Devs real question

[Cloud 9]

@Krause:

As the manager of a RL game studio that makes military simulators

And what would those titles be??

C9

[Krause]

@Cloud:

And what would those titles be??

C9

yeah that’s not something i’m going to volunteer, but it doesn’t take much effort to find out.

[chihirobelmo]

Developing a FM for single module even costs huge budgets.

@Wags:

To give you a feel… just the Eagle Dynamics developed and funded flight model for the Bf-109K has already cost us about 120k USD (that does not include external model, cockpit model, cockpit systems, etc.). Developing such products is not cheap!

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=125454

Developing 3rd party module also seems not a good way to make a large profit.

@Cobra847:

You can count the MiG-21 as two aircraft, both very advanced, as most of the work before January 2013 was tossed out. Only a few % of that remains.

Secondly, $15.000 is not even close to a real number for the development cost. I haven’t had an income for a year now.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2081369&postcount=18

@CptSmiley:

while my day job of coding flight sims is more complex and more involved/varied, the level of expertise required is about the same. However, when it comes to compensation, it does not even come close to my day job.

I do this because I love it, and I love to be able to get to use my flight sim coding experience in such a way that the general public can enjoy it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/hoggit/comments/71dqmw/the_economics_of_dcs_modules/dna5dj9/

Even DCS developers need this passion. Developing flight sim for earning money seems not a good way. I guess most of those 3rd party DCS module developers also have there day job for there lives.

It reminds me one of my friend. He prints his novel, comes to Tokyo and sell them at a convention. When he could sale all of his print he gets a little amount of profit, but that is for his fare to back to his home. No profit will be left then. The book price is not for his live but to publish his work.

I am surprised that BenchmarkSims develop BMS without collecting even the cost for its development. I think I know the name of Executive Producer of BenchmarkSims, If what I know is right, he has a long career in video game development. He, and I assume the other members too, are providing their professionals skills free of charge. It is a miracle that Falcon 4.0 gathered talented people with such passion.

[Arty]

If it’s not going to be build for military use then getting serious funding I don’t think it can ever happen.
If it goes public funding then you can have some money but it’s an unknown factor.
The known way is get an investor. But they have one thing in their minds. Sell it to get profit. Your plan must be for one or two years, so a quick sale as a bait will persuade them, but have in mind you must use resources for the sale or going for a second stage funding.
All those to happen need a strong point, a bullet proof plan, and a team or a person with vision and good pr skills, all aiming for the big bucks.
Investor funding gives you the time to work and prepare. But not uncontrolled. A part of the team must work to update and present results based on the production plan you presented.
First of all it’s the planning and budget.
First a company and what’s needed must be put in to numbers, and categorised.
Have annual cost estimates with all, and when I say all I mean all expenses accounted.
In this marketing costs must be accounted.
To have marketing budget you must set clearly your product, your short and long term goals and strategy. So this sets and the actual personnel you will need.

So talking in the wild or how much DCS cost was to build or falcon ain’t just enough.
Each case is different and unique. Yes it’s an estimate number but just that. Nothing more, nothing else. Doesn’t help actually.

So the amount of money to build something must be specific.
Then those numbers set your price and sales numbers.

When this starts you must work around the clock to keep the numbers and follow the budget.
This means products to be sold and create income.

The new trend is monthly fee for online services. Bad for users good for companies. The trick is to find the equilibrium.

Going for military use is tricky the money will be enormous but the effort and demand even harder and you must respect a contract.
This might - will mean a second team to serve the civilian version which will not have the confidential Gizmo’s.
On the other hand it will be a great opportunity for both military and civilian cause both versions can benefit from both versions and their input in usage and bugs hunting.
In civilian versions if community builds stuff for plurality will also benefit and the military version.

All those in a hypothetical situation where things from my previous post wouldn’t apply.
And as I say if my grandma had wheels she would be a skateboard.

Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk

[shisabandit]

This has been a great and lively convo.

Let the BMS guys do their thing. You want to do Falcon5.0 time to start coding.
Building the game part is one thing but having the expertise to get the avionics and flight models correct are the difficult parts of flight sims.the
One thing I can say is in Falcon its the other way around it seems. Also time and money. You can say passion all day long… no one like to work for free.
You want Falcon 5.0 but the best part about falcon is the dynamic campaign end of story. YOu want to replicate that and take it to the next level than will take time planning
and expert engine and game coding.

I would do it but I have to feed my family as much as it makes my dick hard to think about doing it.

[shisabandit]

Additionally one thing to note… is that the modular idea is really not good for a complete game. One of the great things about Falcon is you put it in and you got it all right there.
Its really garbage to have different modules.

That mentality only creates division and lack of consistent quality from your product.

