Was Oleg Maddox too far ahead of his time?

[SlipBall]

Maybe Grumman can cut a deal with a Californian

[Robert]

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.

[Roblex]

I am a Brit who loves flying off carriers (even though I suck at 'landing on' carriers ) but we have to bear in mind that it was mostly a USA v Japan thing.

Britain did have carriers in the Far East but few people, outside of Brit enthusiasts like me, know much about what they did there and the rest of Europe had no active carriers at all. While the US may be a big market it does not make up for lack of interest from the whole of Europe & Russia. Such a shame the Graf Zeppelin was never completed; maybe someone could just 'pretend' like they did with IL2 1946

[No1 Cheese]

Re-supply of Malta would have been a good scenerio

Cheese

[ElAurens]

Originally Posted by Frequent_Flyer

777 can negotiate with NG regarding copyright infringments they are the Parent company , are they not?

777 can barely raise the money to keep RoF afloat. No way can they afford to pay NG anything. Besides, they are operating under the 1C umbrella for this new venture, hence NG's previous "settlement" with them still applies.

It will be pretty hard to satisfy all you rabid PTO fans if they cannot model the correct carriers, battleships, aircraft, etc... for the USN, as most fall under NG copyright.

Pearl Harbor with KG V class battleships ring a bell?

[nearmiss]

777 is still a startup company.

They can do as they wish, but before it is over they will probably go over to the Pacific theatre. They will have no choice. They will have no big government or UbiSoft to front money to them.

If they stay with BOS, they will probably have to relocate or outsource large parts of their project to Russia. There they can hire programmers for 1/10 the wages in America. This makes it a great deal easier to acquire investors when the cost of development is low. The only problem "at this time", there are just "more" qualified people for game programming in America at ten times the wage. Maybe, they could outsource the graphic products, aircraft,vehicles,maps, etc. and have the actual flight and damage programming done in the US. The internet could make that viable way to do things, if the carefully planned things and communicated well. We are all familiar with Skype. You can send files, pictures, back and forth instantly from all over the world. This is greatly facilitated with broadband connections in the respective countries.

You can't perfect a product like COD, when you don't have the human resources that can do the work. We are experiencing that...right now, aren't we? Oleg ran out of the right kind of help as well after releasing IL2, that is why all we ever got until PF was graphic improvements. It was easy to hire people to draw pictures than program.

Luthier put alot of pazzazz into the old IL2 with Carrier Ops and a new cadre of aircraft. Yet, no other changes in the IL2 application,except Carrier Ops. I'm not ignoring the maps, but the best maps for PF came later when 3rd parties started pumping out map mods.

The 3rd party mods are preserving the IL2 as a viable air combat sim even by today's standards of graphic excellence. LOL

I realize this being an international forums there will be many dissenting voices to a Pacific theatre. Everyone wants his own country represented and in most cases has a strong motivation to see his own country's history shared in an air combat sim.

Sharp investors know to go with known successful projects or they get zip, nada or nothing in return. The gamer business is almost a boom or bust.

[ElAurens]

I'm pretty sure the entire RoF and BoM dev teams are already based in Russia.

Always have been.

777's main office may be in the US, but all the worker bees live in Russia.

[nearmiss]

Originally Posted by ElAurens

I'm pretty sure the entire RoF and BoM dev teams are already based in Russia.

Always have been.

777's main office may be in the US, but all the worker bees live in Russia.

I would say... you are just guessing on this. Maybe, you could share some facts to corroborate what you are saying.

Not calling you out or anything. I think you made an interesting point, and if it is as you say I would certainly think everyone would like to know more.

[Sokol1]

Originally Posted by Frequent_Flyer

Where I grew up up we heard about Pearil Harbor. If 1c starts with this battle, it suffers the same fate as BOB. Not much much global market share captured with either title. The battle of Stalingrad will suffer the same lack of interest.

Nice (biased) POV, but the point is that major market for 1c today is Russia and Europe, not somewhere people grew up hearing that WWII start in Pearl Harbour (and end in Normandie -beachs). So Battle of Stalingrad make all sense.

In someone dont like the crap (and inferior, underarmed, blabla...) Russian Planes, fly German ones. Or go fly DCS P-51...

Sokol1

[fruitbat]

Originally Posted by Frequent_Flyer

BOB and BOS are the same Sim. Fly 15 miles to the front to attack a small group of twin engine bombers attacking a ground target or escort them . A map with a large city essentially useless except to drain computer resources surrounded by mundane scenery.

Hmmmm exactly, except for one of the largest and most pivotal land battles of WWII being fought below, as opposed to no land battle being fought below full stop, lol.

Of the top of my head can only really think of Kursk as being as, if not a more significant land battle in WWII.

And please don't say Normandy.