citation needed.
because I like the quote. 
2 Likes
From a âhouse cleaningâ: aspect, Iâd like to see some mods, like the Mig-21, as having closed EA. Itâs kind of a âwaiting for the other shoe to dropâ thing. Thatâs all.
1 Like
Didnât know myself⊠Heard it at a lecture on organizational culture, some years ago.
Iâve never had patience for the âitâs not a game, itâs a simulator!!â ragers because it smacks of elitism. Itâs another way of saying âIâm too good to play games, Iâm using this because itâs better than that and learning it makes me superior to other people!â
Simulators other than professional ones are entertainment software. Which is also the definition of a computer game.Own up to your interests and hobbies. Has any CEO or politician ever raged that they donât âplayâ golf because itâs not a game? Of course not. Golf is a game. Poker is a game. The people who make more money and have more power than us have no trouble admitting they play them.
Il-2 and DCS are as well. They can be difficult to learn and obscure to those without the interest, but theyâre still games.
When it comes to competition, though, this is what all entertainment companies are dealing with now. DCS just doesnât compete with Il-2 or BMS. It doesnât just also compete with FSX. Itâs not also just competing with any other game on a PC. Itâs not also just Xbox and PS and Switch and other gaming systems. Itâs not also just mobile or tablet games.
Itâs Netflix.
Itâs TV.
Itâs the theater.
Itâs concerts.
Itâs anything and everything people do after work, on weekends, holidays, and vacations.
How people spend their time and money when theyâre not working is in a massive state of flux right now, and everyone is scrambling to attract those consumer dollars. ED doesnât only have to worry if their P-51D is better than one in Il-2 or FSX or P3D, but they have to make sure enough people think spending their weekend flying THEIR P-51 is better than streaming another season of Outlander or seeing the Foo Fighters in concert or going to the beach or whatever to make that investment worthwhile.
Controlling costs and maximizing revenue has never been as tough as it is now because there are no golden children for investors to throw money at anymore. VR didnât do it, the cost is still too high. Mobile has its niche but the glory days of Farmville and Angry Birds have passed. Xbox and PS have moved from being mainstream to called niche by the media! If playing Call of Duty on an Xbox 1 is now ânicheâ, where does that put DCS? At the edge of a Venn diagram with a circle so small you need a scanning electron microscope to see itâŠ
4 Likes
Wow. That was good!
1 Like
Iâm curious on when/where that occured. From everything Iâve seen console gaming is about as mainstream as netflix these days (referring to COD and FIFA for example).
1 Like
Great post!
You forgot curling in your list of entertainments DCS is competing with though.
And competitive sheep shearing. 
2 Likes
Youâve been waiting a looong time for that opportunity, havenât you? 
2 Likes
I donât care what âthe mediaâ calls niche or not.
If itâs not mainstream, itâs nicheâŠ?
Having a cockpit, in your home, donning a VR display unit and grabbing your HOTAS, thatâs niche! 
Precisely.
Which means that we wonât see a competitor bringing a product to the market that will satisfy the needs and wants of the DCS users.
I hope the one we got, survivesâŠ
6 Likes
Absolutely! 
It happened around the time that mobile gaming brought in its first billion.
The ability to play games that draw people in on their iPad/phone/whatever that they can take with them in the car, on the bus, on the train, wherever instead of having to be nailed to the living room TV is a big draw.
The console gamers were relabeled âhardcore gamersâ as the Angry Birds/Farmville crowd became the casual gamers. Yet even some of those casual gamers spend more than any of us do on sims.
When was the last PC-only game that they made a film about? By my reckoning, it was Wing Commander over 20 years ago.
There have been not 1 but TWO Angry Birds films, even though the 2nd failed to make money.
A lot of people play console games, yes, but they pale in comparison to the number using Android or iOS to play them.
World of Warcraft I guess.
2 Likes
I hate the current early access model, but I also just pre purchased the F-16.
4 Likes
4 Likes
Well written. I respectfully disagree.
The way I look at the world, there are games, hobbies and work. Games are activities for which you play and keep some sort of score (points, leveling up, beating opponents, etc.). Hobbies are pastimes for which just doing the hobby brings enjoyment. Work is an activity for which you get paid. (Thus, in my mind, getting paid to participate in a game, becomes work; i.e. professional athletes.)
