Why I'm Annoyed With Dovetail Games And Their Business Practices

TSW is a global product, not just sold in the u.k. I have friends here in the states that are calling for price drops. People who review routes of tsw routes are calling for price drops in general. More and more people are calling for permanent price drops, Not a sale. Here in the states we call that a sale for a short period of time. The prices that they do in a SALE should be the permanent price for future dlcs unless of course you can justify the normal $29.99 and $19.99 prices. The unjustifications of the routes price in my opinoin outweigh the justifications

 

The majesty of it and I waited until it was fixed to get it, so hurrah for them finally fixing it. The 47 has been the biggest disappointment and if our 155 hero also manages to get the 47 fixed as well then I will be eternally grateful .

 

No.... you are looking at it the wrong way.... It's all about how you frame it.... This is about marketing.... and not about customer satisfaction.... and I think that you will find that Marketing is more important...!

When the prices are $10 per route - that is the normal permanent price. When the prices are at $30 per route (which is...um.... most of the time....), they are then in an "unsale period" at "undiscount of +200%" .

Don't buy stuff when it is in the unsale/undiscount period. Wait for the normal prices to appear, which will be marketed as "66% off " and "Madness Sale" and "I Can't Believe It's On Sale Again" and "Best Value Offers Right Now"....etc.

Simples.

 

There called a sale here in the United States. So yes $29.99 is the normal price and it's the permanent price until a SALE happens. Do you know what a sale is

 

There called a sale here in the United States. So yes $29.99 is the normal price and it's the permanent price until a SALE happens. Do you know what a sale is.

 

Yes I do. A "sale" is when you sell a product for the price that it is probably worth, which fairly represents the value of the product. This is a short period that can occur several times throughout the year, such as:

Christmas, New Year, Easter, Spring, Blue Ticket, Halloween, Early Summer, Late Summer, Mid Summer, Mad Mad May Madness, Autumn, Second Autumn, Jovial June, Winter Wonder, Black Ticket, Orange Ticket, Foo Fridays, Marvellous Mondays, Cyber Tuesdays, Whacky Wednesdays, Soulful Sundays, Curry and Beer Thursday Lunchtimes, Feverish February.... etc....

During these times the Marketing people say that things sell better if:

- there is some pretend discount*
- you get the impression that the discount is only available for a short time
- the price ends in a 9


*You need a notional price to discount from, so that you can indicate a "saving". It's not real. You can... of course... actually buy the goods at the notional price if you really want to. But you don't have to.

 

In my opinion, TSW is excellent value for money. Before this stupid virus showed up, I'd go out with my mates once in a while. The train fare was £5, a round of drinks £20, and apart from good memories and a headache in the morning, nothing to show for it. I bought Tees Valley when it came out for £25 and I have had a full 12 months of enjoyment from it. If you really have to watch the pennies, wait for a sale and only buy what interests you.

 

Yep - I agree with this - TVL is the only route that I purchased at nearly the full notional price, and I was quite happy with it. But then I particularly like 37s.... and RF sector steel is a fabulous style for a dress... ;-)

 

We all have our opinions But the fact that more and more people are calling for price drops does say something about how people feel about the product that they are buying. The common reason why people want price drops from what I'm hearing is because the lack of scenarios, route length (short routes) and the trains like the m3 not adding much to routes. I'm one of those people who are currently calling for permanent price drops. Will they happen, I don't think so unless people don't buy their new dlcs

 

I completely agree. It's the same with east coastway. In reality it goes all the way to hastings, but they cut it short at eastbourne... and with only 1 passenger train to drive?? It is a joke, all of it. I feel sorry for the people paying these stupid prices every month, they are literally getting robbed blind. The older routes are really good value for money, but since TSW 2020 came out they are just pathetic as you say. What really irritates me is that they have got you by the hook; there are no other good train simulators out there so you are forced to choose them and there content. I'm just hoping Microsoft will take MFS content and make a train simulator out of it, that would blow dovetail right away.....

