Y'all Can't Be Serious

DLC's which are totally optional! I only buy ones I have an interest in so that point is totally irrelevant.

 

I'd consider that the fact it's used by railway companies for training is the business model there. There'll be charging large licensing and support agreements with those businesses which is their income generator. That's a different business model to DTG, and the public release is effectively a side hustle.

Secondly, as someone who works in video games, the margins aren't what you think they are. By the time you've considered platform fees (Steam for example takes a 30% cut of everything you buy), transaction fees, and development time and costs, the margins are not all that great. In fact...

As a full-stack developer, I am sure you appreciate being paid for the work you do. Running a company like Dovetail with hundreds of employees that require salaries, HR, logistics support, office/premises costs, business rates, IT and infrastructure, licensing for the tools used to develop the software, and administrative staff, it all adds up.

Most video game developers operate on a business model of running from project to project. Basically you see;
1. Initial release with large uptake of users / sales.
2. Huge dip in DAU and sales after around 3-6 weeks.
3. Reusrgence in sales and DAU after DLC 1
4. Dip again
(rince/repeat for as many DLC releases as is sustainable)

They then move on to the next game. Alternatively, some games which are hugely popular (think Fortnite) can survive on a Free-to-play model whereby there's a huge volume of players playing for free, but the small perentage of players that pay for cosmetic DLC such as skins or emotes create a sustainable model. We call these games as a service or game as a platform (the game itself effectively becomes its own store)

The problem with Dovetail / Train Sim World 3 is that its a niche hobby.

It has not got the volume of players to sustain the F2P model (TSW2 has had a concurrent player peak on Steam of 1,951, which where I work barely even moves the needle for us....) - it's a small number. I suspect it's healthier on consoles, but it's probably not big enough.

It does however ambitions in that direction in that the way the game is sustained is through DLC releases. Effectively. TSW3 has found itself a grove whereby it can survive and grow through a defined cadence of build and release (so effectively that peak and trough I listed before, but going on indefinitely).

The problem with this model is if you take the core team away from building and selling locos and routes to work on core game improvements, you have one of two choices;

1. Give the core update away for free, and lose all revenue that would usually be generated by the DLC release cadence in that time period. This effectively results in a huge net loss for the business as salaries and everything else above still needs to be paid.

2. Charge for the core updates as you would the 3 expected DLC releases in that time frame (and you do get those routes) - this means revenues are maintained and in addition to new routes, you get new core functionality too. It does however cause a pain point as there's a hard cut-off there.

3. Just simply release new routes and locos indefinitely and make no improvements to the core engine.

There's no such thing as a free lunch and, as someone who works in the industry, I do not buy into this concept of not paying for the work that people do. Train Sim Classic lived on this model for some time however it was a different landscape in the industry back then, its core updates are largely cosmetic and minor and have been for many years, and it effectively lives in option 3 of those three choices.

TLDR; its not as clear cut as you think it is. They need to keep the lights on and people paid.

All this being said, it's fair to be critical of the end product, if not the business model. If the time they spent working on these updates are not worthwhile to you, then vote with your wallet. You're welcome to stick with TSW2 for now, for example. I think the fact they charge for these new iterations is fair, but they need to be sure they're sinking time into the right places (and that the end product is stable and polished, not rushed).

 

Ofcs it is the same project... F1 2022 is the same project as F1 2021, and F1 2020....
WRC 9 will be the same project as WRC 8 and WRC 7...
Windows 11 is the same project as was Windows 10, Windows 8.1.....

Because this is what you do with iterative products... you don't start form scratch. You branch and tag the old version, and continue with master/trunk development. As a "fullstack developer and a IT compsci student" you should know this.

Just that it can take TSW 2 packages without any kind of extensive upgrade (as was required between TSW 2020 and TSW2), should be simple tell that it is the same project, just under a different marketing name.

So they didn't changed the UE project name, or some other strings in code.... Most likely becasue it is huge PITA to do after the project is created. Does it matter? No, it doesn't affect the user in any way, shape, or form....
There are honestly more important things for the dev team to do than trying to rename the project file... Like squashing actuall bugs and implementing missing functionality.

 

Comparing these two is literally comparing apples with pears (I hope this saying works in English too ^^).

The issue with this comparison is that ZUSI was (as you mentioned) developed as a simulator to train future train drivers. And you might not know it, but the amount of money that railway companies will pay for a simulator is far away from what we're used to pay for TSW. Not to mention that the simulation complexity is totally different in ZUSI, especially when looking at systems like ETCS.

(Update: Winzarten was faster than me )

 

That's DTG's choice. I don't know why they design the game the way they do. I don't know why they keep building on a system that has issues. We all know or are aware of DTG's past and I do agree some with the points you raised and you can be as critical as you want despite what some people who enjoy the game will tell you, but it is ultimately up to you the consumer to decide the product is right for you or not.

Changing the file name should be DTG's least prioritizes. Many people already know tsw3 is an updated version of tsw2 so honestly I don't see that as a big deal since I play on console and wouldn't be able to see it anyways.

As the saying goes: "Take it or leave it"

 

Ok, and how do you want to make this game better?
What you'll be looking for in TSW3 files?

 

Can be done. But it is a pointless discussion that only revolves around itself, changes nothing and brings no one forward.

You will not change anything. And ultimately, this is not about life, death, justice, war or peace, but only about a computer game. I would perhaps invest my energy in more important things.

 

Thank you for your respectful but critical response, I really unironically appreciate it a lot since most of the thread was just emotionally charged responses, including mine.

