NineLine from what i’ve seen is a great guy, i’ve spoken with him briefly over the years and i’m glad to see he is looking at what we/you have to say. As always thanks Sidekick.
I think for many of us, the big problem boils down to, the aircraft vastly outpace the world the aircraft in at the level of detail they are presenting at. I have a functioning BIT page in a Hornet which is a completely useless detail for DCS (at the moment), but SAM sites are horrifyingly stupid in that the radiate their location continuously and up until recently have only reacted to ARM launches by use of third party scripts which get broken every other patch ED releases. Ground AI is equally stupid, etc. Flying the aircraft around is fun, but the world they are in is so obviously early 2000's era AI that it can really pull you back and force you to work around the compromises ED has made to enjoy the game. Then there is the issue of patching stability. By that I mean, every patch they make changes, good changes, but those changes inexplicably break SOMETHING ELSE. I remember the patch they added lighting to the F-16C and it broke airfield lighting. How?! On this same line, ED frequently changes the mission-scripting tie ins which allow certain third party scripts to work. Skynet-IADS has had to go from turning AI on/off, to turning emission state on/off BACK to turning AI on/off because changing emission state no longer works if the site is engaging a target. This same problem impacts EVERY. SINGLE. Campaign produced. Every patch is a clusterfuck of trying to figure out what scripts or triggers are broken in the campaign and then having to find a work around to push, only for ED to fix the previous issue and break a different one. I've talked to multiplayer mission makers, and am one myself, and it is EXCEPTIONALLY frustrating to work in the Mission Editor when those base functions change in how they work behind the scenes without any notice from ED... and worse that ED may not realize a change they made to something unrelated to the mission editor, has broken those functions, somehow. A part of me really, really, really wishes DCS 3.0 was a whole new game engine from the ground up. Eliminate the legacy code nonsense from the Flanker days and give us a game engine which can carry us into the future where a bug fix doesn't result in bugs in unrelated systems.
I for one have no complaints.. I've been playing "DCS" since long before it was called that. One wonderful day in 2002, I was walking through Best Buy and saw this DC ROM called "Lock On: modern Air Combat." I've been playing since then and honestly, it's come a LONG WAY from being the shitty 480p, meant to be played on a CRT fighter jet sim. I mean we JUST GOT CLOUDS for god's sake. The fact that there are so many people playing now is a damn miracle and dream come true for me. It's a blessing that for 22 years, I've been enjoying flight sims and finally, DCS exists - Where there are hundreds of people all around the globe enjoying the same hobby as me at any given time, and we can enjoy it together!! When I started playing, I had a 56k modem, there was absolutely 0 thought of multiplayer or any thought close to the thought of an entire (Popular!!) genre of entertainment centered around explaining/speculating about/enjoying it as well. Call me old... But the fact this exists in the first place is so incredible to me, I would feel ungrateful if I ever got angry with DCS.
@@Redtail_Pilot Me too. Oh yeah! F-16 Combat Pilot, I played the heck out of that one! It was really advanced for its time, I would say that it was a study level sim, with that great manual as well. I must have logged hundreds and hundreds of hours in that sim. I even printed out the map, laminated it and drew waypoints on it for every mission. I created paper forms to fill in with mission details and everything, went all hardcore on that. Such good memories! 😀
@@TheMack Never imagined that one day I'd be sitting in the cockpit (virtually) of a fighter jet, via VR! It's the closest I'll ever get to my childhood dream. 😂 I'm a private pilot (since 1999) and very fortunate to have achieved that goal. Really wanted to fly fighters though.😉 That's why, with all it's issues, I can't really bring myself to complain about DCS. ED has fulfilled something that no others have (for me)!
@@Redtail_Pilot Totally agree! It's wonderful what today's technology brings, and after using VR, there's no going back to 2D... If it can bring our dreams of being a fighter jock just that little closer. it's worth it imho, even if the sim has it's flaws, it's not like 1989 :D
Good summary of the current status of ED as a company, and solid suggestions that have been thrown around over the years in some form or another. While we all would like to see DCS succeed, trust in ED has been betrayed with the Razbam debacle. Products like the M2000 and AV8B are intrinsically linked to my enjoyment of the game, and the lack of leadership shown by Nick Grey has resulted in my wallet being closed to this product. ED needs to start demonstrating that they understand and appreciate their customer base. As a long time supporter of the majority of the models (and paid upgrades over the years), my passion and support has dried up.
Great suggestions. I think some kind of voluntary subscription service. Start with a very small amount so that at least 50-60% of the base would understand and be willing to pay. If we all chipped in $2-3 a month that could give them more liquidity and help to improve the base game without the need to rush out new modules.
Wow! A voluntary subscription is a *great* idea. …and I know tone is sometime hard to discern in text so I’ll clarify that I’m not being sarcastic or facetious. It’s a GREAT IDEA. Thank you. I’ve purchased more than one module that I’m not terribly interested in to support DCS and I’d like a different way to do so. What a lot of people forget is that ED has made a BEAUTIFUL experience that is both deep and wide. I spent *months* with the assistance of an instructor to learn the A-10C and there are still so many lessons to learn around tactics and combat employment of the jet. People talk about clouds but ED added VR for free, added a new, free map, etc. The list is long. ED is doing a lot for the community of players and people are sh*tting on them. There’s truly some disconnect. Sidekick offers some good perspective. Aspiration is one thing but perspiration whilst going hungry is another thing entirely. As a kid playing Jet on the original IBM PC-and I mean the original PC, not the PC XT or any of the follow-on clones-I could not imagine this product would ever be possible. Thank you, ED.
From someone who is responsible for a DCS community, the core system seems to work against us. It takes an unbelievable amount of time to create custom missions. They make code changes that breaks things with little to no documentation, and it is not user friendly at best. Some of their documentation is not accurate or out of date. Without a lot of custom scripting the AI is not capable of acting in an intelligent way. Even with scripting, there is only so much that can be done. All of which takes a long time to do. There are some core issues with things like how the refueling tankers will randomly roll so quick it is dangerous. The super accurate shooting, and the lack of coordinated behavior by enemy units. For example, in AA, the AI can't even do a basic DCA grinder or fly in tactical formations. The AI responds to missiles in ways no human can, For example, they will not flare for a radar missile and flare for an IR missile they can't see, or should not see. Additionally the AI, will do crazy maneuvers that would require real time 100% SA of a missile to defeat it; not realistic or fun to debrief in a Tacview. I can pick into more details, but the key issue is I don't feel like they want to engage the community, and they certainly don't seem to test things in multiplayer. If they do, I am curios what list of things they test, because we find them rather easily. I wish ED would engage the community and help us create a list of core issues to help grow the capabilities and the community as a whole. We need to feel like we are flying in the context or mission we are in. I often hear people refer to DCS as a cockpit simulator and not a combat world simulator. BMS has this down in a way that I wish DCS could embrace.
A 3D map-view within the mission editor to allow for easy positioning of units and waypoints would work wonders IMO ... it can be done since there is an outside project aiming to do just that already. SO frustrating to have to start the mission just to see that my SAM launcher is on the side of a steep hill.
I enjoyed this video. It brought back some memories. In the 1980's I worked for one of the Nations largest Business Consulting and Efficiency Companies. In almost every case, the business owners or top management believed their problems originated out back in the production areas, warehouse, or distribution areas. What our company found out was, the mistakes, loss of efficiently and cash was almost always in the top management. Not in production, distribution, or sales. I have said it many times. In business eventually the big fish eats the little fish. I predict that sometime in the future, ED will be eaten by MS. Which in time will provide the Flight Simulator enthusiast with something wonderful.
I disagree, Microsoft tried before with their flight sim - I believe is was Combat, or Air Combat, but I'm probably wrong, but it did not last long. I think DCS will last for a long time - as long as they continue to innovate. They have long term plans, but it will take a large cash infusion to make it happen in a reasonable time. They have a large sandbox and a huge diversity of players which makes it difficult to manage. I think WW2 in the Pacific will be huge, along with a fleshed out War in Europe covering all of Europe and the Mediterranean. They admit they are reaching their limit in modern Aircraft that aren't secret.
@@rwhunt99 I owned and flew the MS WWII South Pacific Air Combat DVD. It was 20 year old technology. I loved it. I flew the F4U Corsair. Wishing, hoping, and dreaming is one thing. I never liked MS as a business. But, in the real world of business? MS will swallow up and absorb ED, and the consumer will be better off for it.
I just can't see it. ED, despite their pretense, is a Russian company with a Swiss facade - the vast majority of their workforce seems to be in Russia, or Belarus. Microsoft is big enough where that sort of thing matters to them on a reputational level. Under the current geopolitical climate, this sort of thing could land a business - particularly one as big and government-involved as Microsoft - in hot water. If anything, I see it as more likely that one of the big Chinese investment groups like Tencent buys them.
@@Malakhit24 I believe at least several of their employees are from Ukraine. I believe they are NOT a Russian company based in Switzerland. But, other than that, I agree, in my working life I saw so many people getting fired by the very people that needed to be fired.
I disagree on MS providing anything good for simmers. MSFS was completely slapped together, and MSFS 2024 is even worse. They don't care about the aircraft they are modeling, just the funny graphics that were completely blown away by DCS with the clouds update.
Great video and analysis. Your point about solo players wanting a deeper experience versus a broader one was spot on. It seems ED is focused on making superfluous changes versus ones that sim more immersive and purposeful.
I really like the idea of rewarding the loyality of the customers. People who already spend a lot could be rewarded with kind of special membership, discounts etc to motivate them for furhter spendings, but with benefits.
