An Open Letter To Dtg And Rivet Games, Tsw, Slop, And You. Where Do You Draw The Line?

You're wrong. It's very difficult to judge DLC based solely on the publisher's presentation or reviews from other players. Only after purchasing it and playing for at least a dozen or so hours do we find out what we've actually bought.

For God's sake, Rivet Games sells Class 377/3, but aside from the exterior model, they haven't made any improvements! They haven't fixed the six-year-old bug that causes the GSM-R radio to shut down automatically while driving! In which review will you see something like this before buying?

And I'm damn sure I saw passengers on platform 2 in Falmer at the pre-release presentations and video reviews. It was only after I bought the DLC and lost my right to request a refund on Steam that the passengers in Falmer disappeared and the six-year-old scenery that had previously worked smoothly began to lag heavily. Worst of all, the destination displays stopped working in other DLCs, even though I made sure they worked as you suggest before purchasing them. What has your diligence been good for?

And I would like to know in which publisher's material or in which review was the information that the widely advertised random speed limits are not random at all but always appear in the same predefined locations (the first is in the Southease area and the second is halfway between Falmer and Lewes.).

 

From what I've been able to find between 170-180 personnel work at DTG, there is no breakdown on how many work in each department tho

 

No I'm not. It's how I've purchased pretty much every DLC for the last four years. I've never felt the need to refund unlike some on here seem to.

Feel free to disagree but I don't need to be told by you that I'm wrong when I'm going by my own experience.

 

Thanks for the clarification. With the people overview it looks like there is a lot of management, marketing and community managers staff and not many developers. So it gives a "slightly" wrong picture of the company.

 

Interesting what comments DTG make a very rare reply to!!

 

I have most of content and except maybe Luzern Sursee I play em all... I discover issues, post em here, sometimes they get fixed, sometimes they stay the same... but in general I am ok with recent releases, and will be buying Liberec Stara Paka and probably both upcoming UK routes (Trent and Medway Valley)

I revisited 313 after a long time and found out it has kinda similar issues to Tube stock (aka not 100% well implemented throttle/drive system), so wont be playing that one too often, but then there are 377s and 171 which I like... 171 is very similar to 170 on Fife, so fine for me

I wont say this game is perfect and it often takes em a lot of time to fix things, but in general I'm ok atm

 

That is NOT a small indie workforce. That's full-on AA, on par with Warhorse or Larian.

 

Aye it's a good size staff, but without the breakdown of who does what its hard make and educated guess as to there effectiveness, i own a smallish garage with in total 14 staff, but you would probs only ever see between 6 and 8 in the depot at any one time.

 

Frankly how a company uses their employees is NOYB.

Unless your a shareholder you don't need how they run their business.

Just play your game and enjoy people no need to scrutinize this deeply or make up conspiracy throries.

 

I'm sorry, but I think if as customers we are concerned with the quality of the product, then the efficiency of the workforce makes a difference. If a restaurant has slow service, it makes a difference if they have one frazzled waitress trying to handle 12 tables, or 6 waitstaff who spend half the time taking smoke breaks out back.

 

Kinda wish DTG would come back and make a route. GOBLIN was a great route visually. DTG routes generally were quite good.

 

I don't blame them here, especially when people were drawing (or attempting to draw) conclusions on DTGs staff effectiveness based on the "our people" page. So that's kinda fair.

They also do reply to comments when there is value that they can add in reply to a well formed comment. Usually "oi, why are you Muppets doing this" or "aye, fix this broken thing now" don't give much to work with.

(Adding: not saying you specifically but rather in general, I'm sure you get what I mean)

 

So in those situations you demand to know how exactly a business is run. How many employees do you have? Whats the ratio in hours worked? These type if questions like people are demanding to know.

When you drink a Pepsi do you wonder how many staff they have doing what at the factory?

Again those facts are none of our business.

Things like when is stuff going to fixed, do you have a timeline or anything about the product itself yes. But to know how many you have working on something is no business of ours to be asking.

You may as well start asking what people are paid.

 

Certainly I think we can wonder why DTG cannot seem to manage the quality levels of other studios of similar size. An indie can be allowed a certain leeway, a certain level of jank and bugginess. But a AA studio should be held to industry standards.

 

Yes those are very good questions you can wonder, and yes answers to those would be good and our business but to ask the specfic of employee numbers working on what is not one of those questions you mention.

I'm specifically talking about the people asking that very question of DTG on this thread.

I have no problem with the thread and wanting answers to relevant questions but the actual specfics on employee time management is not something that we need to be privy to.

If they say there is a dedicated team working on something great that is all we need to know. And preferrably a time line.

And pehaps what the plan actually is if they are a good one.

But they don't need to tell us we have 6 people working on this and 5 on this project and there are 5 mangers they all report to.

Unless your an employee or shareholder you don't need to know the inner workings.