 

I 100% agree with you and I watched Sim UK's review on rapid transit and he said a similar thing on how dtg doesn't have competition so they'll do whatever they want to do. If they had a competitor in train simulation maybe like TML Studios who made all the World Of Subways games which were amazing by the way, then dtg would surely change their business practices and most likely make longer routes. I honestly wish there was a alternative to ts and tsw that is good and I do wish they had a competitor so we could have alternatives

 

DTG do have direct competition.... you have a very wide range of alternatives available to you:

- Trainz
- ZUZI 3
- World of Subways
- Derail Valley
- BVE
- Run8
- Densha
- Farming Simulator 2019 (yes - there is a train you can drive in Farming Simulator.........)

But TS1 and TSW are the best simulators for rail simulation (TS1) and good looks (TSW).

There is nothing stopping you from using Trainz. You could then complain about competition for Trainz... and then come to the concusion that TS1 and TSW are both better.

I think you are just saying that TS1 and TSW are the best available - the state of the art - and that you want them to be even better and cheaper. Well.... TS1 and TSW will get better and cheaper. Look at the history of both titles.

There is even more competition. You could ask one of the following companies to design something for your own personally specified needs:

- EADS (Defence)
- Siemens
- Krauss Maffei
- Bentley Systems
- Arotech Corporation
- Lander Simulation
- CORYS
- Ongakukan
- Transurb

With the above companies, you might have to part with $2,000,000 per DLC though.... and if you ask them for a price drop, they will not be worried by your concerns. ;-)

 

I do wonder how many Yen you'd have to feed a Densha De Go machine before you are good enough to do a full route? I suspect more then £25 - and you can't keep the game


^^ Gameplay footage of a DDG machine running the Yamanote Line Route

Also compare with the real thing -

Time 40:01 if the forum software strips it -
(Shibuya station has been getting pre-Olympic expansion so looks a bit different compared with the game but the rest is pretty much spot on)

It's pretty accurate in terms of Route detail, has announcements and is UE4 based, but I suspect costs the arcade owners a lot more then £25 per route.

 

Really, any idiot can know that there is no competitor for tsw and ts. Those are games that came out years ago and they're not like ts and tsw that make different routes. Flight Sim World had failed badly because it had compition. (Not to mention it was a Cash Grab). There is no game like TS and TSW and if there was there would be many changes. You seem to like what dtg does and would like everything to remain the same. #dtgfanboys
People who like the game want change to make it better and I would be suggesting new routes, but since the game has problems, there is no point

 

If Microsoft were to make a train simulator, I'd think it would be 10 times better than tsw and ts and the prices would be fair and they would have some good compition. People who say that they do, that's just a stupid thing to say in my opinion because ts and tsw are in a next level and they're aren't any newer train Sims that came out in the last 3 years that competes with tsw. And newer train games only focus on one particular area instead of different areas which ts and tsw does.

 

If TSW and TS1 did not exist, then the next logical place to look for "best" train simulator would probably be Trainz. And then the same "there is no competition" argument could be applied to Trainz. Some would then beg for something like TSW and TS1 to come along.

If TSW and TS1 suddenly appeared... and smashed the monopoly domination held by Trainz, then maybe it would then be easy to suddenly forget/discount Trainz... and complain there is no competition for TSW and TS1.

Trainz is absolutely direct competition for TSW and TS1 - it's just not as advanced as TSW and TS1, at this time. Although some actually prefer Trainz right now, apparently.

 

They did. Microsoft. They did. And then they didn't.

Microsoft made Train Simulator (MSTS). And then they planned to make MSTS 2 with the Kuju team but shelved it. Then some of that Kuju team created Rail Simulator, which became Railworks, which became DTG's Train Simulator... plus now we have Train Sim World.

TS1 and TSW are the direct descendants of Microsoft Train Simulator. What you have with TS1 and TSW is MSTS 4 and MSTS 5. Just not owned by Microsoft... the DTG team managed to do everything the long hard way - and their final results are pretty good, compared to the "nothing" that Microsoft left behind.

You are not compelled to support the TS1 and TSW projects, if you don't want to. Maybe you can help the Trainz guys with your cash?

 

I watched reviews that tsw has no compition and trains wouldn't be able to compete with tsw so no tsw doesn't have a compititor

 

I've seen people commenting on how tsw doesn't have a competitor which makes sense since there isn't another train Simulator on console, the rest are pc games so maybe if they had a direct console compititor in train simulation on console, changes would be made to make the game better.