I think the problem ED has made themselves is they have your classic self eating cake. The community expects quite a lot from what is still in the general scheme of things quite a small company. They are making incredibly complex simulations which are more in depth than studios twice their size are making, for a smaller community with far less sales. I think the community could do well to remember that the modules are expensive not because ED is creaming money off the top, but because they're investing unmatched levels of time and effort into software that is ultimately only going to be bought by the relatively small group of people who are both willing and enthusiastic enough to sit there and learn the in depth systems knowledge required to git gud at flying a F16. Developing the DCS core comes with three issues. 1. The core doesn't on its own generate income, so it's not like improving it will result in more income. 2. The tasks that ED has set itself to improve the core (Spherical Earth, Dynamic Campaign etc etc) are incredibly complex, far more than most understand. 3. When they do achieve something, it's not sexy and it doesn't really get appreciated by the community - For example the massive performance improvements ED has achieved by completely rewriting the game engine for multithreading and implementing DLSS have been met by about 5 minutes of faint praise then the community went back to moaning about Spherical Earth etc with very little recognition of how much had actually been achieved. The community demands to see progress being made on the core and so ED has to give people a peek under the curtain every now and then to show that they're not doing nothing with it, but this is almost as unhelpful as doing nothing as it rarely placates anybody and just invites the inevitable 'well where is it' questions. To fund these core improvements, the money has to come from modules, but this is a cursed sword because modules only really make money when the community is buying them en masse, they become less of a profit maker and more of a noose around the neck as they get older, as less people buy them but they still have to be supported, maintained and updated where possible. Adding more modules creates more profit short term but causes more headaches long term. You would think that introducing some sort of subscription model would provide a stable income that could be aimed towards the core, but it's basically impossible to convince the community that they should be paying each month to use/update the core, when point 3 is still valid. What I think is most important for ED at the minute is to manage the community's expectations, openly saying 'hey, we're not going to release many more modules this year, we're going to focus on the core and the modules we already have out. We'd appreciate your support and as modules become more updated and complete maybe consider buying the ones you haven't got already to help us get DCS to where you want it to be and then we can go back to releasing more new stuff', but that will still be financially hard on ED and, once again due to point 3, they could do all that and still people wouldn't care and would go back to complaining.
Hit the nail on the head and couldn't have said it any better myself! All these people saying "not one more cent" don't realize they're doing nothing but un aliving our beloved DCS!
Thoughtful and thought provoking (also, nice video featuring some very cool typically unseen mods). Agree completely with the idea of community engagement, particularly as it involves those users who have been early adopters and/or big spenders or have given back to the community in some way. Support for some of the well-done and well managed Community Modules (e.g., the A-4E) which is short of "official module" status, but which allows them to become more standardized components of the game also would help. Really like your idea of tiered status (with some increasing perks for higher status). Lots of interesting ideas. Thanks for putting this out for discussion!
Sidekick, thoughtful, insightful and accurate representation of how I feel about DCS and ED’s business direction. Yea, no way is it broken, but their direction is of concern to me. You distilled the essence of that concern: I want a deeper core experience, not a broader one with module after module spam which I stopped purchasing as a matter of principle. I want them to be widely successful from a business perspective but not by deprioritising enhancements to the core experience. And I want them to finish the worst of the half completed modules they already have before pushing out new ones. In short, prop and consolidate. I feel this deep, core experience is how they carved out a niche early on but have moved away from that. Although not strictly part of your discussion, but an important corollary, I can’t help think that what we, the customer, most need is a serious competitor to DCS in the high-end, military grade flight simulation genre. I can’t help think we customers would be better served eventually by the impetus that competition would provide, and ED itself might be more inclined to really consider its current course. Do you think this is a fair thing to say? Is that the essence of the problem in this genre? Or is the industry just too niche to make a serious competitor or two not a realistic proposition? I’d be interested in your thoughts, even a separate video, on this question of competition, whether it’s a serious possibility and if it would actually help us, the customers who want more focus on deepening the experience, in the long run.
Many businesses that start out very success sometimes out grow their available capital. When they do, they have three options. 1. Sell out to a competitor. 2. Bring in a partner with deep "liquid" pockets. 3. Bankruptcy, reorganization, or failure. ED is at a crossroads. One of the three will take place. I am betting it is option number 1.
Been here since the LOMAC days. You discuss many valuable points. I own all but a couple planes. Not much for paid subscription but rewards based on your history with them. An active dynamic campaign with task to choose from would be satisfying. I know many that love just logistical aspects of missions and so on. I know they have a lot of kinks to workout. I have those times when I feel like taking a break or wonder what the hell is going on with ED. But regardless of my decades of gaming. DCS has always been there. I look at all the games I have bought and played. Yet DCS has outlasted all of them for me.
Understand your view, been here since Flanker 2.0, LOMAC was beautiful for it's day (hard to believe it's been over 20 years). I am probably one of DCS's biggest customers outside of the military and they don't engage with us. I have said this before, if they operated like other software companies, they should give DCS versions a shelf life, then charge for a whole new version. I would go for a subscription model on the core as long as they removed the always online activation mode as I worry that one day they will close down and all our investment has gone poof.
Thank you for the constructive takes and insight. I feel like much of the discussion on this topic has a tendency to get inflammatory, so this level-headed tone is very welcome
So glad you decided to to this... Had no idea what business you were in before those 2 videos, but it's such a nice coincidence that it is and you've decided to voice your opinion. Don't want to take anything away from others because they all do a good job, but I think this is the most unbiased opinion we had an opportunity at. Thank you.
My wife and I like and appreciate these talks of yours. We are both very frustrated with the state of ED and DCS with the understanding as you put it that "the devil is in the details." That said while your analysis in some ways frustrates us more with ED and creates more questions than answers it does bring us back to reality when considering ED, DCS, and why we "fly" *waves hand across mine and my wife's $25k worth of computers and sim equipment. So that said, please continue from time to time making videos on this topic.
I've stopped spending money on early access products, they are starting to remind me of the half baked products EA would constantly release. Agreed on the much needed work on core elements and core modules such as combined arms.
Yeah but currently -since the core module is completely FREE- they get ZERO money for those ten thousand man hours they spend on the core game (for example ten thousands for the multithread version....) That's why a: you keep purchasing modules and you think about it as a yearly fee for the game/updates etc, or b: you stop spending your money and the game's development will end at a point. Your decision. IF they switch to a subscription based solution it would be MUCH worse. So I keep purchasing those "half baked" products and keep flying my known good modules without any restrictions or additional fees. Software development costs tons of money and yeah, they get money for the modules but those modules will not jump into the game just by themself, the module needs lots of work too. And man hours are very limited. I say it as a game dev.... And fun fact, ms flightsim sometimes refusing even to start up.... and that is m$ with all the dollars of the universe.
Hi Iain, Thank you for your time, energy, and insight to put this video together. I especially enjoyed your comment on ED's approach to community management versus community engagement. I work a good bit in supply chain, cost, and risk management. I've read many 10K annual reports from a variety of publicly traded companies and see points they should address but don't usually. I would give ED these recommendations, to execute as they see fit. 1. Resolve the Razbam situation, or provide a structured path to resolution to its shareholders (that is, us, the community). 2. Similarly, provide a structured path to optimizing the core product, with specific desired outcomes and a projected timeline. 3. I think your proposal on ED-managed dedicated user forums with goal-driven responses is a good one. 4. Structured delivery timelines (development, testing, validation, deployment estimates) - as opposed to non-committal hype - would go a long way to furthering community trust. I think they improved in 2024 in this area, actually. I have a slew of other thoughts, but those are the most organized at the moment. Thanks again.
Excellent points reasonably explained. The idea of more depth rather than more breadth struck a nerve for me. New modules are great but having something meaningful to do with them is more important. It is possible to get deep content in DCS but it takes enormous effort to attain.
Agreed. I was struck by how common that sentiment was in the feedback. The desire for "depth over breadth" seems to be an untapped source of revenue. I'm just not sure how to tap it, but it seems to me to be something ED should be thinking about.
My gripes are that: 1. ED put modules out as Early Access and rarely seem to fix them, I remember the big fanfare about the F18 coming out of EA. Not a lot else has... I'm one of those who have invested heavily in maps & aircraft. I even bought Combined Arms! 2. The base game is ancient & because of that we have to spend tons on advanced hardware to get playability. I wouldn't be against a sensible subscription scheme in the way you've mentioned, with some sort of recognition for those like myself who have supported them since Flanker... Lets hope something good comes of it. Thanks for posting this Sidekick!
Early-access modules need to have an MVP list of guaranteed features to be implemented within "x" time or your money back. I don't think that is unreasonable at all when you're asking people to fund your in-progress development process.
Lot's of interesting concepts to mull over. Nick Grey discussed a loyalty system with the air miles system for dedicated players. I recall MechWarrior online did loyalty mech's, badges or cockpit objects for players that clocked up x amount of game hours or matches. There's a myriad of concepts like that would generate reward for early access/loyal players. A limited livery pattern for example, or some other tail art decal for loyalty players, so on and so forth.
Do people enjoy the liveries and decals? I think they are a waste of time and could be better spent on other projects. Ide rather have a vehicle skin/paint job/paint scheme over a decal ill hardly see from the cockpit.
8:4014:45 Thank you for saying it ! I’ve been thinking for a while that DCS should have a subscription, for non base features. Players don’t realize how the business model and the revenue sources shape the development of the product.
Thank you so much for your video. I often watch your channel and learn this or that. And this time I was also interested in your opinion based on experience and analysis of the current situation with the attitude of players to ED. DCS is a great game, but it's time to improve what we already have and replace the model of introducing new modules by improving and refining the previous ones, as well as creating a new game engine. I think that would be a good thing to do.
Open SDK for maps. Let community do its magic on improving a chosen map. Let people work with passion and support. Form a consensus on their work, quarterly. Include in the following patch.
