. the £15m.
Regards TSW I think DTG made a mistake in some respects releasing it for consoles. With hindsight perhaps it would have been better to stick to the pc players which would have made life a lot less complicated for them...and for us. I've just reinstalled TSW3 on a new gaming laptop and whilst it runs like a dream I cannot rescue my old profile so have had to start again. I know it's allegedly possible to transfer my saves to my new device, but in actual fact I don't really mind. But I mention it because this is one of many things that are sub par about this game. I've never been able to download skins or routes either from the creators club as the game doesn't recognise all my dlc either! Would this have been the case I wonder had the game just been developed for pc? Certainly I've never had any problem with TSW dlc.

 

Ha, I love it when people have this take.

’cOnSoleS rUiN eVeRyThInG’

 

It’s not to say it’s correct, and it’s great that the game is on consoles, but there is no denying that when a developer pits a single title over multiple platforms it makes their lives much harder and creates problems that wouldn’t have existed if they could have concentrated on a single architecture.

TSW should be on consoles though, no question.

 

I’m currently playing my PS5 version of TSW and it remains very impressive. So that is something TSW has over TSC, even if we can’t drive steam locos over Stainmore and Port Road or Alco RS3s from Boston to Albany!

 

Sure it does, but the issues we have right now aren’t what features are being restricted by console development, it’s that DTG are bothered more about cash than quality.

Once something has been created (take PIS) it should work consistently for each DLC, not have varying levels of functionality.

Same goes for GSMR, track laying, signalling, safety systems and everything else.

TSW has fell into the same trap as TSC, and now every DLC is its own eco system, so what works in an older DLC, doesn’t work in something new.

The state of MML hasn’t come down to console builds, it’s down to the DLC not using solid foundations we’ve seen in other DLC’s.

 

Absolutely. No real progress. The game isn’t getting better.

 

Yup, now whenever I see DTG flaunting some new feature, all I can think is ‘great, so what’s been pushed aside for that’.

I remember when TSW 2020 had a Q&A and Matt replied to a question “why TSW?” - his answer was that they wanted to start afresh and avoid mistakes made with the way TSC was developed, ending up being a huge entanglement of core code and varying DLC.

Then TSW 2 released, and the question asked was “if we have a new feature, will it be made modular and put into each DLC” the answer was yes.

Now we have TSW 3, where DTG have descended into ‘MONEY MONEY MONEY’ mode and every DLC that comes out is an utter mess of inconsistency.

So yeah, consoles may well be a rod for DTG’s back, but their greed has created a much bigger rod, and the seeming need to struggle with all the new features being remade for every DLC is weighing them down.

We’re at a point where getting functional PIS in a DLC is a surprise, despite it being TSW 2’s launch feature.

 

To be honest, though, most games are developed by different studios when porting over to other platforms, not the original development team, even if those studios aren't credited in some cases (on that note, sometimes different studios work on a single-platform game but aren't credited, e.g. Halo).

 

If Focus has bought this its because its proficient in making money. Their buisness model works well. There is no reason to change anything, people continue tu buy DLC without complaing (beside on this forum).
Costs are cut, we will see if they will be cut further or if reputation for Focus will be more important and bring some quality.

TSW/TSC are gold for owners. Not for users.
We will see where we are in one year but i have no real hope of inreased quality. IMO DLCs will continue to flow at the same rythm and with same dubious quality. And some people will even enjoy them.

 

One thing that you don’t do is sell a company worth millions overnight. This has been in the planning for a long time. It won’t be a reaction to any troubles (perceived or real) over the last six months. It isn’t a fire sale. It’s a company changing hands. Will it improve TSW? That’s all we need to know and I would guess that we will hardly see any difference. It will fluctuate between rather good and oh dear as much as it always has and I dare say all other DTG games have, although I only have personal experience of TSW.

Much is being said about the £15 million. This is what DTG has grown to over the years. It’s the revenue after the platform distribution has been taken out of the figures. It is a lot of money. Up to March 2022 the company was making profit, paying investors, paying dividends to shareholders and maintaining a healthy bank balance and growing in size. I’m suspecting that hasn’t changed much in the last 12 months and despite a change in ownership will continue to grow.

A big shout out at this point to the console gaming market for allowing such growth. Yep, you read that correctly. Huge market.

Focus won’t be in this to lose money and have acquired a leading company in simulation games. They must be confident they can make their money back and turn a profit from it. Now let the devs make trains like they always have. And fishing games if they must. And board games too.

 

Companies generally buy other companies to either increase their portfolio or to asset strip, obviously it won't be the latter in this case.

They wouldn't be purchasing DTG if they thought they were not sure it was a going concern.

So not sure why some of this obession with how much turnover etc DTG have, I think some want to believe that DTG is struggling!

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
100% agree.

Think there are too many "end is nigh" people posting.

I personally see it as a good thing. At the end of the day we will have to wait and see.

Hentis

 

I'm new to this forum so I don't know if this is a good or bad thing also I saw the French route will be free in May just wondered anyone who has it is it worth getting and is it a good route

 

The £15million quoted in that article is completely irrelevant. It is revenue, not profit. Assuming it is even accurate it is a measure of business activity, of sales etc. From that £15million revenue they could have made £14.5million profit (very unlikely) they could have made £0-5million profit (hopefully more likely) or they could have lost £30million. That ultimately comes down to their costs, and then any profit generated is then subject to tax. The company I work for made profits roughly 1/6th of the annual revenue before Covid.

As DTG are a private company and don’t have a legal responsibility to report to the stock market, the only people that know the true story will be the accountants and senior management. As long as they comply with the law, the accountants can twist the numbers any which way to fit whatever they need them to represent, but a company’s published revenue only indicates their business activity, it has no real bearing on the profitability or otherwise or the business.