Yeah it's fair to say that the problem is this niche area of train simulators. And of course I want DTG employees to have a more-than-good enough salary, unlike some companies do, because I myself learned what shitty salaries do to one's life. Anyways yeah I have no doubt that they work a lot on games like TSW, but I wasn't saying the content in general is garbage, my point was primarily 1. DTG not holding to their promises, 2. not caring about released content (issue is mostly on German DLCs I've noticed), 3. the non-available discourse between devs and the community, which is why so many gave up. But currently it just seems like they made a major TSW 2 update and then called it a new game, which is not a lot of work if that's turning out to be true. But yeah your all in one point is fair as I failed to think about the extended view of DTG's business model and TSW itself, which I will fully take into consideration now. But I still think that community focus is important in this niche if DTG wants to continue TSW, because at some point in the future, even the most hardcore fans of TSW will lose interest quickly if they don't deliver.

 

Of course I know that it can be a huge PITA to do, no IDE can properly rename namespaces after you change their names for me, so I took it into consideration. Now I'll explain my context quickly - the TSW 3 announcements made it sound like they rebuilt it from the ground up, not that they still use TSW2 as a base. But once you release the new version, you change the version number and sometimes the names too, depending on what you plan to do. For me it seemed like they continued work on TSW 2, then decided to make a new branch and decided it to called it a new game, which would be a major update at best in my opinion, which I would be willing to pay for it if they at least made a discount for those who already owned TSW 2. Yes there is no problem at all at using the TSW 2 base as a new game, but after hearing from posts that they made some huge mistakes back in the early days of development and the announcements sounding like they rebuilt it from the ground up, is kinda disappointing to be honest, and misleading at best.

Yeah of course, but even from early on there was a Hobby version with community support. And I mean, yeah it's kinda a different league but in some areas, they play in the same league, for example realism of PZB, locos, routes, etc.

 

There is a reason there is a TSW editor, so yeah modding

 

You are right, but it's just annoying and kinda disappointing to see such wasted potential, especially since those who want it to be great, cannot do something like TSW from the ground up and better.

 

Yeah my issue is that it's a huge middle finger to those who waited years for the promised features that have been announced when TSW 2 was released. I had high hopes but apparently I wasn't long enough here to realize that DTG has had a huge history of those things and that the community basically gave up

 

Then I recommend voting with your wallet.

Cheers

 

Exactly.
dxltagxmma you do realize that DTG could release TSW3 differs from TSW2 with only new UI for Main Menu?

It's always up to customers if they wanna pay for it or not. If they do, then it means for the company that it's enough for the customers to sell them the product, hence why making more effort? No reason.

I still don't get the point of this thread - you've said: I'll replace this thread with a in-depth, less emotional and more detailed analysis.

Ok, but what is the goal of this analysis?
You'll do mods for TSW3? If so, that's good, but was it really necessary to create this thread just to tell us this?

Unless this analysis has some other goal then please explain, because I'm still lost...

 

I have seen this line or something like "it isn't a lot of work" several times now. That seems to be insulting the work that has gone into it at least at worse it seems very disingenuous.

If it isn't a lot of work then presumably those in the know will be serving up their own train simulators very soon!

I do wish you luck in your endeavours. You are clearly very passionate about your subject and I am sure you have a bright future ahead of you.

 

Analysis of the game, basically a small disassembly of the game, because I was interested nonetheless what's inside of TSW 3. My expectations were pretty low after the first impression I got from TSW 3, so let's see. I've learned some things from this thread and will leave the community alone with the issues and stuff, since it's wasted energy like a lot of people said, so yeah sorry about that, I haven't been long enough here to see what is really going on and be aware of what the baseline is. Sorry again, I haven't had that situation yet with a game since I was primarily active in games with high community support like Transport Fever 2 and Zusi, and I haven't met a community yet that basically gave up on the developers, I love TSW 2 and had high hopes for TSW 3, so yeah, I'll try to shut up and make useful contributions to the community instead of ranting and discussing issues etc. Sorry to those I've annoyed, hope y'all forgive me for my mistakes, sometimes I get too invested into something

 

I don't know where you got that impression from. The only thing DTG have claimed to rework from the ground up is the lighting. That's been made pretty clear.

Cheers

 

Don´t interpret me wrong here. Believe or not: I DO enjoy TSW2, I play it almost daily after work for relaxation. And I didn´t care about this or that bug. I knew they were there and yet I opened the wallet. What I didn´t know and what is not acceptable is the fact that an ill-conceived "up"date messes up the entire sim (the derailment bug as a classic, that was for SoS, which I don´t even own). THIS must be addressed by DTG. I really hope they do!

 

I think it's also worth adding into the perspective of this, which I didn't remember to add in my original post, that Dovetail has no publisher backing either.

For example, if you look at something like Transport Fever 2, or Bus Simulator 21, etc. they have the backing of a publisher like Astragon or similar - they'll fund development time from, as an example, Transport Fever 1 to Transport Fever 2, so that they can spend a significant amount of time, even years, working on a new game either scratch-built or significantly different from the previous release.

Alternatively, developers may do a funding round from investors / VC.

Neither applies here. Dovetail is effectively an indie that self-publishes their game, and there's no practical prospect of raising capital from Train Sim World 2 to Train Sim World 3. This is what effectively locks us into that cycle.

There's also the fact that releasing a new game version does bring several benefits, especially on consoles. It raises awareness and causes an initial flood of new users to come to the game. The other aspect to keep this sustainable is bringing new people into the game/ecosystem. You can't do that with a game that's buried on page 45 of the new releases interface on the PlayStation store.

On my peak and trough example, DLC1 does not bring back as many users as the initial game release does. Conversely DLC 2 brings back even fewer, and so on. Therefore games generally have a shelf life. This renews the shelf-life.

Effectively this allows us to keep our niche hobby game alive and well. That's important to me. As others have said other franchises (generally sports games) also work on this yearly iteration model. I'd argue they're probably "grabbing" cash much more than Dovetail is.