1. the synergy between campaigns and high-support-players has to be fixed, as part of a fix of the ed-miles. in fact, players that tend to buy all the modules don't profit from miles, since they have to decide to spend them on a new module, losing the miles it would bring with them, so you always get the feeling of losing money when spending miles. so high-support players can't spend any miles except for the newest product, and won't get any miles for that, so the miles-system is done for the high-support player when the newest module arrives. the high-support player would actually have something to spend the miles on without losing new miles if the campaigns would be payable with miles. it might sound like a small detail, but wouldn't it be the most reasonable thing to reward a player that buys a module via giving him the opportunity to actually use it? the relation between ed-miles acquired by purchasing a product and spending ed-miles for a product related to the product that's already been purchased should be intuitive. 2. every module requires a training campaign such as for the a10c (where only part 1 is released). this has to be default. dcs is a simulator, it has to simulate how the plane is learned, since an actual plane is not learned by reading the manual, but by being instructed. new modules require this, and require to be advertised as such, along with a linear progression: the new module - which is even true for maps - has to get continuous content that organically evolves in a consistent way. first six months: training campaing. second six months: red flag. third six months: historical campaign. this needs to be structured and advertised as such. dcs is a digital museum, and this has to include authentic training, authentic exercise and authentic historical combat in a comprehensive and consistent way. 3. useless maps are useless. nobody needs a map that's not bound to a specific plan of vitalization. sinai, south atlantic, kola, the channel are absolutely useless for single player. nobody needs any kind of support for a map that doesn't get any sort of action on it that is naturally embedded in the release schedule of the module in question, while requiring you to sacrifice 50-100gb per map. releases of maps have to be considered in the way pointed out in point 2.
I might be in the minority, but I care very little about historical reenactments (the same goes for controller replicas). The game won't be able to simulate them at a meaningful level, and most are morally dubious at best.
Well, this was a great way of presenting some constructive criticism and possible solutions to ED... if only they listened. The problem with ED and its customers, the way I see it, is that of a crisis of confidence. Up until the Razbam/F-15E crisis, there were a minority (although a vast minority) that was complaining about the issues within DCS. After that event, now it is a vast majority that is complaining about ED's practices, and frankly, ED's financial health. The problem boils down to transparency, or lack of, from ED's side. ED practice is that of "hype and drop". They always hype up their sim with a great cinematics video, a newsletter promising improvements and new features, a new product announcement...that's the hype part. And just after that they drop: they drop a new sale, they drop a new pre-order launch, and after people rushed in to buy, they drop the announced developments. They do it over and over again. And the Razbam situation just made more people open their eyes to it. Take the new video "Ascending" they've released. It shows the new fog effects, new explosion effects, the new F-5 paid update... it gets people excited for the future of DCS. But when you read the newsletter and the comments, the sad reality settles in: a lot of the new promised features are in the "coming soon" state. And that's disappointing. You see, they've promised and showcased, and continue to showcase the WWII Marianas map for three years now...and no signs of it ever being released. Also, the same with the Supercarrier Briefing Room. Or an AI pilot for the Mosquito. This constant stream of promising and not delivering, using the "in development" features to create hype and then going silent about the promised features , only to promised again and again is what is making people so mad at, and at the same time, worried for Eagle Dynamics. And the greatest problem for it is not the hate they are getting right now, but plain apathy. The new fog feature looks great and promising, but my worries are: will it work as advertised? Will it be available in a playable state from the start? I don't think, believe that will be the case. So I don't care anymore. In the past (playing DCS since 2010) I would be counting the days for a newsletter and a new release. Today, I don't care anymore.
I agree. It appears to me that ED underestimates their customers ability to separate hype from reality and/or over estimates their ability to influence those customers. Or maybe not. HAH!
For what it's worth (probably not much), I used to be an active DCS Player, who had bought many "DLC's" right back to the original Black Shark helicopter. I stopped playing about 4 years ago. I got burned with the BAE Hawk module (that's a whole story in itself). Then there seemed to be too much emphasis on EA (early access) modules, and they never seemed to make it to full release (i.e. finished). Then compounding that was the fact that back 5/7 years ago DCS basically had the market to itself. Any and everybody that liked flight sims, HAD basically to use DCS, it was the only product out there. That has changed enormously. I now spend what little free time I have playing games/sims like VTOL VR, Nuclear Option, etc. The player base left is probably mainly 'Hardcore' sim players, the broader player base has been satisfied elsewhere, in games where you can spend 30 mins and enjoy it. Jump in, play, jump out and at a much reduced price point. I don't like to see any company fail, so I wish them luck. 🤞✌️👍
This. Do I wish it was MORE than what it is? Yes, but that's natural. Do I think it'll ever get to the point where I'd like it to be? No, because I don't think that's attainable, mostly because that goalpost moves more than a child with ADHD that's riding a massive Monster-and-sugar high.
I like the pragmatic approach from a real world, business perspective. It's refreshing and I suspect most of your points are not only valid but a likely source of reliable revenue. Wags is an extremely valuable asset. His guest appearances on podcasts with content creators have gone down well, and he provides a face to an otherwise nebulous entity. His calm demeanour with occasional dry wit are appealing to the core base. I would suggest they leverage this and, as you said, lean on their trusted community members to help disseminate and collect important data points. This especially applies to RL veterans and SME's, who hold another layer of gravitas in the community. From a gameplay perspective, DCS can seem a little sterile and sandbox-like outside the cockpit. It's obvious they're moving in this direction, but the "World" part feels a little bare. Many older sims source their immersion not just through INS updates or 4k cockpit textures - but diagetic gameplay elements. Without making things 'arcadey' - you can allow pilots to truly jump into the world. Allow them to plan their mission, walk around the barracks or their plane, speak to a crew chief, etc, etc. Ground crews, updated ATC and Ready Rooms are easy (ish) wins. I think DCS is missing a huge market with ground operations, specifically with 'Combined Arms' and a potential FF ground unit (Abrams anyone?). You could start to bring in the Steel Beasts/Gunner HEAT PC/Arma and even some War Thunder crowd, and create a battlefield that's fought from another dimension. This doesn't just enrich gameplay, but opens up an entire market. Start with tidying up CA, go from there - its a rough diamond that needs polish. Finally, I think some sort of limited subscription/membership to reward committed/long-time community members and provide a revenue stream for improvements to the core game would be a great idea. Heck, I know some people who would just be happy to pay 3-4 bucks a month patreon-style to just see some new features, fixed bugs and tidied code. Great video dude, cheers for this!
I've been thinking about this recently. And I think that ED should focus on encouraging more 3rd party devs, improving relationships, and making development easier. 3rd party modules are one of the best ways they can secure more funds without having to devote a significant amount resources. So they can focus more on core systems that complement the modules ingame, like AI, graphics, dynamic campaign, traffic control, etc. This could improve player retention, bring in more players, and that will encourage more 3rd party devs. ED are the only ones working on the core game, so if they focus only or mainly on making aircraft modules, core game dev lags and the gameplay loop will become stagnant. Which it has and it is.
Disagree, I think the 3rd party business model is hurting them. If a 3rd party dev can raise the funds and make a living from the commission and development, surely this should be in house with ED? This is just my 2 cents and could be way off, but would this lead to less issues with core updates breaking 3rd party modules?
I would like to thank Sidekick for setting up this up for constructive discussion. First, I will not speculate on the finances of ED, I cannot assume they're in red, or they swim in capital. As the name of their product suggests, it is a combat simulator, but in reality is a combat flight simulator. The dynamic campaigns, diversity or not of maps, engaging the community etc, all would be positive influenced, if... We keep the air modules are we do, naval modules an api connection with sea power, and arma for the ground units. I am not flanker-time player but didn't start yesterday either. I owe most air modules, all maps and assets. I enjoy mp,sp, and mission making. Food for thought and only my opinion
Well, both ArmA and DCS already come with APIs that help them connect to each other. Trouble is, they're only for the professional, real deal military versions of both.
yes. as far as how much i've spent. it's easier to name what i don't have. i personally wasn't looking for a loyalty rewards but Nick Grey said it. on that all you really have to do is wait for a sale because you can't fly all of them anyway. which i have modules that i haven't touched yet. but what really gave me a case of the red ass. is i lost with the hawk. and i assumed they had their third party contracts in order there after. i even remember they posted about going forward with contracts that would make it so that wouldn't happen again. but it did. with the f-15e. and from my point of view it seems razbam issue could of been dealt with sooner. the problem between ed and razbam was an issue way before it was public.
Good video and the suggestions make sense even with all of us being on the outside and not knowing the moving parts inside the business. I work in a related field to game development and to me it looks like ED is trying to do too many things with too few resources, especially when you compare the completeness and quality of 3rd party modules and terrains at launch and how quickly they're improved compared to ED's own modules and terrains. My suggestion would be to focus on what you're good at that keeps the business going and everything else, outsource and just gate keep to make sure the quality remains high. Embracing modders more can also extend the life of products, provide additional input or fixes, and give you a talent pool to scout from.
Very well said. I want DCS to succeed and be profitable. However I am withholding any further purchases until the Razbam debacle is resolved. I have purchased so many modules and a good deal of those are 3rd party. If those modules can be abandoned without further development then I am all set with any early access modules by third party developers. ED has stated that they now demand the source code for these modules but I think we can see that is not the case now as it has been almost a year of no Razbam updates.
If a subscription system shows up, I’ll drop DCS like a hot rock. I buy all my stuff, and I fly what I buy. If I have to pay twice to run my modules, I’ll go elsewhere That being said, I like the rest of your ideas
The idea was a voluntary subscription with premium features. The modules you did pay a lot of money for are actually a cost overhang for ED the second your transaction cleared. If we want to keep it going a recurring revenue is necessary for ED.
I think a map supscription that would allow players to play any mal without having to own it could be interesting but one huge thing to consider is the disk space. Even if the price was good these maps are huge. You dont want to have to download it each time you play. I would love to see more variety in maps in multiplayer though and this concerpt could do it
Simple: 1/ make a survey of the most requested features. 2/ make a roadmap with deadlines based on those features 3/ keep the deadlines - and, if unable - communicate the reasons + new deadline 4/ if you do not have cash, do a kickstarted for those features
For me it was the Razbam situation, neither ED or Razbam having any thought of the player base and having any foresight. I own only 4 models and 2 of them are Razbam, so straight away i lose half my aircraft or the non updating of the Razbam models. Now that my trust had been crushed only because the situation will not be resolved at all but now i thinking will this happend to the maps as well?? and will this happend to Heatblur?? I'm not buying anymore..... fool me once shame on me. I guarantee why ED have been pushing bug fixes, model fixes is because people arn't buying on what them are selling..... theres no trust.
It already almost did happen to Heatblur. They went something like 18 months without being paid after the Tomcat launched, until ED's F-16C was infamously rushed out far too soon in order to pay Heatblur's bill. This has been confirmed by Heatblur's CEO, though he wasn't overly happy that it had leaked out as they're clearly trying to rebuild their relationship with ED.
