Content Quantity Over Quality, Dtgs Own Statements

Seriously? I had slightly hoped that they at least do a workaround for the bug existing in the Scenario Designer "2.0" since day-one on the Maintalbahn route - but wow, they didn't. I was so annoyed that I started to do some research on DTG as a company, and well... the motto is "push out as much content as possible" aka quantity over quality. But what do you really expect of a company anymore when they literally write that "DLCs are their main financial focus" in their financial reports. Well get ready for TSW 5, because they state this:





They also stated that most of their revenue come from licensing to third-party developers.

By the way these are publicy available documents, since they are a limited company with share capital. Make that of what you will.

 

I don't think that's the smoking gun you think it is. Pretty standard business accounting practice. I suppose the only eye-opener is that core tech is scheduled separately, rather than included with the main game, and that they allow a generous three-year drawdown for DLC.

 

Not a smoking gun, but rather a explaination. Development is solely weighed on revenue.

 

Is this not how every for-profit business in the world operates?

 

My point isn't them being a for-profit company. You can be a for-profit business and care about your customers and your community, especially in the game business (ahem, SCS Software - ETS2, Paradox Interactive - Cities Skylines 1, 2 is too early to conclude, Omsi 2 despite the dev abandoning the game, and so many other simulators) AND make a profit, unless you are on the brink of bankruptcy, or you just simply do not care about your customers.

 

I don’t believe they said that. I suggest you read it again to see what it actually said.

Now, when a company needs to report to investors they have to set out their strategy and that may not read well to customers. It looks very much to the customer that all they want is their money but to investors that is actually all they want to know. You would too if you had invested money in a business. You want a return on your investment and you want to know the timescales involved and how the company aim to make money from what they do.

 

Well they only have private shares distributed, as the report says of 31 March 2023, "no one is in significant control of this group" before the takeover of Focus. CS01 Confirmation statement

 

They have only ever had private shares because the company was never a PLC. Before setting up the new company group for the sale to Focus there were outside investors who had a big interest in the company.

 

For as much grief as DTG are getting, I don't get what this thread is about. There's nothing in those pictures we didn't already know.

Don't mean to be tongue-in-cheek, but what else did you expect? Obviously, the training centre is not the financial focus.

 

All you have posted here OP is the explanation of various accounting treatments, these are pretty boilerplate and are available in many sets of accounts. Nothing to do with company policy or what they think of their customers whatsoever.

 

It actually says distributors not developers, i.e. DTG don't receive money directly from the public, instead they license the game to Steam, Epic, Sony and Microsoft who then sell it on their store fronts and in turn pay DTG per item sold.

 

Third party distributors are not the same as third party developers.

One sells the product, the other make the product.

Steam, Epic, Microsoft and Sony are third party distributors.

Rivet, SHG, TSG and JT are third party developers.

Its certainly front page headlines that DTG make most of their revenue from the previous I don't think..

 

"Within each franchise core games are typically superseded by a new iteration after a period" sounds pretty damning...

 

This thread seems to me to be just another unwarranted bash at DTG.

Most of what's being described is normal business practice for making a profit.

 

Yes, but making a profit is forbidden. Everything should be cheap/free and be accessible to everyone, especially in the UK. Otherwise, you might upset someone, which you are no longer allowed to do.....

 

Does it though? Seems pretty normal to me, like 90% of games have iterations instead of being one-offs. What might be more interesting is that said period is 12 months for games, so maybe TSW4 was no exception but they want to stick with yearly releases now.

 

Except it doesn't say that new games are necessarily released at a one year interval, simply that for accounting purposes the production cost is amortized over 12 months.

 

Yah I know, that's why I said maybe. Still somewhat shows for how long they expect to reliably make money from them

 

It is a shady anti consumer practice… but most businesses do it nowadays. You should take that up with the government not DTG

 

There's an awful lot of folk round here commenting on DTGs business and product support model - but not much in the way of solutions.

I personally think DTG create a rod for their own backs creating so much content inevitably means an ever increasing amount of bugs. The problem is they never catch up (it's a moving target).

