This IMO, is part of the problem. Competition is a good thing for customers more often than not. When there is no competition, customers usually get more of a "minimum" effort in a lot of ways because they have fewer options.

There is no competition because no major company is willing to develop complex sims that are far to expensive to make, in a genre far to small to make any serious money. Microsoft, Rowan, etc etc have left the building, The A2A Simulations have left the work to the mod team, have dropped development of sims and have concentrated on making aircraft for FSX. Gaijin is making combatsim light. Studio 777's ROF is barely making enough profit to stay solvent. Its highly doubtful that a major company will come along unless they have a ready built game engine that can easily be converted to a complex WW2 aircombat sim. The only people stupid enough to make these sims are enthusiasts and they are hard to find with the knowledge and cash need to develop one, like Oleg Maddox.

Oleg Maddox didn't run away with the code, he just couldn't get the job done in the time required, and knowing his perfectionism, there is no way he wanted the sim released this unfinished. He either stepped back and gave Luthier the helm or he was forced back, by the investors.

These sims are so complex the setbacks grow exponentially.

I think the issue is as presented by Luthier.
Just tried for to much. And instead of the absolute shame and loss to all of us of them walking away from it, they have come up with a mechanism to keep the thing going forward and give us the chance of having a growing game to play for years to come.

I look forward to supporting it.

+1

LOL very funny

How can they not be solvent if "RoF is celebrating its inclusion in the Top 100 PC Games of All Time by PC Gamer magazine." (From Jason's Youtube account that I subscribe)

If the case is they are barely solvent and RoF is in the top 100 PC games of ALL time, then what does that say about the market for flight sims? Something to think about?

I've been saying this for a few years prior to the release of CoD. We are in a renaissance in the FS community. I'm beginning to wonder with the high cost and low profit incurred while developing a flight sim, will we be experiencing an extinction of our hobby?

almost certainly....but if we give it a chance we can have at least 1 good one for the next 10 years

Well to be fair, being included in a Top 100 list doesn't mean it's a commercial success. Look at Bioshock, number 34 on that list, it was a critical darling but didn't sell very well on the PC. The middle market of gaming is almost dead, a market which flightsims belongs to. Triple A titles and indie games are the only ones profitable and a lot is owed to development costs. Imagine if MG made an Angry Birds clone, minimal R&D and maximum profit, times has changed and the economic monster doesn't care about our itsy bitsy little flightsim hobby. If it's not profitable, it will die, playforfree seems to be the way to go in order to attract new audiences, you give people a little taste and if they like it they may have the rest of the dish.

P.S All IMO and a bit off-topic...saaweee! :)

Yes OT.....but at least it's been relatively civilised

ROFL, excellent one Hiro, thanks, I needed that bit of laugh! :)

Gents, I have a problem wih "sit tight and wait", not because I am impatient but because I do not have the feeling that the internal processes at 1c are working towards the right solution.
Obviously, "Who am I to judge on 1c's internal processes, I have no idea what is going on there": I am just a paying customer!
Before getting this discussion to new levels of flaming hell, the only point I want to make is that we are giving feedback on the various bugs for over three months now (since 17.Oct.2011; http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=27168 v1.05.15950 PATCH BUG THREAD ) and I have hardly seen anything coming back from 1c!
Neither on the level of completion (of the bugs) nor on the level of bugs worked upon.
The only reason I buy this sim is because:
a) it is WWII (otherwise I would be flying DCS A-10 which I own but, do not fly)
b) it is difficult (complex)
c) it is precise (as near to the "real thing")
d) (needless to mention, but I do) multiplayer
While the overall result is worthwhile seeing, the "precision" part still needs work. And 1c's defiance to put in place a transparent process of how they are progressing fixing the technical and flight model bugs is a "mortal sin" for me (as a "paying customer").

It is nice to see "colorful pictures" of an I-16, last time we were shown a preety picture of an IL2 (surprised we did not see anything new about that one this time), a nice 3D screenshot of the game and last a boy playing the "balalaika" but, looking at the future is one thing; I am more interested to see what is done to fix the existing!

As said before, I will buy the sequels anyway, I always buy one or two of them so, no need to worry about me ;) This is the only way to ensure that 1c has a constant stream of revenue, I respect it (as said, I am a paying customer) and I see nothing bad in it.
The only thing that makes me sad is that on average I invest 1000-1500 USD every year on PC hardware but only 40-50 USD on 1c. So 1c gets the most of the "heat" but in reality the guys who profit most from 1c's work is the hardware PC industry... :(

To those who may want to jump in on the moto "I paid for a working game" I will say, we got more than that, we got a unique simulation, probably too unique for the existing hardware generation. Anyway 1c does not charge us again for fixing the current game.

~S~