I do not have an elitist attitude about my flight simulation hobby. I sort of just fell into it as the output of my previous hobby, making model airplanes, was literally destroyed after a couple of Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves in the Navy. Having your entire hobby on a hard drive (backed up onto a few CDs) is much more conducive with having to undergo a PCS move every two to three years.
I also play gamesâreal and electronicâsuch as golf (golf clubs actually survive PCS moves quite well), softball, racket ball, FPSâs, RTSâs, etc. I have no compunction against saying I play computer games. I just do not include flight simulators as games that I play.
I argue that the word âentertainmentâ covers a wide spectrum that, as @JediMaster points out, covers everything from games through movies, music and TV shows. I put hobbies in the âentertainment spectrumâ as it were. That said, I disagree that a hobby such as flight simulation competes with much of that spectrum. As evidence this forum, @Aginor participates in the flight simulation hobby, but also enjoys watchingâbeing entertained byâwatching NFL football. Likewise there are threads for music, and movies / TV. None of these entertainment activities seem to really compete with the flight simulation hobby any more than other aspects of lifeâhome, work, familiesâcompete with it.
Just because I see the world as games, hobbies and work, doesnât mean that everyone does or should see things that way too. I think it is obvious that MS sees flight simulation as a gameâalways has and probably always will. In a way that is good because I doubt they would put any effort into flight simulation if it were âjust a hobbyâ; the 21st century equivalent of building model train sets.
It appears that this viewpoint is held by other flight simulation developers like ED. I think that many of EDâs design decisions are made with an eye towards the âgamingâ aspects of DCS World, specifically ensuring and enhancing MP capabilities. (As stated above, one of my criteria for a game is keeping scoreâbeating opponents.) If thinking of flight simulation as a game, and developing gaming aspects into it, keeps these companies in business and keeps me virtually flying, I certainly do not object.
However, to me, it is a hobby
4 Likes
This.
I had some money. I could either buy oculus VR controllers to unlock a whole library of VR games and stuff and clunkily interact with the DCS cockpits, or I could buy PointCTRL, which only works to interact with DCS, but does that very well. Guess what I bought.
For me a PC is a machine that runs a flight simulator. All other things it can do (browse the web, play games, watch pr0nNetflix are bycatch.
One cares differently about a hobby than about a game.
2 Likes
Lotâs of semantics going on here. You could say that PC gaming is my hobby, with an emphasis on flight simulators. Building a new machine, keeping it updated, getting the performance needed out of it is all very hobbyesque.
I guess hobby has an element of work that you enjoy. Thus any game that has extended rules or intricate controls to master could be a hobby.
I agree with @JediMaster point that DCS completes with all the other things you can spend that âenjoymentâ time on, time being a limited resource. Will I watch the football match or will I fly a Spitfire?
2 Likes
When my wife says, âAre you off to play that game again?â I say, âItâs not a game, itâs a sim!â
hahahahahaha
And when she catches me in the middle of mission editing, itâs, âAre you playing that game again?â I say, âI am not playing that game, I am working!â
6 Likes
Why do I not spend as much time in DCS as I would like?
Because Iâm watching a movie with my kids.
Because Iâm eating dinner with the family.
Because Iâm streaming episodes of that show I havenât seen in 25 years.
Because I was reading my Gordon book on the Flanker.
Because I was flying an Hs129 over the steppe strafing tanks.
Because I was playing Borderlands 3 with a friend.
Because I was racing in Monaco in the rain.
Because I was watching Wags do an ILS approach in the Viper.
Because it was just one of those days when I couldnât sit and do it.
Thatâs why I swore off adversarial games online about 15 years ago. No matter how much time Iâm going to spend on something, there are a lot of people who can spend more because they will spend every one of their spare minutes on it. So I will be outclassed, and I will not enjoy it. So I play offline or coop MP only now.
I have multiple interests outside combat flight sims, and Iâm not willing to give any one of them up in favor of another. So when a DCS module comes out like the MiG-19 that looks fairly interesting, I have to say to myself âwill I have the time to dedicate to this that makes spending $XX worth it?â
3 Likes