Solutions:
1. Slow down, stop pushing out content - not going to happen as this is clearly their revenue stream.
2. Concentrate solely on the DLC that is popular (say 10 routes, I suspect this is already the case?)
3.Core game subscription - likely to be unpopular, but I for one would be interested if it at least kept the core code on the straight and narrow!

Remember they are trying to keep people employed as well as keep us happy...

 

This month marks the ten year anniversary of me being in the TS/TSW community, and from my experience I think it's safe to say there is no such thing as an 'unwarranted bash at DTG'. Their conduct with their customers is insulting and has been for more than a decade, and many other companies both smaller and larger put DTG to shame in pretty much every way, notably in value for money, quality and effort. There is really no excuse. DTG eroded their goodwill in TSW years ago (back in the TSW2020/early TSW2 days I was confident in the game and the best content made for it was released during that period), and their recently rebuilt trust for their TS development was destroyed very recently when they released The Update Of Doom.

 

I'm afraid making a balls up with game updates is not just a DTG issue, many years ago i played a game called EVE online, played may not cover it LOL more like a 4yr obsession/job , anyway CCP released a new update which had a tendency to delete your boot.ini file in windows bricking your entire system, I'm not defending DTG in anyway just making you aware of what seems to be standard practice for all publishers nowadays, they dont care about the release to there fans and users, they only care about how many zeros they get to add to the next corporate meetings balance sheet, which unfortunately leaves the choice down to the consumer as to whether they buy the game and support this behaviour or not to buy in protest, in my opinion if we can't rely on companies to do the right thing enforcement bodies should be created to force them to do the right thing, unless there are consequences to there actions nothing will change, look at Apple they have even admitted that why should they change when people are stupid enough to keep buying overpriced tat at overpriced price points.

Take Care
Gary

 

Yeah, but what's being described is normal business practice.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but game companies only make money by releasing new content, which DTG achieve with their DLCs.

 

Breaking News: Company does what is needed to survive.

 

And pay its employees a decent wage

 

I am sure I can hear the bottom of a barrel being scraped, reading this thread!

 

It's confirmation that we can probably expect TSW5 in 2024 or 2025, which is not a good thing.

 

How else are they going to make money?

 

What's "shady" about it?

 

Have no issue with DTG wanting or needing to make as much money as possible. It is a business at the end of the day. My gripe has always been about the quality of their work. There has definitely been a reduction in attention to detail which just ruins the experience.

 

DTG are a business. It should be no surprise that they want to make profit and don't care about customers. Yes, there are other gaming studios that have better business practices and care more about the customers than DTG, but all can be done is not buy their product, or if you feel like they have terrible business practices to just call them out for it.

I think that certainly the quality is extremely inconsistent and that things like gameplay packs which mostly recycle trains we already have which don't add much to the experience aren't good things at all

 

Has DTG just got to a point where they’re too big? A critical mass that needs to churn out routes, however mundane, simply to stay afloat. Has it evolved to a place where caring about its user base is an expensive luxury, and all that matters is release and be damned, ready or not, and move on to the next DLC (or the next money-making “pay up or be left behind” version of TSW)?

*Grabs popcorn*

 

The reason for this thread existing is selective, cherry-picked nonsense.

The problem with software is that the more you produce, the more 'technical debt' (compromises) and bugs you create, which you then have to deal with. But, unfortunately, commercial software is like a shark, i.e. it has to keep moving to stay alive, so there is a natural tension between maintenance and new features, which has to be managed. I understand the gripes about quality (it is variable and they should do better) but it's far too simplistic to suggest that no one gives a damn about it because I'm 99.999% confident that it simply isn't true. It's easy to sit in the cheap seats and spout on about how to run a software team or company but unless you've done it (or you are willing and, let's face it, smart enough to do it), you at least need to show some humility and try to understand how it actually works.

 

Other software developers can maintain a consistent level of quality. Why not DTG?

 

Can you explain what you mean? Can you quantify it? Do you have relevant examples? Did you not read where I said that they should improve their consistency?