Need it all in one plug and play end of story. Simple is best.

[MorteSil]

This post is deleted!

[Arty]

@Randall172:

How much would it take for you to make the definitive DCS + actual game (persistent dynamic campaign (war)) ie “Falcon 5”.

like im asking you to start a patreon or that star citizen thing with a price, so we can raise funds to get you guys working in your own studio making a full game.

DCS is basically dead in the water, all they can produce are US planes and I have no doubts you could pull the studios making their planes away from them. they also haven’t innovated at all in the 20 years since falcon 4.

and you know moddable
and open source (only if you want).

PLEASE RESPOND.

I believe this clearly states otherwise Mortesil.

Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk

[Cloud 9]

@Arty:

I believe this clearly states otherwise Mortesil.

I believe(actually know) you misunderstand Randall172’s statement!!

C9

[b.s.]

I too tend to be extremely grateful for the devs endless and selfless radiation of pure awesome into this community.
:werenotworthy:
From 1.08 to where we are now, is really just astounding.

I’ve been in this discussion several times, in other formats.

In my opinion, an open source community collaboration is the ONLY way that a shiny new sim could possibly work.

As many have pointed out, there aren’t enough dollars in the community to pay people full time to re-make the awesomeness that we already have, let alone even more. It is not, apparently never has been, and never will be a sustainable business model. Nevermind that there is great disparity in the community about what people want… Some will shell out bucks for pretty pictures, for others that is not their top priority. That one map of the many branching trees of falcon development over the years bears that out plainly. Others don’t have time for anything that’s not VR… not that that isn’t without issues itself, and probably a half dozen other preference orders… but the point stands.

Could an open source community project make a great product?
I think there are enough examples out there to demonstrate that it’s possible. Look at linux for crying out loud. It’s not alone.
There are also enough abandoned projects out there to provide a reasonable reality check, fwiw.

Opening up source and allowing contrib to a wider group has advantages and disadvantages. There are valid reasons why the BMS dev community doesn’t just let any/all of us trape in and do ‘whatever’ around here. It’s a fine balance to maintain some form of control and sanity, while getting maximum leverage out of available talent. Getting that balance wrong has also killed several dev teams along the way. Too many chefs in the kitchen and you’ve got 10,000 spinoffs and nobody can produce a coherent “thing”, just a matter of time before you break off and branch the tree. Not enough chefs in the kitchen, and you don’t have the expertise on staff to fix a critical multiplayer flaw. How exactly do you handle that? That would be a key question to answer before even thinking about starting.

For my two cents, I think that a “DCS World” style foundation is the “right” approach.
The “pay per module” thing leaves me with a bad aftertaste.
Maybe it wouldn’t if there were just more modules and better integrated… I don’t know.

A basic construct (world, order, physics, etc) that works as a foundation for everything else and is extensible by contributors.
Inherited by everything that is objectively iterated in that world (mesh, texture, performance logic, sensors, event based triggers, and so on) a package of modules that tie together to make an “F-16” or whatever.
I think there are ways to do a lot of things better, like almost all of the AI functions, the atrocity that is the logbook, and other settings, multi-threading, using something resembling a modern database, to name a few. Many of which probably aren’t doable on the existing codebase (at some point of frankensteinery, you have written a new sim instead of modifying an old one, and when do you cross the line where you would have been better off to start clean?)
I think there are things to be learned and implemented about multi-zone multiplayer, bandwidth management, and data broadcast from the MMO’s and FPS’s out there.
and so on.

But those are my opinions. And there are as many variations of opinion as there are people in the community.
Even if you limit it to people in the community that have a reasonable level of input to production, who gets to decide which one(s) are right? And how is that decision made? Many butts would be hurt hashing out such things.

Rabbit…
I wrote my first line of code over telnet when I was 14 years old, after getting promoted to level 20 on a MUD and being made a ‘Wizard’ (ha, dating myself, I suppose). I edited the stock sword.c file to change the text description of the item, made and corrected a dozen syntax errors, instantiated in the game and ‘wielded’ it. Huh huh. Cool. Now to try something a little more complex… Entire ‘areas’, ‘quests’, ‘smart’ monsters (really lame basic AI logic). I was hooked, i’ve worked in the industry professionally and casually ever since that day. Can we grab a kid who thinks jets 'R kewl (or tanks, or ships, or SAM systems… whatever), and who learns the basics and moves on up from there? Or who downloaded Blender/etc, extruded a cube and rendered it, working up to making more complex stuff? I know people who have built paying careers out of these hobbies. I know people who went to school for these things and used content they developed for their hobbies as portfolio to get admitted to their programs, and afterwards, a real job. I personally think it would be pretty neat if the mil sim segment had a vector for this as well.