There is a difference say going into a McDonalds and before you order ask how they are going to prepare your food and expecting an answer.

Then going up and asking how many staff do you have on shift tonight and how many are allocated to sandwiches and fries and drive thru and front till? How many are cleaning staff? I would expect them to show me the door.

Also in no way have I pointed to you doing this personally in the thread either so please don't think I'm accusing you.

 

It's all good

 

It's almost as if some wake up and think "what can I get angry on the forums over today, I know I need to know how many employees they have and what they are doing and if it's not to my liking I'll make a fuss over it"!

Then you get "they are abandoning the forums"!

Cause and effect.

 

I mean, often when you get into that, the answer is "not enough".

 

With DTGs track record of failure, it really isn’t hard to find something to be irritated about. Just drive any route and note down when you see a bug of some kind, I’m 99% sure you will see something on every route on every run.

 

I only can disagree with your opinion. For (potential) customers it's actually quit interesting to know something more about the company. Also companies do think this way, as they are kind of open about their company and the people working for them. DTG has a section on their website with "about us and "our people" to tell people something more then only "here is your game, just play it and shut up".

Some openness can gain trust, think about explaining how things are working inside the company and how issues are solved. It's a form of communication and I like it when companies do this, instead of having to ask yourself, who is behind the company and what are they actually doing. Companies are even making video's about their company to give some insights, here a DTG one:

 

I've never bought anything and thought I'll check out the companies employees first.

I think it is just considered good PR to have some faces on your website, sometimes it can be nice to put a face to a name I guess.

How they run their company is none of our business though. The only time it would bother me if I found out that a company was behaving badly towards staff.

 

Hi Alex,

Just wondering why you're able to respond to this message, but neither you nor any of your colleagues are able to address or even acknowledge my original concerns?

Thanks

 

To all those wanting to know about the number of employees DTG have and what each one does, care to share everything about yourself that is no one's business but yours?

I can guarantee the response would be something along the lines of "it's none of your business".

 

According to the last publicly posted financials, the average number of DTG employees for the year ending March 31, 2025 was 179. A safe assumption can be made that, as with pretty much any other company, the numbers of people by their function are stacked in favor of bringing in revenue. What else is needed for us to know?

 

To those privacy maximalists who think it's none of our business how DTG run their business, I'd just say that the world is not always like that.

In some sectors it is normal for customers to go into a business to audit the operations of their suppliers to satisfy themselves that they are following procedures, keeping records correctly, have adequate numbers of staff and that these are suitably qualified.

 

But that doesn't apply to a game developer.

 

Let’s be fair, with the huge amount of tech debt this game now has and the seeming increasing reliance on third parties for content production it is not unreasonable to ponder how many actual production staff are left working on the title. And no, we don’t want their names or CV’s but where are they all? 179 sounds a lot but bear in mind some are admin or marketing, others will be working on other products (currently Metro Rivals or WOS) plus any private or commercial/professional commissions not shared with the public view.

We do pay quite a lot of money to indulge our hobby via this company. Dread to think how much I’ve spent on Railworks/TSC and TSW over the years, easily in substantial four figures. That kind of makes us honorary share holders and with that comes some degree of accountability.

 

I've not heard of it, but if a customer, or group of customers, have enough clout, it could.

However, it won't be me organising it.

 

We are the end consumer. People who choose to spend money on this game as a hobby.

We are not auditors. We are not suppliers. We are stakeholders whose only interest is in the end product, not Joe Bloggs' contribution to it. And that interest firmly lies in that we are getting value for money and that we are satisfied with what we get.

People riding a train in the morning don't care how many people cleaned it and what each person contributed. All they care about is that the train is clean.

 

That's you, but there are people interested in how things are done or made. I like to watch documentaries, Discovery channel for example has series like "how it's made" and "how do they do it" and for me those kind of series are kind of interesting. I would love to watch a documentary of how DTG makes a route, how they investigate irl routes and translate this into the game, how they are recording sounds of the trains and so on. I like to have more knowledge about a wide range of stuff, just because it interests me. And yes, I would watch a documentary about how they clean a train in between services or about how railway companies are operating. You can find this kind of vids on youtube, for example https://www.youtube.com/@RailsRoadsRunwaysITVS, those vids has quite some views too.

 

But if the train isn't clean, then customers can start to ask things like "How many people are on cleaning staff, and why aren't there more?"

 

When channel surfing one day many years ago, I came across a documentary series focusing on the deconstruction of things. Of the two episodes they were showing at the time, one was about the demolition of a dam, which didn't especially interest me, but the other focused on the disassembly of a freight locomotive. A scrapyard had bought two retired locomotives; one they resold as-is to someone else, but the other they completely took apart, which was pretty fascinating. That was where I first learned that locos carry sand in their noses to help on inclines. I also learned that the biggest buyer of used copper wire is the U.S. Mint, which melts it down to make pennies. I forget exactly how much copper wire there is running throughout a freight locomotive, but it's a hell of a lot. It made a pretty impressive pile when they dumped it all on the ground.