Another good and reasonable video. You even managed to convince me on subscription model on certain things. When it comes to it, every time I hear about it, I always worry about it affecting the base game, especially since I did buy quite a bit of modules. Having it restricted to just some features or a loyalty program is much more easy to digest. Now it's time to put out my two cents again. I'll mention some things that, even though as someone who loves the game, there are things that under all circumstances must be fixed. I will omit the mentions of adding new features, such as Dynamic Campaign, since that alone is a complex issue that I feel like many see it as a "simple" thing. However, my points should be generally "simple.". 1. Putting every asset up to modern standards. Although this isn't just about increasing graphical fidelity (even though that is by far the most obvious thing to notice, just compare models of F-4E and F-15E versus MiG-23MLD and C-17 in the game). Along with the fact that DCS' biggest problem is the presence of legacy code, I consider this to be at least part of it. As for "less visible" aspects of that, many simulations, especially of older AI units and older modules, are simply not up to date. This also covers simulation, like flares being so called "dice roll". This is an aspect, although difficult, that should be reworked. It's a prime example of legacy code being present. Now, this is both a simple (on paper) and complex problem to fix. I say simple because when it comes to ED modules and AI assets, all ED needs to do is to focus on them and make them up to their standards. We have already seen some progress with that, such as Flaming Cliffs update, the recently announced F-5E update, some AI asset updates, but there's still work to do (REDFOR assets really need an update...). The complex part is third parties, which their situations wary. MIG-21 from Magnitude 3 comes to mind, which we were promised an update (after Corsair) but neither of them are out yet. With Magnitutde, it's the most obvious example, although in my opinion rest of third parties are fairly up to date when it comes to modernizing their modules and assets. Also should be noted that this does not mean every model should be in very high fidelity, just "good enough" should do the job. As for whether or not this is profitable, I think them charging F-5E upgrade for 10 euros should say something. Whether that's a good thing or not, that's up to the individual (I'm personally conflicted about it). EDIT: 1.2. I'm actually shocked I forgot this, but this is actually a bigger thing that it looks like. Destructible trees. Now the funny thing is, they do exist in DCS.....sort of. On Syria map, they are present in recently added bases. Every other tree however is still indestructible. Destructible trees are actually vital for implementing new maps, such as highly desired Vietnam. 2. Optimization, especially for lower end systems. Again, this might seem like a "captain sherlock" opinion, but optimization really matters for this game. I myself use a bit of a "low end" system, so there are some things where it really impacts the performance. Now, single player is generally fine on my end, but multiplayer can be a much more mixed experience. Unlike in singleplayer, lag can actually really screw you over in multiplayer. Granted, this is one of the aspects of the game where ED is definitely working on (few notes: I have put my game on lower settings and I'm also a flatscreen user. Every word on optimization should be doubled down when it comes to VR). 3. Now while I have said "not adding new features", I think some of the features which are already in the game should be reworked. Case in point? Instant Mission Generator. That function, as it is, is not used very much for a reason. It crafts some rather strange and hard to work with scenarios. Now, ED is working on the better version of it, but it's only a matter of time before they implement it. I think DCS could really benefit from a good "instant mission generator", since that would allow players who generally do not like working with mission editor to have something that could cook up a scenario in few seconds. 3.1 Fully remove Game Mode because it is useless and actually broken. I think that should cover it all for now, at least DCS issues that are present now and how to fix them, not counting "adding new features".
@@Sidekick65 To answer some of these questions, I'm gonna answer with the assumption what ED might do, not necessarily what I personally want them to do. The recently announced F-5E Remaster hints at that some module improvements (graphical upgrade from what I've heard. The issues of simulation within F-5 will allegedly be put into the older module for free) will be paid, although for generally low cost if you own the module. This concept alone raises a lot of questions, like what exactly warrants an update to be payware, especially since a lot of updates (A-10C cockpit, FC3 (now FC4) model and texture updates) have been free. This is also added to the rumored "Heavy Metal" pack, which was supposedly going to be a paid version for graphical updates of units. It is still unsure if ED will go through with it, or did they change their minds about it. On the topic of asset packs, those could be paid too. It seemed like it worked for WW2 asset pack, so I can see ED grabbing an opportunity to do era specific packs, something like Vietnam War era pack, etc...If I recall correctly, Falklands asset pack was supposed to be that. This could keep the monetary incentive while also allowing players to choose what periods they want to simulate. Of course, this has to be at reasonable price. Something between 10 - 15 dollar (full price) could be good enough for this. Optimization and reworking already existing features should generally remain free. Judging from the latest newsletters, they are at least focused on bugfixes and "crusty" elements (BMP-2 snipers for examples). Same with destructible trees, they were sort of already put into the game for free. Now, while I said that putting new features is something I wouldn't really discuss, I can see monetary incentive there to be payable. If done very well and be put at the reasonable price, Dynamic Campaign could bring in some serious cash. It is already one of the most demanded features for DCS, so I can definitely see Eagle Dynamics putting a price tag on it. Although personally I think it would be preferable for it to be added for free, I can absolutely see Dynamic Campaign being something customers have to pay for. I think a good price for it would be something like 20 dollars if its really in-depth. If its a more "shallower" interpretation of a Dynamic Campaign, then it should be like 10 dollars at least. And that's just Dynamic Campaign, the possibilities regarding adding new features to DCS are quite some. I have heard that something of an "IADS" module could be something users would have to pay for, since it's an entirely different experience. Not exactly unprecedented, IL-2 GB did something similar with tanks. That should be it for now, although I might have missed some things here.
Community: "How about a game platform to transition gamers into simmers. This would create, NEW revenue, NEW interest and as a new type of brand loyalty. Also, automated/assisted OPTIONAL Air to Air refuel would greatly add to the pool of pilots looking to get into and learn." ED: "Yeah fuck that!. We don't care about expanding our player base." This has gone back and forth in chatrooms and forums for YEARS. ED, isn't in it to grow. They are in it for short term profits.
DCS is a great game. I would $$ support $$ things like texture update for the Russian naval ships, airbases in northern Turkey and Crimea. More AI aircraft from the 60’s and 70’s.
Great video again Sidekick. I am enjoying your take on the business side. I think the problem with DCS (and ED, and game developers in general) is the fact that modules take WAY too long to develop, DCS has become way too thin, too spread out and the pieces do not always fit together. I am not a software guy, so I do not know how to speed up development time, but when your income stream is derived from selling modules, there is just not enough releases in a year. DCS is trying to be all things for all players, from WWII to Korean War era, Cold War era, modern, from full fidelity aircraft to basic noob airplanes and all things in between. They are stretched so thin that not one single “set” or era can be fleshed out properly. I think this lack of depth can and does drive cynicism amongst the player base that then sets off the loudest contingent when ED does things like update the F-5 and charge a nominal fee for it (which I think is a good idea from ED). Again, I am not a business nor a software guy, but I am also one that thinks the money I have spent on DCS has been well worth it when compared to other hobbies in a cost per hour of enjoyment ratio.
I agree with the optional subscription model ... IMO it's the ONLY way to provide a long-term, healthy game. $10 or $15 a month provides 1) longer trial access, 2) discounts on module purchases, 3) Maybe access to Beta features or extended free access to "early access" modules?, 4) Maybe your subscription makes you part of the "focus groups" that help make the game better. This would provide a continued revenue stream to help fund CORE GAME improvements and long-term module bug and compatibility support. Let new modules fund themselves. People will buy great maps, aircraft, and feature packs and developers of said modules who create and finish good modules will continue to make them if people buy them. It's unrealistic IMO for people to expect free, lifetime support for any module, frankly. Financially, it can't be done. I am a career software engineer in my early 50's and I know what I make and what my peers make as skilled engineers. I am not a game developer, but I know what type of skill sets would be required to be a successful engineer on a project like DCS. These folks are not your run-of-the-mill Python scripters, and they deserve to be paid well. A subscription would help fund (for example) fixing the Harrier if it suddenly stops working when the 50xx series nVidia cards come out. Or the 60xx series, etc. I'd sign up today, without hesitation - as long as I started to see some results after a reasonable amount of time. 10 or 15 bucks is nothing - a drop in the bucket - given the amount of time many of us spend on this hobby ... and let's call it a hobby because it really requires more commitment than simply playing Call of Duty "x".
I enjoy your "voice of reason" in that community where everyone and their mom claims to know better how to make DCS better and how to run ED as a business.
Maybe something cool that people would pay for on a month to month basis is a mission pack, possibly themed differently for each month, with a handful of missions to complete. This would be especially cool if people like Reflected and Sedlo were involved in some way.
I like DCS for its commitment to high fidelity flight modeling and its “sandbox” capability for infinite scenario creation. What I don’t like is the announcing of modules coming and the years it seems to take to deliver. I am totally opposed to any subscription based business model. The genie is out of the bottle. Any switch to subscriptions would be a huge turn off for me as a customer. Especially considering the money I’ve already spent. My two cents on this topic.
I like all your ideas especially the one that is a monthly subscription for map use on multiplayer servers. I would also add an aircraft sub for that too maybe. I do feel ED has been making improvements to the core as mush as they can but I don’t think there will be major changes like people want. I think they will get there eventually. I love DCS for what it is and the only issue I have is what most people have is having to deal with lower game performance because PC hardware limitations. Also,I think the best update ED could do is adding the world. So you could set up missions to fly long distances requiring multiple tanking trips to get to a target. That would be awesome.
Interesting POV, I also feel more work on the core is needed, hope someone on ED can check this video and take notes. BTW, I know now why your videos work so smoothly and full of units, cause you own a NASA approved PC ;)
A voluntary subscription model is needed, with premium features. Another good feature that could be a nice incentive would be a premium replay feature- for recording flights and not having to struggle with the current broken trk files. Content creators would go for it (though some would complain).
