I understand that the route Stevens Pass is restricted to north American players, due to licencing restrictions. If this is a general problem that you need licence (and perhaps pay for) the use of a company logo in a game and is a restriction to route developers. Cant DTG make a generic rail road company that can run on any route and scenery, withouth violating any copyrights? In TSW its is the challenges in operating the train and running it correctly that is purpose, personally I don't care about the logos. When that is said I would very much welcome some challenging routes in the Rockies, Vancouver-Calgary or Stevens Pass.
That would be interesting to have confirmed by Dovetail games, if its the branding of trains or scenery and challenge of driving a train along a DLC route that make people by a add on route (and money for developers)
Well, BNSF is a particularly interesting situation, because it isn’t like DTG outright has no licensing like many companies, and because BNSF is the second biggest railroad brand in America (and considering that, probably second biggest in the world) there is an understandable desire to still have BNSF content: it’s not like this is everyone in an outrage over a tiny railroad that they have no licensing for; people wouldn’t complain if they didn’t care about getting such a huge railroad in their content. So I think DTG will find some solution to this whole mess that allows them to take advantage of actually having a BNSF license (Americans see BNSF logos) while not being limited by the licensing (Rest of Worldians see no logos) since BNSF is a big enough and popular enough railroad to justify that kind of work...even though it doesn’t help with any other licensing situation. That might just mean that it will be a while, though, as it is still easier for them to make a UP, CSX, NS route, so getting those out of the way first will probably make more sense. But there could always be a mixed UP and BNSF route, for example...who knows.
If you look at the wealth of content for TS20xx, you'll see that DTG have many licences from a variety of train operating companies. I would say, based on that observation, that most train operating companies are happy to allow DTG to represent then in the sim. You'll always get a few that aren't happy about it though; Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect declined to be represented in TSW for example. DTG do put in unliveried trains from time to time though. The Medway Valley expansion has a blue Class 59 in it without any livery. I think the WCML Trent Valley route is without liveries as well.
I understand that some get upset by unbranded trains, if licencing limit development of add on content and in particularely restrict use to certains countries (like stevens pass in TSxx) its very strange and bad. Look at Microsoft flight simulator, there are tons of add on planes, airports sceenery, changing the liverery of the a particular airplane to different companies etc. All this can be mixed. I have both TSW (HH, RT and GWE) and ts2017. After I have played TSW for some time, it feels primitive to go back to TS2017, TSW it a great game, what is lacking is more routes and I personally like, cargo trains and to drive in a scenic landscape. I would be happy to drive an unbranded train through the Rockies, other things beeing equal (signals, trafic, loading etc) Its the operating of the train that is the challenge and not that the logos are the same as those trains passing next door to you home in real life, in my opinion.
Luckily there's a community which releases patches and reskins to add in the missing branding. Of course DTG can't promote this, as it could get them in some legal hot water.
TSW is supposed to be the next gen train simulator. The way DTG is downgrading it and neglecting our reports, it probably won’t be what we expect it to be.
Why DTG dont try an Indian route where there is no licensing issue. There are tones of enjoyable indian railway. And will be a huge market for TSW.
I would love to drive around Mumbai's urban network. Especially with the extra realism that TSW is supposed to have.