 

So Flight Sim World - this is my theory as to what happened, it may be wrong so don't take as gospel.

When Microsoft left the FS market they licenced the FSX engine to Lockheed Martin for commercial use, and Dovetail for Home use. Both companies set about projects to upgrade the sim, primarily to add 64 bit support, the difficulty being to make sure 64bit did not break the huge 3rd party add on market.

Lockheed's was called Prepar3D, cost $200 and was not licenced for home or entertainment use and at the time was just a slightly upgraded FSX with some minor tweaks.
Dovetail started work on Flight Sim World and released a preview/test in the form of Flight School.

At this point it was starting to become apparent that the FS Community was starting to move from FSX to P3D, even though using P3D for fun is barred by the license, the community had realised that enforcement was unlikely, helped by the number of streamers who had switched to P3D with no repercussions. Snobbery also came into it, a $200 'Professional Simulator' made by a multi billion dollar aircraft manufacturer is obviously better then a $30 'home entertainment game' made by Microsoft or DTG. (DTG's ~ $10m turnover would be a rounding error for LM!)

I'm guessing then that DTG got wind of Lockheed's upcoming P3Dv4 which added 64bit support. Realising they were unlikely to win against Lockheed, FSW was rushed out as early access before it was ready to try and beat P3D to market. IIRC P3Dv4 was announced the same day as FSW and came out within a week of FSW. As for compatibility with add ons, many broke but turns out the community was more then happy to repurchase their add ons with 64 bit support often at a much higher price too. The FS Labs Airbus A320 family (1 aircraft in 3 lengths) for example is £250! PMDG add ons are £80 for a single variant etc etc. And people complain about the cost of TS DLC

Realising they'd pretty much lost, DTG tried to recoup some of their costs before killing development on FSW, for them to kill the product suggests they'd made a pretty massive loss and would not have been able to recoup the cost of development if it continued. I wonder if that's part of why the Scottish studio closed (which regrouped as Rivet).

So to bring this back to TSW, if FSW hadn't failed so hard, would TSW routes have a bigger budget? It's possible that they might have done, but as we don't have access to the full figures we'll never know for sure.

 

No, them games you just said are not competition, TSW is full on, detailed, true to life simulation and they graphics are 10x better than them.

 

They are competition, DTG might have the most successful products but the others may do some things better then DTG and Some things worse. The most recent Densha De Go has better scenery then TSW, but is literally an Acarde game rather then a 'simulation' but is successful in it's own market of Japanese arcades.

If you want more competition then support the competition, most are very small devs, if they sell more then they can afford to improve future versions.

 

That only happened because of what synthetic said in his post probably

 

Technically third parties will become competition inside their own game
Think about it. If third parties make better routes DTG will have to up their game a little

 

Thank you for bringing some purpose to this thread with your interesting analysis of what happened with FS.

The only thing that I'd add is that I suspect that splitting the Stirling Office from the Chatham Office, for the purpose of making TS1 and TSW content..... has probably got far more mundane "accounting" reasons behind it.....

 

I mean at least there are nice third party routes in ts like the virtual district line and as long you got dlcs for it to work, you don't have to pay a dime for nice third party routes

 

Tallnoy7648 it’s only 42 miles from Jamaica to patchouge by train to see a extension from Jamaica to patchouge with the DM30AC’s Locomotive I’ll buy it.

 

Yes but dtg wants to make more money and expand their base. I don't get why Matt thinks people don't want route extensions. If there was a poll on the fourm right now, I'm confident we will have a vast majority of people wanting route extensions. I think Matt just says that because he doesn't want to extend routes but there should be an offical dtg poll asking people if they want new routes or route extensions.

 

You have a point there
I feel like even if there is a poll they won’t consider the results

 

Sam did say doing a poll was a good idea and I think if they did, they would have too since they "claim to listen to the community"

 

Yes
Loads want route extensions so they should consider it

 

I love to see route extensions even if it ain't full, like LIRR cuz I live in NY...I'm also a fan of the ECW and i get a bit upset those 12 car set(Brighton departing to London Victoria) doesn't have service DESPITE it is played in Train simulator. Plus I wouldve like to see Hastings in the game ..I'm told Ore is not to far from Eastbourne and some fans probably thought that shouldve been added.....and the RRO and HRR that ALSO needs extension.BUT we will see

 

I mean they could've added the port washingtion branch because it's only 18.1 miles from penn station to port washington with 13 total stations instead of a silly shuttle service. The Ronkonkoma branch should get extended because it's only 23.5 miles extra from hicksville to Ronkonkoma with 7 extra stations.