Interesting topic for sure But I missed one important thing, very important think on the topic of revenue stream. One that many people advocating for a subscription miss all the time. Imagine ED can pull that suscription model as a complete success, but how will they grow from there with all that money? I'm a veteran and i saw recently in the past years proof that points that the main issue they could have to grow is the russian language. The base code is build on that and the overall core of ED programmers work with that as main and even only one. Manking the current programmers streach thin. Then if you see the recruitment page from ED is only in the ru page for a reason. And there are other things, even official statements, that point to that. I will not post those here, but are public of course avaiable if you know where to look. Imagine how many programmers are in the world with the abilities required to work on DCS that know english, versus ones that know russian language. It would be interesting to see this topic discussed because you can possibly get a revenue stream, but what can ED do different from what they do now. By the way, they state over and over again that they have no liquidity problems, so if they could grow they would have done it by now wouldn't they.
DCS is awesome, much better than all other flight simulators, look what is happening in MSFS2024 launch or the flight dynamics of the all MSFS versions. Especially in VR it is another World. I don’t understand all the negativity around. It is a small niche business and smallest part of the gaming community. Once I wanted to learn about the financials of ED and found some online info, and it was correct, their revenues was surprisingly small. What do you expect, a Bugatti from a GoKart making company. Common guys, be reasonable.
I agree with every word. Unfortunately, nothing will ever change because ED does not have a single competitor even on the horizon. Therefore, they will behave as they see fit.
I know it's some risk around it. Open the SDK and allow modders in to easy the stress. It's games as old as DCS with a big and healthy mod community. It is alot of talent out there who can be a good addition to DCS. Especially for the lack of Redfor fighters which is my problem with DCS.
Not a big fan of open source SDKs. Version control is important specifically for multiplayer. Open source is great for single player but it totally ruins everything else. IL21946 is a great example. Once the code was out, multiplayer was fractured and the game just became impossible to manage with all the different mod factions.
In fact IL2 1946 is an excellent example of how the gaming community can better develop a platform, and at the time this title was played there were specific servers for various mods (BAT, FSX, etc.) and servers for the vanilla game. If dcs becomes open source there is a great chance that the platform will take a leap in quality.
An even better thing to do would be for ED to allow server side mod managers which allow users to download only the files needed to temporarily play the game with the mods. For instance, I don't need to know how the A-4 radar works to fly along side it, so only download the model, textures, etc. to put it into the game and then delete them if the server isn't a "favorite".
I would happily pay for a MSFS model of core engine and graphic upgrades every two years PLUS a monthly fee for aircraft, campaign and map upgrades. I am not at all interested in paying for the core engine to reside in the cloud like MSFS just tried to pull off. This sw pricing model is a small fraction of the investment I have in my F/A-18C simpit. This is simply adapting to today's world of sw. Every VC or PE firm is looking for companies w/recurring revenue models. Adapt or die.
Agree that in software now constant revenue stream is essential to survive. That is why everything is moving to cloud based platforms and subscription services. But for like $10/month, I would like to have full access to all ED content including modules. 3rd party content we can pay separately.
I wish the training missions were VR friendly. I've noticed some need you to press a certain key to proceed and does not accept a key bind to a switch. For this reason I tend to avoid the training missions, which i'm sure would make me a better pilot and keep me interested in all the modules I have previously purchased.
I really enjoy DCS, could use a good dynamic campaign. My only sadness is the F-15e issue with Razbam… I really enjoy the Mudhen and it saddens me that it is forever stuck where it is.
The problem as I see it is a miss-match in values and goals. ED ownership does not see DCS as an end but a means, Nick Grey’s passion is aviation, but the real kind. The Fighter Collective, an air show company that restores and maintains WWII fighter aircraft for air shows is his main focus and DCS is a means to support that focus. The evidence is the reportedly $10 million USD loaned from ED to the air show from 2019-2024. That substantial chunk of capital transfer is the root cause of ED’s issues. It’s put them behind and sealed the fate of ED being trapped in the early access model forever as technical and monetary debts continue to pile up. I’m not judging these decisions at all, as real WWII aircraft flying and performing is absolutely a valid aim and it’s entirely justifiable, but from a customer base that isn’t so involved and has been purchasing early access products on the promise of them being finished and improvements to the core of the game being implemented it can cause ire, justifiably. When ownership and customers values for the product don’t align, it’s often time to change something. If it’s the customers, then that’s the end for the product, but if ownership can change, that can breathe new life into the business. Nick Grey should sell Eagle Dynamics.
With all the modules in the game and in development, I really hope we get a combined Iraq, Syria, Sinai and Saudi map so we can do full length Desert Storm/ONW/OSW/Desert Fox/OIF missions
How do you actually guarantee that that money you've paid goes toward game development, though? Rather than Nick Grey's avgas bill for his other business/hobby?
There's probably a lot of questions about what the "base game" really means. Yeah, prettier clouds and dynamic lighting (and now fog!) are great. They make great videos & screenshots, which brings in more players. It's important. Bug-fixing is obviously important, but I think some people are far more sensitive to bugs than I am. There have been some bad / frustrating ones over the course of several years, but most of the time I don't notice it or it just doesn't break the game for me. When I think "core," I think "quality of life." You just got DCS and maybe you even bought your favorite fighter aircraft and a map. Now what? How does one get started on multiplayer? Do you just grab a slot on the biggest server and then get upset when you get blown up while taxiing? Or do you get annoyed trying to figure out why you aren't allowed to log on (because you don't have common mods / content packs?)
1. Set a hardware standard and stand by it. "We play to this rig, with these boards and extras. Play with our rig and we will guarantee you tech support. Don't play with our rig and you're on your own. Once every year or two, we will update our rig, you can too." DCS is not a poor man's game. It needs a 2,500 dollar setup and peripherals to work well. High speed, 3TB, SSD, insanely good GPU, fast multicore CPU, eye tracker and HOTAS, on a decent sized screen, with cooling fit to freeze a polar bear, at a minimum. Having a blazing this is a rite of passage an entry bar. Like a gunslinger having a good weapon that he occasionally trades for a newer model. Like a good racer getting on the Ferrari Team at Lemans, Point Being: BY ITSELF THIS WOULD CUT DEVELOPMENT TIME IN HALF. You want a great game? Come ready to play. We'll be waiting. 2. Insist on a shift to a P2P for all online players. Monthly ten dollars each. Premium accounts, twenty dollars each. This gets you a guaranteed number of high speed server hour access per month and for premium members, one new module per year. Any. Module. Set up a separate system of rewards for offline players who buy a service package to maintain the flow of updates and standalone campaigns. Everybody gets what they want, at the threshold they want. 3. Start fixing what's wrong, stop promising the world, start improving the game play, not the eye candy. We never needed volumetric clouds, bushes that go whoosh when hit by explosives, or wings which wobbled. We STILL NEED a GUI which makes sense for novices who cannot program basic to set up prebuild scenarios with lots of backing action simply. Not a carrier but a CSG, with environmental rules and period accurate hull counts and classes for use. Plop. In goes the whole group, set a couple minor mods for formation, networking and ROE/Command initiative. And off you go, with a 10-20 ship escort, fleet trains and WORKING SUBMARINES. For pities sake, Sea Power, Cold Waters everyone gets this right except you. And you leave it unchanged for YEARS as a drag on server performance that is unnecessary because it does nothing! 4. Functional Unit Behaviors, Believable Terrain. When someone (player) blows up a bridge, a all road traffic behind it should bunch up. Until an MP unit gets there to unpluck the duck and get things moving on alternate routes. Before that moment happens, it's Open Season. So the bridge is down. When the enemy want to do a forced river crossing, first send a large formation of helicopters, up and down stream, to come around BEHIND the friendly position, drop air assault forces behind the enemy and begin mortar/ATGW/RPG assaults on the rear of his positions while shelling the snot out of the objective from across the river: smoke and frag. Then take the far bank under direct fire as your amphibious BMP/BTR/PT go swimming. Then start bringing the heavies on barges or as bottom crossers while the engineers pull up with their trucks and begin dumping bridge segments into the water to form the pontoon crossing. All the while, every mobile ADV available rushes to concentrate GBAD into the area. This iis not so much 'AI' as it is a parade of X-then-Y-now-Z action triggers, starting with the bridge being down. Let there be PERSISTENCE in the prior destroyed column so that the functional effect of watching the enemy 'try try again' is there, as your player does the troll under the bridge thing: "You Shall Not Pass!". And points will be rewarded on whether or not you stop the enemy from reaching X before Y timeframe at Z loss exchange rate. We're never going to get FRG Cold War battles. Nor Taiwan. Nor But there is no reason not to get an 'Orangelandia' with relevant seasons and terrain that resemble what is forbidden. We it gets wet and cold, IR becomes less useful. When fog and ice or sandstorms occlude direct view, forcing you to eschew LGB bombing to get close and personal, from 500ft. People are stupid, they here 'AI' and immediately think it has to be HAL-9000. No. It has to be the wizard of oz, with a lot of simple if-then-else triggers that only have to be active in ONE mission. With all resulting 'You held the line!' vs. 'You've been thrown back in disarray!' being VIRTUAL, as a function of where you are on a map. And what you fly over as the ''I was there..." detritus of battle. You can literally make up HUNDREDS of scenarios for this. Insert a Ranger Regiment to take an airbase or seize a POMCUS depot. Do a CSAR mission to recover a downed pilot with special forces, in an area too hot for conventional ARRS. Work with a TR-1 (PLSS) or RQ-4 (TESAR) to loft bomb with JDAM multiple air defense sites, using an F-22 or F-35 and GBU-39. 'Because they keep shooting down/jamming our HARM/GMLRS!' Large or small, the key to a single player campaign is that it illustrates the CONSEQUENCES for getting the MA on a mission _while_ conserving your force so that you don't War Thunder your way through a map at impossible attrition levels because, by Day-4 at 20 planes a day, you will not have the F-35 option. You will be down to Vipers and Hogs. And that is when it gets hard. Because you can no longer hit the enemy as road column convoys 'on the march' but only as advancing forces, 'In Battle Box'. Nose to Nose, Whites Of Their Eyes level warfare is bloody and random and short lived. 5. Add 'packs' not just single airframe study 'modules'. All Weasels. All Bombers. All CAS jets. All Fully Flyable. Or how about an EW mod? Working noise jammers, TRD, Weasel ELS and ARM Programming. A Post Milllennium GBAD mod. Artillery mod. Rotary Wing mod. Infantry/Airborne/SOF mod (parachutes from the sky, gets on/off helicopters, boards also dropped vehicles to assault objectives...). Aircraft don't have to have perfected flight model or a clickable cockpit. But it should have an accurate one which displays specific avionics displays/modes, universal to type. So that qualification on each can be easy. A B-1 should go fast as a greased eel (sustained 620 knots, burst 700) at low level, behind a wall of jamming that makes the air itself blur. A B-52 should be the king of staandoff munitions with Popeye and CALCM or JASSM. A B-2/21 should be the king of multiple JDAM DPIs to take out and entire airbase with up to 80, individually aimed, targets. Photorecce adds UAVs and Satellites for IN MISSION target updates. It's a mission capability and its evolution that you want to emulate. From the early days to the modern era.
