I actually find this an interesting discussion. On one level some contributors have put a 'face' or that little bit of detail about product development and the ebbs and flows of this sector of the computer software industry, flight simulation and/or generically what is called gaming. Gaming as we know is a very active and profitable business but very faddish and fickle. I have followed both sides over the years ever since I first started seriously learning about and using computers as they first began and have now become. Many of us share similar journeys. Shows that a lot of us are also getting older.
Here is some more points that I think are worth considering as to why DTG failed. I am not really interested in the personalities or the obscure chicanery of licensing rights etc of DTG or LM or commenting about it.
I do not develop or make flight simulator products but I have the highest regard for those that do and my only observation is this as far as flight simulation is concerned it morphed from a originally being a way or the means to solve and develop the problem of 3-dimensional pixel management and graphics display on a 2 dimensional television screen. The area of flight was an obviously clever means of doing this because flight takes place in a 3 dimensional realm with lots of multiple vector equations to be solved. The second major issue and they ran side by side was graphical display moving from monochrome to colour then from code line interface to GUI style interfaces. As we all know at the heart of this was the critical issue of operating systems (O/S) for actually managing what the hardware did in response to what the program was coded to do. There was substantial effort and money put into O/S development by a lot of companies and for a while a multiplicity of systems (there still are but that is another story) but to make it work you needed unit sales, the right O/S the right equipment (micro-computers) and some savy marketing and voila Microsoft. MS used flight simulation as a computing problem solving tool and as a marketing tool. The same way they put those little games like solitaire etc as part of the O/S bundle. While sales of all the above held up they achieved a level of market dominance which made MSFS the dominant sim (There were quite a few others about in the late 80's and 90's but they were gaming orientated. As the market grew it also started to mature until it was overtaken by new technology the microcomputer with a flat screen and telephone with digital data connections and www connectivity the size of bar of chocolate or smaller, voila the I-Phone and or Android. That has been a major game changer for lots of folks it brought an end or seriously damaged a number of businesses who had invested heavily into older style telephones, tower computer systems etc. HP, Nokia, Motorola are good examples. MS conquered the business market via Windows and then Networked Windows systems and also were savvy enough to make them work with via communication protocols to heavy hitting systems that required different software and O/S such as produced by IBM and Sun etc. If you run a bank or similar high volume transaction business MS Windows won't do the heavy lifting it is just a pretty interface. Apple was always a niche player until they came up with the IPhone but they had the graphical entertainment industry sector cornered and it was large enough for them to build on those Apple systems and O/S. All I am trying to do is put a perspective on where we are and suggest that DTG is not the first to hit the wall in this sort of computing and electronic environment.
Perhaps more specifically lets us look at Flight Simulation. I am a retired military-civilian pilot, a QFI, a C&T captain, low level, aerobatics etc. I have done a lot of operational flying over my life but I was also a training specialist a teacher if you like. I liked it and still do and that is why I was asked to come out of retirement and do some more for a major international aerospace company that does hardware, software and other stuff for the military all over the world. I have been involved in FS from day one, I could see the potential once the hardware and software progressed and caught up. For example early full motion simulators were hideously complex mechanical electrical simulators but the computing power behind them was actually less than any desktop computer I had at home or the office. The role of a FS styled system for flight training and education was obvious the tools or the equipment though seriously lagged behind what was needed. MSFS has actually been used quite extensively but only as training aid or if you like a procedural tool and reasons were simple, immersion and fidelity. You could use it as a teaching tool but not for serious flight training, that has/had to be done in an aeroplane or for the big stuff in a full motion simulator. That is why LM have P3D not for consumers but for flight training, military and civilian and let us not of course forget the rise of UAV's driven by somebody at a PC nowhere near the UAV itself.
For me MSFS has been a hobby, a past time and very enjoyable but it's standout characteristics were the passion and skills of thousands of like minded people all over the world, taking the time to do aircraft designs, painting, scenery etc. That community is a very rich and valuable resource and lots of people have been good enough to spin it into a business others have preferred to remain committed amateurs. DTG simply failed to see the bigger picture and I think had a gamer-development mentality to the product they had and failed to understand the passion and commitment of people like all of us at SOH and elsewhere who enjoy it, appreciate the hard work of those doing it because they have a passion for aviation and its history in all its facets.
Sure FS will continue and so will some competition but the market is now in what economists call a tertiary phase, the days of exponential growth are over. In this environment, reliability and meeting specific customer demands will keep you afloat, albeit there will be some products that bomb occasionally but that is the way it is. Trying to herd your customers into a particular shute wont do it for you. after all why would I get locked into a license buy system that does not let me fiddle and modify things to either improve them or add value to them? More importantly -Why would I want to support a business that effectively locks out the wonderful work and obvious talent as demonstrated by work of you folk here at SOH? I am not buying that, what we have is too precious. And I would not buy a product that does not do anything better than what I have on the promise that it might. Simple.