 

I don't get why Matt denies that very few people want route Extensions because that claim is false if more and more are asking for Extensions

 

I'd say they have much more access to data than you do, how do you know how many people want extensions?
They definitely know people want extensions, but they must have valid reasons they aren't making them right now. Like trying to cover as many different route types as they can, before they move on extending older ones.
I'd love to see route extension, but not until there is enough variety in dlc.

 

I think doing a poll to ask people if they want new routes or Extensions would be a fantastic idea to end the debate. I personally would like route Extensions.

 

I agree that a poll should be up. Sam did say it is a good idea. I wonder when he is gonna put it up

 

Hopefully now with the announcement of tsw 2 (which is a strange name) they will really fix the bugs in the game, get full line routes instead of half a route or a quarter of a route and that includes the new routes being introduced,more passengers, improved graphics, and hopefully more add-ons in current routes. Also route extensions because people want route extensions and that can't be denied. I hope dtg will also be more transparent.

 

Well with ts2 (I'm suprised they didn't just call it 2021) maybe we will get full line routes and the bugs will be fixed. Although I'm not happy by the fact that they are charging money for the game if you own tsw2020. The whole "oh it's a different game" is just dtgs common excuses to justify their prices which is a silly excuse. Like dtg has come under fire by members of the community and some critics for their business practices and the amount of dlcs they charge. But it's just business. I call that unjustified business practices like EA but hey the ceo used to work for ea so maybe I shouldn't be suprised. When will dtg learn that their business practices need to change and when will they stop being greedy for money. It's not like their not earning money everyday from their ts2020 dlc and tsw. They made so much money from their dlc's but they just want more and more and we only get short routes, routes with little scenarios and trains with little scenarios. I hope tsw actually changes amd I hope tsw2 makes the tsw series better. They probably just called it ts2 as a silly excuse to justify people buying the game but hey I don't think they'll learn.

 

I think a better reason for calling it Train Sim World 2 is we kept ended up with people that played Train Sim World 2020 in the Train Simulator 2020 part of the forum.......

 

I guess it simplifys the two games apart from each other

 

I still don't agree with having to pay money for tsw 2 if you own tsw2020 but at least were getting a london underground route which I've wanted. Although people were asking for the london underground, not the bakerloo line so that statement was false.

 

Well, thankfully, nobody will force you to pay money for TSW 2.

 

tsw 2 does need to work on some things because some things from what i've seen can be improved. it's not the most revoluntary game in the world from what was said in the press release and in the stream.

 

TBF neither are many of the sports games or annual COD updates etc. ETS1 to ETS2 wasn't a big leap either to start with.

As I've said in a few places, if the product does not bring enough joy for the price offered then don't buy it at that price, wait for it to be discounted. That applies to every purchase, not just software or DLC.

 

You know how they release train simulator 2019 and then we get train simulator 2020 which dtg calls a new game and it's free for players who own ts2019. That's what they should've done with tsw 2 because from what i've heard, tsw 2 is one step foward but two steps back. I mean when matt was answering the questions in the q&A, anybody who can understand facial expressions and I've heard a youtuber point that out, that he looked unconfortable answering the questions for some odd reason. So here's what is well ok and not ok about the game.

Livery editior: That's a nice feature although it's absoutley stupid that we can't share our liveries when the game releases. If a game like gran turismo can do that at launch, i don't understand why we can't if we have dovetail live accounts. I find that just silly because i'm pretty sure it wouldn't be a difficult process unless they're trying to rush out the game. I can't wait until we can eventually share our liveries in the game but it's stupid we can't do it at launch.