IMHO they need to open up the API of the bits of the game that are broken to the community and let them fix it for themselves (and yes, certain bits, like Wingman AI, AI physics, and other aspects of AI are broken.) And then there are things that are simply "crap" like ATC. With things like Olympus or MOOSE you can already see how this can work. The alternative either is plowing capital into a free game, or a massive showdown with the players as they shift to a whole new business model. I don't see how either can work.
I just want them to revamp the AI. In A2A BVR, enemy AI will fire a Fox 3 missile, then not defend when knows it's shooting at an F16 or F18 that can shoot right back. Instead it will just offset, push you, then panic defend when youd missle goes pitbull, which at that point is too late. It's a turkey shoot. Their WVR/BFM behavior is atrocious as well. The end result is that you have to play multiplayer to encounter realistic enemies, or your missions are predominantly air to ground.
Customer support is my thing, I love good customer service. There are times with ED on the forums that you never hear the state of a bug report for months if not years. Would it be so bad if there was a master list (based on priority) that we as consumers / users could vote on to show ED what their customers perceive as important bug fixers? At present we rely on non paid forum users / ed testers and a couple of possibly paid people to respond. This is just an idea / suggestion, does not mean it will work.
I would love to see a monthly fee that grants me one or two tokens that when redeemed, let me try a specific module for two weeks. I can use the first token to try the apache for the first two weeks, then try kola for the next two weeks. when my bill rolls over, i get two more tokens to spend, and if i really like the apache, i could just use those two tokens both on the apache to get access to it for four weeks (1 month). Obviously its cheaper for me in the long to outright buy the module, but if i keep paying the fee, i get to keep trying new modules and maps without having to dump significant cash. Would eliminate alot of the "I bought this module, spent two weeks with it then never touched it again" frustration, provide a way for more maps to be accessible, as servers could rotate maps every two weeks so people can always have access to whatever map the server is running, provided they are paying the monthly fee.
ED currently has 10 modules in early access. That's a lot of man-hours to be paid and I think they simply don't have the capacity/money left to work on the core DCS world. Because laborious tweaks to AI for example won't generate any money right away. Maybe in the future, by attracting more players, but that's not certain. In my opinion, ED is trapped in early access. The Razbam tragedy certainly didn't help them. It has only eroded consumer confidence that ED is a company I can trust with hundreds of dollars and get my product (yes, I am one of the many disappointed owners of the F15, which will most likely never be finished, and all the other Razbam modules that will degrade over time). Thinking like this, I can see a dynamic campaign as a paid module. Similar to supercarrier.
I see the dynamic campaign as the perfect vehicle for the subscription model. As a subscriber get access to the dynamic campaigns that are constantly upgraded for certain maps. Maybe access to the maps you don't own?, or modules you don't own, for those campaigns? Then perhaps discounts on those modules are perm additions to your library?
Nice video and some really great ideas!! Geez you’d think you get paid to do stuff like this!!😊So the subscription thing is a good idea and Heatblur Cold War Server might be a way to do this idk!! I’d be more than willing to assist ED with information or modules etc., if they’d allow it. The problem seems to be they cater to a few Well known YT channels and forget about the rest of us and this ain’t easy as you know! So I’’d love to see them reach out to folks and in return those folks could help ED! Anyway loved this video and the other you did. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
"I" think your videos are awesome. I am a suscriber to your channel, and I appreciate your content. They are straight forward and you gives us your opinions, but you know the age we are living thru, SOCIAL media age, that will let anyone who has an opinion to say what they want to say without any knowledge of the matter. Please keep up with your videos, I have learned a lot from your videos and you don't mix your feelings, you let us know what you are thinking. One question. On this video at the one minute mark, I watched your videos on how to set up shots for videos but I cannot do the SLOW motion around the plane like you do on the 1 minute mark. I slowed me mouse down and my keyboard down, but I cannot make the camera move as smoothly as you do. Do you use a XBOX controller for that? Keep sending out videos, they are very good and constructive.
Yes, I use an Xbox controller for that. There a couple of videos on the channel about doing camera work. Let me know on Discord if you are not able to find what you are looking for.
No thank you to subscriptions. All I want is a harrier that is maintained and the dynamic campaign. I don’t think either should be something that is years into the future or never going to happen.
@ No, I would however be happy to buy the dynamic campaign as a module. You can always make subscriptions look like great value. Ex: a subscriptions for all modules for 10 bucks a month and I it would still end being bad value given enough time.
From module sales. I don’t think ED is short on cash or profit, but, none knows. However, I see why they prioritize things that generate money, hence I would pay for a dynamic campaign module. Other companies use DLC to keep their products alive, modules are DLC, it’s a proven model. I really don’t think we need subscriptions to keep ED alive.
@@GoldenGnu the discussion is also about getting more depth and maintaining the eco system. Other companies keep simpler products alive by having a much broader player base- that is also a problem here- we arent many, we are few.
Multiplayer servers are broke rn for a couple months now i can make a server but nobody can join it. I can play all day and it doesnt show up for anyone else. My buddy did it by ip to join and it says offline. Same thing happens when he does a server. Game is not easy to design and hop in a scenario with friends. You can design it quick and fly it solo. But getting others in. Impossible. You can join already made servers to fly together but u cant control the scenarios
I'm no CEO but I'm a former Head of QA and worked on several successful MMOs over the years. I agree, DCS isn't broken. It has an income stream issue. It's time to go subscription.
I am willing to pay periodically for a "game" (or "simulator") I enjoy/ I have also had my doubts about a company that depends entirely on selling new stuff for revenue. Particularly with the learning curves associated with fairly realistic combat aircraft. (You ain't in WarThunder anymore, son.) Having started down that road, it would be difficult to change over to something like a subscription or other periodic payment scheme. If they figure out a way, I am most likely in.
Oh yes? I would say that most of the posts I have seen have been responses to other posts. Most of them didn't watch the video. Or did not understand it.
I like some ideas in this video. However, there are two flaws to me here: 1) What I don't follow is the assumption that ED's problems are mostly cash as many of your solution ideas focused on that. 2) Secondly I would like to point out that ED is not just any business - it's a business having the luxury of no competition in it's core business model. In my eyes they should: 1) innovate more, by a long shot. For a company that size it's far too slow. 2) include the younger generation instead of just being an aircraft museum for the gramps complaining that everyone beyond their horizon is just ace combat. Turns out ace combat has a great story that's being told - DCS doesn't have any campaign even close to that level, strange. 3) need to deliver on promises in a reasonably timely manner (e.g. not 5 years but 1) 4) they need to solve their software design issues, phase out staff that's out of touch with current tech into advisory roles and hire people or companies to modernize the core product 5) always pick the easy fruits - like giving us assets in the core game to do battlefield simulation and not just pretend that would be the case on the store page 6) complete at LEAST a theater, even better, complete an era. Right now the game is largely useless outside of narrow scripted cases or VERY heavy modding efforts. 7) stop fighting your two most important 3rd parties (Razbam and Heatblur), instead support them where you can and make sure they thrive as partners or cancel the 3rd party business all together if you're not up for it. That was the TL/DR portion So here's some thoughts and rambling on that issue I'm having with some of the ideas: To me it is not a cash problem. Their problem to me is value. They are a monopolist in the combat aviation sim space, yet people are beginning to question the value of the product. Our expectations have changed, especially from people that are not very old and started on 286dx16 pc's or even earlier. The ED CEO gives dozens of millions to stuff like the fighter collection. It's very apparent that cash is NOT the issue here. The horrible miscoms, the non-payment of multiple 3rd parties, including Heatblur, not just Razbam, is also a clear sign of that. To me ED's problem are the complete lack of innovation, the very low quality of the product and generally the impression that their coders are... just not very amazing. They are also out of touch with even their own store page and it's claims. An example is where it proudly says it's a battlefield simulator and yet... we don't even have assets for that to support it. Where are the awesome heli pads? Where are some basic vehicles like a variety of toyota pickup trucks and similar?! This stuff could be bought in asset stores for next to no cost, not to mention there is completely free CC0 or CC attribution assets they could just implement within a couple of days. Everything seemingly takes way too long, does way too little and overall they are not utilizing modern approaches to game (or software) development. Sadly I believe part of that reason could also be because they are also keeping a core staff team in a certain country that we have some situation with. That's definitely not making things easier at least. Ultimately, sorry, but I don't believe throwing money at a problem like this will help. We did that for years and it didn't get us anywhere. Some bugs I reported 7 years ago are still there. Especially not in a case, where this product is a monopoly in it's space, and the people in charge are mostly just charging into a direction of a museum / narrowly scripted experience, not a modern title with ambitions for the next generations. I wonder what we will hear in this years 2025 and beyond video. Fingers crossed.
BTW - if you would like to register your opinion there is a poll on my Channel. I do know that Nineline from ED is looking at it occasionally
NineLine from what i’ve seen is a great guy, i’ve spoken with him briefly over the years and i’m glad to see he is looking at what we/you have to say. As always thanks Sidekick.