Anyway i’ve probably digressed enough for now.

[shisabandit]

@MorteSil:

I think you guys have lost sight of the original question. He never really said anything about turning a profit, or even selling the end product to recover any development costs. He asked if the community could deliver the donations to support the livelihoods of those working on the project (Which is to say 100% donation driven project with 0 profit, 0 investers, 0 distribution company oversight, and 0 interference from the outside world), could it be done and how much would it be. He never said if I toss $1000 your way will you quit your job, or let’s make a new game with a $50k budget. He said how much would it take to do it?

I could not disagree more with this statement if I tried. Evidence suggests the community couldn’t either. Statistically speaking the Community Mods/WIP threads about new aircraft get ~3-5x more views and attention than 90% of the other threads on the forums. Every theater is a “module”. Every new model released for players is a “module”. Every new pit, paint scheme, FM change, and TE is in some way a module, generally developed by someone in the community, not by the BMS Dev team. Modularity is the ONLY way to go. That isn’t to say the DCS way is the only way to modularize a project, because their model sucks. But a modular game from the ground up would be an amazing feat that could turn the tides for a game idea like the one in question.

Your talking about “modding” not modularity which is what I am referring to. DCS modularity is just not good for a game. Its really a bad idea. It fragments and lowers the quality of your product. You want things to be “moddable” like falcon sure.
But not module based like DCS no no no. That will make for very bad crappy things to happen. Make it harder to get in the game and just get going fragments your user base. Need to have it all in one package.

[Arty]

The all in one in the other hand is an overkill.
Yes u fragment your clients.
But it’s their choice what to buy.
Braking down a vast project is a good way. If done properly.
Either 2-3 teams developing, one for base and bridge and one or two to work on deferent aircraft.
Or 1 team create a base with one aircraft. Complete it then move on to the next.
Doing it correctly is another thing.
As we know those things take enormous amount of time or money and resources.
So if you don’t have one of those u start doing what you can do best and keep a satisfactory level at what you do.

Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk

[shisabandit]

@Arty:

The all in one in the other hand is an overkill.
Yes u fragment your clients.
But it’s their choice what to buy.
Braking down a vast project is a good way. If done properly.
Either 2-3 teams developing, one for base and bridge and one or two to work on deferent aircraft.
Or 1 team create a base with one aircraft. Complete it then move on to the next.
Doing it correctly is another thing.
As we know those things take enormous amount of time or money and resources.
So if you don’t have one of those u start doing what you can do best and keep a satisfactory level at what you do.

Στάλθηκε από το MI 5 μου χρησιμοποιώντας Tapatalk

Your optimizing for the WRONG THING!!
It not about player choice its about player EXPERIENCE!!!
That’s why falcon has lived all these years it does not try to be all things to all people.
Falcon does not need to or should it try to make the most realistic experience for everyone. It does not need paid mods that fragments the player base. The Sim communities player base is already TOO SMALL AS IS.
You want a game that is streamlined super realistic with one jet but whoever made it made it easily expandable from but no paid expansions!! Its not good for a small base.
You would be better off with something like paid updates to a singular game like subscription model.
I think we would all be willing to pay 10$ a month for continued development and with some outsourcing on art work you could 100,000 subs thats a mil a month…
Just a thought but a more realistic number could be 10,000 subs for 100,000 a month in dev work that more than enough for 5 or more full time devs plus offices etc…
Could be scaled down just a thought.
The reason why Falcon still has a player base at all today is that reason alone.
Its streamlined everything works together the campaign all the mods just work… (most of the time )
You should have mods but by no means should they ever by paid unless the team decides to integrate that work and maybe they buy the rights to someone elses work they could go that right.
Do not optimize for buyer choice always always optimize for player experience first. Unless your EA .
Also as you know none of these aircraft are ever “complete” there is always no info and when a game wants to update what it does if all these “outside built” add-ons made assumptions
on the new updates guess who has to go in and fix all the add-ons!! the core dev team… That is absoulte HELL and a can tell you no professional dev studio would do that its just not a good way to make a great
streamlined product. All needs to be in house under one roof. Even if you have to lower the scope its just the way it goes. If you have MAV-JP a great aeronautics engineer like guys teamed up with
great engine people and experienced game devs that can take these advance concepts and make it real enough to fit in a PC that the player couldnt tell would be quite nice and to get faster updates.

[Dee-Jay]

In my opinion, an open source community collaboration is the ONLY way that a shiny new sim could possibly work.

Just listen friends:

Open source is NOT to be considered … and WON’T happens.

And nope, it is not a good solution … It is certainly the worse and the one that will kill Falcon4. GUARANTIED. Some tried, and if you want, you can even try yourself right now. SP4 code is available. Try to do something major in open source … and report for results.