Routes: Well sand patch grade seems cool and for players who use console, that's a plus although I can't to seem to understand why they had to wait almost three years to put that out on console. The London Underground Bakerloo Line I think exposed how dtg just put out a lie. They said that the Bakerloo Line was the most requested underground line, but that's a lie. I've been looking into the fourms and what underground lines people wanted and a youtuber also pointed that out. The most requested were the Circle, Victoria and Nothern Lines. Very few to almost no people asked for the Bakerloo Line before it was announced and it would be the last line I would want. So people who read that the Bakerloo line was the most requested, it's all a lie so don't believe it. I'm suprised that they would lie but hey it's just business. The fact that it doesn't have the official in train announcements is odd, silly and dissaponiting. London underground announcements are the staple of the network. It probably wouldn't be that difficult to implement as well espicially if they have the tfl license . They could've taken recordings from youtube probably and just pop it in the game. It wouldn't be hard so I don't understand why they couldn't do it. At least it's the full line because it's 14 miles so that's a positive I guess. The german high spped route is an absolute joke. The fact that it's not the full line route and only 40 miles is just stupid. For a train that does 180mph, you could probably do the whole timetable in a day. It'll only take a maximum of 25 minutes to complete which is a joke. You can't make a high spped route if it isn't a full line route because it'll just be done quickly. People been asking for longer routes in streams or at least full line routes and the fact that this is the second high spped route and it isn't full line is unacceptable. It's a "new game" yet they do the same nonsense by not making full line routes apart from the underground (which is short as hell but within their apparent comfort zone) and csx line which are the only two full main line routes in the game which is a joke.The sand patch grade is just a port of csx heavy haul route but with extra service and new trains. The game has been out for years and you would think their be a strategy by now to address this problem but they continue to do the same thing over and over and never seem to improve. But at least we get a full s-bahn route but not a full high speed route. After this comes out, they really have to start making full line routes because i'm not the only person asking for full line or more longer routes. I'm pretty sure people who make a route suggestion aren't asking for part of the route but the full line. They really have go up their game after the game comes out.

Scenario Planner: It's not the best of news, it's just essentially a quick drive mode like in train simulator 2020 driving your train from point a to b and adding ai. It's essentially like making your own timetable instead of using dtg's timetable. It's very dissapponting and it does need to be massively improved and worked on when tsw 2 comes so we can do more.

In terms of the new features, its not revoluntary. The unreal engine is the top and most poplular game engine for video games so the fact that it's a "new and better engine" is something that I don't buy for a minunte. It's an updated version of the ue4 engine with improved visuals and enhanced ai. Plus they'll most likely upgrade to the ue5 engine when new consoles come out. The dynamic weather, that 's cool however that should've been introduced and could've probably be easily implemented with tsw2020. The scenario planner is a joke. They could've also enhanced the physics in tsw 2020 like codemasters did in a patch with f1 2019 so that's why the whole "tsw 2 is a new game" is just an unjustified excuse to charge money for the game. That's why I said the core game itself should be free for players who own tsw 2020 and the new dlcs should be bundled as seperate content or seperate dlcs. It's not me being insulting but the game is not revoluntary or sounds like a new game at all if you watched the q&a (with matt looking scared answering questions) and read the press release. I'm not the only person who has said that. It's sounds like features that should've been introduced in tsw 2020 as a update, not a seperate game. I hope tsw 2 comes with massive bug fixes in the routes and the new dlcs are tested multiple times because with all the issues tsw2020 had, it shows that dtg doesn't test their dlcs often and just release it to make some cash. Nobody is perfect but they should own up and fix the mistakes they made with previous and future routes. How can some people defend dtg with tsw 2

 

London Underground was highly requested and that's exactly what Bakerloo line is. The requests were for any line from LU at all. Just because most route proposals weren't for this exact route doesn't mean dtg is intentionally lying. This is imo very far-fetched.

 

the london underground was highly requested but not the bakerloo line. that's what they put in their press release which was that the bakerloo line was the most requested underground line. That was a lie. It can't be defended

 

Though most of the other lines are now ATO, so I can see why they went Bakerloo. Close Doors, Press Start, Train drives itself to next station wouldn't be the best experience. IIRC it's only the Bakerloo, Piccadilly (though that's going ATO in the next few years when the new stock arrives from 2023 onwards) and Waterloo and City that are still manually driven. Just Trains backdated their Met line route by a couple of years to allow the player to drive.