I think for many of us, the big problem boils down to, the aircraft vastly outpace the world the aircraft in at the level of detail they are presenting at. I have a functioning BIT page in a Hornet which is a completely useless detail for DCS (at the moment), but SAM sites are horrifyingly stupid in that the radiate their location continuously and up until recently have only reacted to ARM launches by use of third party scripts which get broken every other patch ED releases. Ground AI is equally stupid, etc. Flying the aircraft around is fun, but the world they are in is so obviously early 2000's era AI that it can really pull you back and force you to work around the compromises ED has made to enjoy the game.
Then there is the issue of patching stability. By that I mean, every patch they make changes, good changes, but those changes inexplicably break SOMETHING ELSE. I remember the patch they added lighting to the F-16C and it broke airfield lighting. How?! On this same line, ED frequently changes the mission-scripting tie ins which allow certain third party scripts to work. Skynet-IADS has had to go from turning AI on/off, to turning emission state on/off BACK to turning AI on/off because changing emission state no longer works if the site is engaging a target. This same problem impacts EVERY. SINGLE. Campaign produced. Every patch is a clusterfuck of trying to figure out what scripts or triggers are broken in the campaign and then having to find a work around to push, only for ED to fix the previous issue and break a different one. I've talked to multiplayer mission makers, and am one myself, and it is EXCEPTIONALLY frustrating to work in the Mission Editor when those base functions change in how they work behind the scenes without any notice from ED... and worse that ED may not realize a change they made to something unrelated to the mission editor, has broken those functions, somehow.
A part of me really, really, really wishes DCS 3.0 was a whole new game engine from the ground up. Eliminate the legacy code nonsense from the Flanker days and give us a game engine which can carry us into the future where a bug fix doesn't result in bugs in unrelated systems.
I for one have no complaints.. I've been playing "DCS" since long before it was called that. One wonderful day in 2002, I was walking through Best Buy and saw this DC ROM called "Lock On: modern Air Combat." I've been playing since then and honestly, it's come a LONG WAY from being the shitty 480p, meant to be played on a CRT fighter jet sim. I mean we JUST GOT CLOUDS for god's sake.
The fact that there are so many people playing now is a damn miracle and dream come true for me. It's a blessing that for 22 years, I've been enjoying flight sims and finally, DCS exists - Where there are hundreds of people all around the globe enjoying the same hobby as me at any given time, and we can enjoy it together!! When I started playing, I had a 56k modem, there was absolutely 0 thought of multiplayer or any thought close to the thought of an entire (Popular!!) genre of entertainment centered around explaining/speculating about/enjoying it as well.
Call me old... But the fact this exists in the first place is so incredible to me, I would feel ungrateful if I ever got angry with DCS.
Agreed. I have that LOMAC cd-rom somewhere here as well...I also have the boxed version of Flanker 2.0...aaaahhhh...those were the days! 😀
@@TheMack I kinda miss going to the computer store to buy games (mostly flightsims). 🤣
Anyone remember F-16 Combat Pilot, for the Commodore Amiga?
@@Redtail_Pilot Me too. Oh yeah! F-16 Combat Pilot, I played the heck out of that one! It was really advanced for its time, I would say that it was a study level sim, with that great manual as well. I must have logged hundreds and hundreds of hours in that sim. I even printed out the map, laminated it and drew waypoints on it for every mission. I created paper forms to fill in with mission details and everything, went all hardcore on that. Such good memories! 😀
@@TheMack Never imagined that one day I'd be sitting in the cockpit (virtually) of a fighter jet, via VR! It's the closest I'll ever get to my childhood dream. 😂
I'm a private pilot (since 1999) and very fortunate to have achieved that goal. Really wanted to fly fighters though.😉
That's why, with all it's issues, I can't really bring myself to complain about DCS. ED has fulfilled something that no others have (for me)!
@@Redtail_Pilot Totally agree! It's wonderful what today's technology brings, and after using VR, there's no going back to 2D...
If it can bring our dreams of being a fighter jock just that little closer. it's worth it imho, even if the sim has it's flaws, it's not like 1989 :D
Good summary of the current status of ED as a company, and solid suggestions that have been thrown around over the years in some form or another. While we all would like to see DCS succeed, trust in ED has been betrayed with the Razbam debacle. Products like the M2000 and AV8B are intrinsically linked to my enjoyment of the game, and the lack of leadership shown by Nick Grey has resulted in my wallet being closed to this product. ED needs to start demonstrating that they understand and appreciate their customer base. As a long time supporter of the majority of the models (and paid upgrades over the years), my passion and support has dried up.
Great suggestions. I think some kind of voluntary subscription service. Start with a very small amount so that at least 50-60% of the base would understand and be willing to pay. If we all chipped in $2-3 a month that could give them more liquidity and help to improve the base game without the need to rush out new modules.
Wow! A voluntary subscription is a *great* idea. …and I know tone is sometime hard to discern in text so I’ll clarify that I’m not being sarcastic or facetious. It’s a GREAT IDEA. Thank you.
I’ve purchased more than one module that I’m not terribly interested in to support DCS and I’d like a different way to do so.
What a lot of people forget is that ED has made a BEAUTIFUL experience that is both deep and wide. I spent *months* with the assistance of an instructor to learn the A-10C and there are still so many lessons to learn around tactics and combat employment of the jet. People talk about clouds but ED added VR for free, added a new, free map, etc. The list is long. ED is doing a lot for the community of players and people are sh*tting on them. There’s truly some disconnect.
Sidekick offers some good perspective. Aspiration is one thing but perspiration whilst going hungry is another thing entirely.
As a kid playing Jet on the original IBM PC-and I mean the original PC, not the PC XT or any of the follow-on clones-I could not imagine this product would ever be possible. Thank you, ED.
From someone who is responsible for a DCS community, the core system seems to work against us. It takes an unbelievable amount of time to create custom missions. They make code changes that breaks things with little to no documentation, and it is not user friendly at best. Some of their documentation is not accurate or out of date. Without a lot of custom scripting the AI is not capable of acting in an intelligent way. Even with scripting, there is only so much that can be done. All of which takes a long time to do. There are some core issues with things like how the refueling tankers will randomly roll so quick it is dangerous. The super accurate shooting, and the lack of coordinated behavior by enemy units. For example, in AA, the AI can't even do a basic DCA grinder or fly in tactical formations. The AI responds to missiles in ways no human can, For example, they will not flare for a radar missile and flare for an IR missile they can't see, or should not see. Additionally the AI, will do crazy maneuvers that would require real time 100% SA of a missile to defeat it; not realistic or fun to debrief in a Tacview. I can pick into more details, but the key issue is I don't feel like they want to engage the community, and they certainly don't seem to test things in multiplayer. If they do, I am curios what list of things they test, because we find them rather easily. I wish ED would engage the community and help us create a list of core issues to help grow the capabilities and the community as a whole. We need to feel like we are flying in the context or mission we are in. I often hear people refer to DCS as a cockpit simulator and not a combat world simulator. BMS has this down in a way that I wish DCS could embrace.
A 3D map-view within the mission editor to allow for easy positioning of units and waypoints would work wonders IMO ... it can be done since there is an outside project aiming to do just that already. SO frustrating to have to start the mission just to see that my SAM launcher is on the side of a steep hill.
Well said.
I enjoyed this video. It brought back some memories. In the 1980's I worked for one of the Nations largest Business Consulting and Efficiency Companies. In almost every case, the business owners or top management believed their problems originated out back in the production areas, warehouse, or distribution areas. What our company found out was, the mistakes, loss of efficiently and cash was almost always in the top management. Not in production, distribution, or sales. I have said it many times. In business eventually the big fish eats the little fish. I predict that sometime in the future, ED will be eaten by MS. Which in time will provide the Flight Simulator enthusiast with something wonderful.
I disagree, Microsoft tried before with their flight sim - I believe is was Combat, or Air Combat, but I'm probably wrong, but it did not last long. I think DCS will last for a long time - as long as they continue to innovate. They have long term plans, but it will take a large cash infusion to make it happen in a reasonable time. They have a large sandbox and a huge diversity of players which makes it difficult to manage. I think WW2 in the Pacific will be huge, along with a fleshed out War in Europe covering all of Europe and the Mediterranean. They admit they are reaching their limit in modern Aircraft that aren't secret.
@@rwhunt99 I owned and flew the MS WWII South Pacific Air Combat DVD. It was 20 year old technology. I loved it. I flew the F4U Corsair. Wishing, hoping, and dreaming is one thing. I never liked MS as a business. But, in the real world of business? MS will swallow up and absorb ED, and the consumer will be better off for it.
I just can't see it. ED, despite their pretense, is a Russian company with a Swiss facade - the vast majority of their workforce seems to be in Russia, or Belarus. Microsoft is big enough where that sort of thing matters to them on a reputational level. Under the current geopolitical climate, this sort of thing could land a business - particularly one as big and government-involved as Microsoft - in hot water. If anything, I see it as more likely that one of the big Chinese investment groups like Tencent buys them.
@@Malakhit24 I believe at least several of their employees are from Ukraine. I believe they are NOT a Russian company based in Switzerland. But, other than that, I agree, in my working life I saw so many people getting fired by the very people that needed to be fired.
I disagree on MS providing anything good for simmers. MSFS was completely slapped together, and MSFS 2024 is even worse. They don't care about the aircraft they are modeling, just the funny graphics that were completely blown away by DCS with the clouds update.
Great video and analysis. Your point about solo players wanting a deeper experience versus a broader one was spot on. It seems ED is focused on making superfluous changes versus ones that sim more immersive and purposeful.
I really like the idea of rewarding the loyality of the customers. People who already spend a lot could be rewarded with kind of special membership, discounts etc to motivate them for furhter spendings, but with benefits.
I think the problem ED has made themselves is they have your classic self eating cake.
The community expects quite a lot from what is still in the general scheme of things quite a small company. They are making incredibly complex simulations which are more in depth than studios twice their size are making, for a smaller community with far less sales. I think the community could do well to remember that the modules are expensive not because ED is creaming money off the top, but because they're investing unmatched levels of time and effort into software that is ultimately only going to be bought by the relatively small group of people who are both willing and enthusiastic enough to sit there and learn the in depth systems knowledge required to git gud at flying a F16.
