Quote:
Originally Posted by nearmiss
Lessons are never learned when egos get in the way. The most successful MSFT air combat simulation game was CFS2, not the CFS1 or CFS3. CFS2 and the Pacific IL2 are the most successful releases for both companies. What is so hard to understand about that? 
The Battle of Britain was a loser for Rowan and he just yielded up the code for it to the community. The Korean war by Rowan was a loser as well and he gave up that code as well.
The best war theatre is the Pacific war, because it had huge variations in aircraft, carrier operations and the scenery was awesome. Gaijin did some things Pacific, but it was just arcade stuff and no one goes for that.
Anyone taking on another European Front will just learn the same things over again. Sadly, if you really consider the Battle of Stalingrad it was a depressing battle, there were limited early war aircraft, the weather and scenery were awful. The battles and engagements were boring as well.
This is free advice, but we all know free advice is worthless and paid for advice rarely heeded. The only thing that seems to matter to the those who produce games, especially air combat games is the devs egotistical imperatives. It seems, all we get in the end is excuses for predictable subsequent failures. |
When PF was released, IL2 already had two versions (original and FB) on store shelves. It already had a fan base who were familiar with MG. It takes a while to build a fanbase so it's only natural that early sales wouldn't match later versions of IL2/PF. PF dovetailed quite nicely into FB/AEP, thus expanding the playability of IL2. That was a no brainer PF would sell. To play Sturmoviks Over Manchuria and Pe2 you had to have the series from FB to PF. Combined with the natural interest of the Pacific theatre from sim flyers whose favorite theatre is the Pacific and the resultant sales, you can see it makes sense that PF was 1C's best seller.
IMO it wasn't the theatre that made PF successful. It was a quality product with a good marketing plan. How many people ONLY bought PF? I'd be willing to bet it would be a much smaller percentage compared to those who bought all of the series and combined PF with them. How many bought PF as a first purchase and because they enjoyed the games, they expanded by purchasing the previous games? If 10 percent (and I'm being generous with my guess) of all IL2 sales were PF ONLY, I'd be extremely shocked.
Rowan's Bob did poorly because the game was an ugly unplayable mess. Tt wasn't even remotely playable until the modders made significant improvements, though I personally still didn't like much of it's looks. It does have the best enemy AI I've played.