I wish I could remember the name of that show.

 

Thats a different question than how many employees are working on what projects and what your ratio.

That is stuff they sgould answer but to specifically know how many employess and when do they work. How many are home offices?

Those questions sound like someone planning an attack.

 

If thats the case then you must be a big share holder with your power company, cable company, grocery store etc.

That logic makes no sense if you want to be a share holder, buy shares they are publically available.

 

But would they answer you? Or tell you to sod off?

 

If its normal then how many times have you done this.

I think they would turn you down as they may think your planning a Charlie Hebdo type attack

As I have said there is a difference in wanting to know how things are done but the questions that were being asked of How many people are specifically working at waht and when? How many work from home and how many from the office? Whats the ratio of management to developers etc are NOYB.

So if I asked you to tell me minute by minute exactly what you do in an average day. Where you will be at what times you would tell me?

 

I replied on the post of jack#9468, and his post was not going about the amount of people working for a company. However, many companies share the amount of employees for whatever reason. I also not see a negative side for sharing this kind of information, also game studios share sometimes the amount of people working on a game.

 

Those customers are other businesses, not average Joe from off the street! Although, when we have been audited they have never wanted to know staffing levels or the qualifications of staff. It is usually about procedures and quality control.

 

If I was one of those cleaners and someone asked me that, I’d go “I’ve only got this mop and one pair of hands”. I’d then raise my leg and fart on them, then walk away.

 

What the hell happened to this thread? Another example of why DTG mods don’t come around here anymore lol

 

From experience, they don't.

 

Okaayyy...

For what some of you are asking for, "none of your business" is literally the right response in this instance. Employee numbers, allocation of resources, projects, roles, qualifications of staff etc... is protected by law under GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. What you see from DTG is purely at the discretion of DTG and as Alex said, being shown on the website is optional and staff can opt-in or out of being shown.

These laws do not just protect the data of the company, as well as any other UK and EU operating company, but it also ensures the safety and privacy of employees from internal abuses and external sources.

Customers are covered by the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (almost identical in the EU) which protects regarding refunds and faults (as you rightly see on here with bugs and textures etc...) and support (ticketing system). The transaction of money for product does not entitle you to additional authority as if purchasing content grants you the right to demand or dictate how a company works, nor does it give you the ability to know how a company runs.

If DTG does not reply to certain threads or questions within these, the items I list above may well be the reasons why. Not some weird conspiracy that often shows it face in the forums about being ignored or being purposefully selective.

 

It could also be easily seen as commercially sensitive information

 

Are you high or something?

Comparing TSG to bloody river is insane, all TSG’s stuff actually works compared to rivers stuff, they also go out of their way to add liverys to old trains to fit routes they made (111, 218 and that other dmu can’t remember the name of)

also also most of core features in general are pointless for the routes they have made like who the hell wants play guard mode on Mittenwaldbahn? And the rest of the core features came during or after development was done

 

Probably the least loved of any of the recent new core features. I groan every time it pops up in Monthly Mastery and save scum the shortest possible run to get it done.

 

Same, it could have been so much better but at the moment it’s the most plain and boring thing in this game but in general being a digital guard was always going to be boring compared to the real life thing

 

I've still got to try this mode. Do you have to stop passengers arguing with each other and to clean up puddles of sick?

 

I wasnt talking about guard mode, I couldnt care less about it. I am referring to sim focused features such as the faults, TSRs and such. In this case my problem with TSG was suspension with the 145 pack.

They blamed it on the core and said will be delivered sometime later. As we know from the E94 pack, the later might as well be never, as its their word against DTGs, but in the end the customer got nothing.

star#5823 and what if they added extra liveries for their old products. They only did those things to be able to sell their new ones. The BR 218 Blue livery is a major player for the timetable of the E94 pack to be usable as designed. The 111 is part of Mittenwaldbahn proper, and any routes that need the backdated coaches now depend on both LFR and Mittenwald, from two different studios. How is that a great thing? We are going into TSC teritory of dependency nightmares here. And we already see that PS5 reached the limits yet again, now regarding the number of dependencies not the overall mounted packs.

Rivets new sound promises, and retroactive fixes, are not sales generator for their newly released content as opposed to what TSG is doing with their retroactive updates. Would they release a new scottish route that the 170 layers on, I am pretty sure we would get an update as its to their business benefit.

Please don't act as if any of the 3rd parties are doing this for anything but monetary revenue. They have the sales data and we dont, I am sure TSG wouldnt even have considered the 145 if the 101 expert did not sell, or the numerous gameplay packs from Rivet and Skyhook, it is a business model that works for them. As long as the average customer is gullible enough to buy everything or at least everything that fits their genre.

 

Just to note, we've been promised at least three times that the sounds would be updated.

Not once has this happened.

Rivet don't at all care.