So just stop speaking about shitty open source stuff, you are simply loosing your time. And even IF it was a good solution, it just won’t happens anyway.

[Blu3wolf]

@Wicked.-:

I’ve already seen videos of people getting BMS to work somewhat with VR. As to the resolution I can’t see how it would be any more difficult than what DCS has done.

The DCS VR has exactly the same issues as its a hardware limitation, not a software one. The F-16 on the other hand has quite a bit more emphasis on its displays than does the Huey.

@Dee-Jay:

Open source is NOT to be considered … and WON’T happens.

Given that you are shooting down b.s. for suggesting a new sim made from scratch open source, its pretty hard to say that making a new sim would kill Falcon 4.

[MorteSil]

This post is deleted!

[Dee-Jay]

Modularity: This is for DCS.
BMS won’t go that way. Maybe few stuff, other a/c could have some love … But it won’t becomes DCS like.
The talent exist in the comunity, I am 100% sure about that. But what I also know, is that BMS won’t try it.

I might be wrong (?), but for at least, in the five to ten incoming years, I do not think I will be wrong. (Speaking about BMS, not necessarily about some other Falcon4 projects … (?) but so far, F4OSC attempted to do it using FreeFalcon code, they did’t made it … Cheapshot.)

So let me kindly say : Nay.

And by reading you, with so much talents out there, since it is so “easy” with a good pro management, why not taking your chance (?) … You should be able to catch up BMS level quite rapidly if the OpenSource concept actually works as you advertise it. And even not going that far … If it is demonstrated that OpenSource actually works with Falcon4 code, maybe … maybe it could change some (?) of BMS member’s minds (?)

[shisabandit]

@MorteSil:

No, I’m talking about modularity. IF a new project were ever to be done from scratch, the team who does it would do well to focus on a framework. Design the underlying functionality required to implement the game mechanics, not the avenue which a player engages in the game. Don’t focus on implementing the specifics of an aircraft, focus on designing the specifics of the systems which an aircraft needs to function. Create a FRAMEWORK that supports MFD pages, not the SPECIFIC layout and function of every possible MFD page. Develop a series of commands which can be associated with a HUD, and the tools to allow modders to implement those functions into a HUD for an aircraft they are designing, instead of designing 3 HUDs and telling everyone they have to choose from one of the 3. Develop the mechanics for how Radar functions, and leave it up to the community developers to determine how a specific radar functions in a specific aircraft. Being tied to the F-16 avionics, formats, displays, and functionality is more or less the ONLY thing preventing unlimited DETAILED development of other aircraft. Think of the hi-res pit for the A-10. The appearance and the external model look great, but you can’t adjust the functionality or appearance of the avionics. Can’t individually turn on the hardpoints in the A Model. Or have the appropriate HUD or JHMCS view. Or integrate the Moving Map for the newer block F-16s, change the MFDs to match newer tapes without 6-12 month cycles. But if a new game were built on a framework, where community developers created MODULES to leverage that framework, you could accomplish all of that.

The argument exists that it lowers the fidelity of the game or the model quality because there is a lack of “QA”, but nobody is ever forced to install something they don’t like or want. No game has ever succeeded by telling the players HOW to enjoy their game, they succeed by providing avenues FOR the players to enjoy the game. When the attitude switches, the game loses traction and the player base shifts to new, short term players because the veterans feel ostracized. Look at any MMO out there. When the development team starts making too many changes to “even the playing field” the player base jumps ship. Whether a game is free, one time purchase, or monthly subscription, I’m investing my time and money to play a game how I enjoy the game. If that means I download a crappy model from a hack team who doesn’t put in the effort, so be it, that’s what I want to do. The idea that it’s a study sim with high fidelity never goes away if the underlying mechanics and the framework are designed force those modules to abide by it. But imagine if the community could apply the same amount of time and energy that goes into refining the F-16 for 10 different aircraft out there, simultaneously. The talent and knowledge exists in the community, so the only thing holding that dream back from becoming reality is the nay-sayers out there (At least in the theoretical game experience being discussed here, other limitations also apply in the current setup).

Yeah I agree like I said thats modding not modularity as a function of DCS style. DCS style are paid modules thats different than allowing free mods. I do not agree with anyone making money off a paid mod ala DCS.
I absoultely agree a new flight sim should be moddable like falcon and a community wants to make mods more power to them those mods should properly be supported by the team by allowing an easy switch back to default non moded version for online play etc…
its old hack stuff we are talking about we have been making modable games since 386 days.
Proper modding support is a must for F5 in my opinion.
Just not “paid modules” its overall bad bad bad.

[MorteSil]

This post is deleted!

[MorteSil]

This post is deleted!