Developing the DCS core comes with three issues.
1. The core doesn't on its own generate income, so it's not like improving it will result in more income.
2. The tasks that ED has set itself to improve the core (Spherical Earth, Dynamic Campaign etc etc) are incredibly complex, far more than most understand.
3. When they do achieve something, it's not sexy and it doesn't really get appreciated by the community - For example the massive performance improvements ED has achieved by completely rewriting the game engine for multithreading and implementing DLSS have been met by about 5 minutes of faint praise then the community went back to moaning about Spherical Earth etc with very little recognition of how much had actually been achieved.
The community demands to see progress being made on the core and so ED has to give people a peek under the curtain every now and then to show that they're not doing nothing with it, but this is almost as unhelpful as doing nothing as it rarely placates anybody and just invites the inevitable 'well where is it' questions.
To fund these core improvements, the money has to come from modules, but this is a cursed sword because modules only really make money when the community is buying them en masse, they become less of a profit maker and more of a noose around the neck as they get older, as less people buy them but they still have to be supported, maintained and updated where possible. Adding more modules creates more profit short term but causes more headaches long term.
You would think that introducing some sort of subscription model would provide a stable income that could be aimed towards the core, but it's basically impossible to convince the community that they should be paying each month to use/update the core, when point 3 is still valid.
What I think is most important for ED at the minute is to manage the community's expectations, openly saying 'hey, we're not going to release many more modules this year, we're going to focus on the core and the modules we already have out. We'd appreciate your support and as modules become more updated and complete maybe consider buying the ones you haven't got already to help us get DCS to where you want it to be and then we can go back to releasing more new stuff', but that will still be financially hard on ED and, once again due to point 3, they could do all that and still people wouldn't care and would go back to complaining.
Agreed. Thanks for taking the time to respond thoughtfully.
Hit the nail on the head and couldn't have said it any better myself! All these people saying "not one more cent" don't realize they're doing nothing but un aliving our beloved DCS!
As a long time player, mod developer and game industry specialist, agreed on all counts. Well said!
Always good to hear from the pros. Thanks.
I think DCS isn't broken but I do think more gameplay focus will greatly help the game.
Community focus so content like missions and mods have some kind of standard.
If you consider it a game then yes but many of us don't and enjoy the pure flying of it. Making it have more gameplay can take away from it
I think they Release some thing and forget! Not fix....
Thoughtful and thought provoking (also, nice video featuring some very cool typically unseen mods). Agree completely with the idea of community engagement, particularly as it involves those users who have been early adopters and/or big spenders or have given back to the community in some way. Support for some of the well-done and well managed Community Modules (e.g., the A-4E) which is short of "official module" status, but which allows them to become more standardized components of the game also would help. Really like your idea of tiered status (with some increasing perks for higher status). Lots of interesting ideas. Thanks for putting this out for discussion!
Sidekick, thoughtful, insightful and accurate representation of how I feel about DCS and ED’s business direction. Yea, no way is it broken, but their direction is of concern to me. You distilled the essence of that concern: I want a deeper core experience, not a broader one with module after module spam which I stopped purchasing as a matter of principle. I want them to be widely successful from a business perspective but not by deprioritising enhancements to the core experience. And I want them to finish the worst of the half completed modules they already have before pushing out new ones. In short, prop and consolidate. I feel this deep, core experience is how they carved out a niche early on but have moved away from that. Although not strictly part of your discussion, but an important corollary, I can’t help think that what we, the customer, most need is a serious competitor to DCS in the high-end, military grade flight simulation genre. I can’t help think we customers would be better served eventually by the impetus that competition would provide, and ED itself might be more inclined to really consider its current course. Do you think this is a fair thing to say? Is that the essence of the problem in this genre? Or is the industry just too niche to make a serious competitor or two not a realistic proposition? I’d be interested in your thoughts, even a separate video, on this question of competition, whether it’s a serious possibility and if it would actually help us, the customers who want more focus on deepening the experience, in the long run.
Many businesses that start out very success sometimes out grow their available capital. When they do, they have three options. 1. Sell out to a competitor. 2. Bring in a partner with deep "liquid" pockets. 3. Bankruptcy, reorganization, or failure. ED is at a crossroads. One of the three will take place. I am betting it is option number 1.
Been here since the LOMAC days. You discuss many valuable points. I own all but a couple planes. Not much for paid subscription but rewards based on your history with them. An active dynamic campaign with task to choose from would be satisfying. I know many that love just logistical aspects of missions and so on. I know they have a lot of kinks to workout. I have those times when I feel like taking a break or wonder what the hell is going on with ED. But regardless of my decades of gaming. DCS has always been there. I look at all the games I have bought and played. Yet DCS has outlasted all of them for me.
Understand your view, been here since Flanker 2.0, LOMAC was beautiful for it's day (hard to believe it's been over 20 years). I am probably one of DCS's biggest customers outside of the military and they don't engage with us. I have said this before, if they operated like other software companies, they should give DCS versions a shelf life, then charge for a whole new version. I would go for a subscription model on the core as long as they removed the always online activation mode as I worry that one day they will close down and all our investment has gone poof.
Thank you for the constructive takes and insight. I feel like much of the discussion on this topic has a tendency to get inflammatory, so this level-headed tone is very welcome
So glad you decided to to this... Had no idea what business you were in before those 2 videos, but it's such a nice coincidence that it is and you've decided to voice your opinion. Don't want to take anything away from others because they all do a good job, but I think this is the most unbiased opinion we had an opportunity at. Thank you.
My wife and I like and appreciate these talks of yours. We are both very frustrated with the state of ED and DCS with the understanding as you put it that "the devil is in the details." That said while your analysis in some ways frustrates us more with ED and creates more questions than answers it does bring us back to reality when considering ED, DCS, and why we "fly" *waves hand across mine and my wife's $25k worth of computers and sim equipment. So that said, please continue from time to time making videos on this topic.
Thanks for your support. I will.
Giving ED business advice is always well received. I wish you luck in your endeavor! Rock on!
I've stopped spending money on early access products, they are starting to remind me of the half baked products EA would constantly release. Agreed on the much needed work on core elements and core modules such as combined arms.
Yeah but currently -since the core module is completely FREE- they get ZERO money for those ten thousand man hours they spend on the core game (for example ten thousands for the multithread version....) That's why a: you keep purchasing modules and you think about it as a yearly fee for the game/updates etc, or b: you stop spending your money and the game's development will end at a point. Your decision. IF they switch to a subscription based solution it would be MUCH worse. So I keep purchasing those "half baked" products and keep flying my known good modules without any restrictions or additional fees. Software development costs tons of money and yeah, they get money for the modules but those modules will not jump into the game just by themself, the module needs lots of work too. And man hours are very limited. I say it as a game dev.... And fun fact, ms flightsim sometimes refusing even to start up.... and that is m$ with all the dollars of the universe.
Thank you Iain.
Very welcome
Hi Iain,
Thank you for your time, energy, and insight to put this video together.
I especially enjoyed your comment on ED's approach to community management versus community engagement.
I work a good bit in supply chain, cost, and risk management. I've read many 10K annual reports from a variety of publicly traded companies and see points they should address but don't usually. I would give ED these recommendations, to execute as they see fit.
1. Resolve the Razbam situation, or provide a structured path to resolution to its shareholders (that is, us, the community).
2. Similarly, provide a structured path to optimizing the core product, with specific desired outcomes and a projected timeline.
3. I think your proposal on ED-managed dedicated user forums with goal-driven responses is a good one.
4. Structured delivery timelines (development, testing, validation, deployment estimates) - as opposed to non-committal hype - would go a long way to furthering community trust. I think they improved in 2024 in this area, actually.
I have a slew of other thoughts, but those are the most organized at the moment.
Thanks again.
I love hearing from a professional. Those are great comments. Thanks for taking the time to put them together.
Excellent points reasonably explained. The idea of more depth rather than more breadth struck a nerve for me. New modules are great but having something meaningful to do with them is more important. It is possible to get deep content in DCS but it takes enormous effort to attain.
Agreed. I was struck by how common that sentiment was in the feedback. The desire for "depth over breadth" seems to be an untapped source of revenue. I'm just not sure how to tap it, but it seems to me to be something ED should be thinking about.
@@Sidekick65 E.g. a paid module for intelligent SAM systems rather than the brain dead zombie SAM AI we have now?
I like it! Nice.
My gripes are that:
1. ED put modules out as Early Access and rarely seem to fix them, I remember the big fanfare about the F18 coming out of EA. Not a lot else has... I'm one of those who have invested heavily in maps & aircraft. I even bought Combined Arms!
2. The base game is ancient & because of that we have to spend tons on advanced hardware to get playability.
I wouldn't be against a sensible subscription scheme in the way you've mentioned, with some sort of recognition for those like myself who have supported them since Flanker...
Lets hope something good comes of it. Thanks for posting this Sidekick!
They don't just rarely fix them - as of today's update, they are now charging us for texture updates and bug fixes on our old modules.
YIKES
Early-access modules need to have an MVP list of guaranteed features to be implemented within "x" time or your money back. I don't think that is unreasonable at all when you're asking people to fund your in-progress development process.
Lot's of interesting concepts to mull over. Nick Grey discussed a loyalty system with the air miles system for dedicated players. I recall MechWarrior online did loyalty mech's, badges or cockpit objects for players that clocked up x amount of game hours or matches. There's a myriad of concepts like that would generate reward for early access/loyal players. A limited livery pattern for example, or some other tail art decal for loyalty players, so on and so forth.
Do people enjoy the liveries and decals? I think they are a waste of time and could be better spent on other projects. Ide rather have a vehicle skin/paint job/paint scheme over a decal ill hardly see from the cockpit.
Interesting ideas. That won't resonate with everyone but they are worth pursuing.
8:40 14:45 Thank you for saying it !
I’ve been thinking for a while that DCS should have a subscription, for non base features. Players don’t realize how the business model and the revenue sources shape the development of the product.
Thank you so much for your video. I often watch your channel and learn this or that. And this time I was also interested in your opinion based on experience and analysis of the current situation with the attitude of players to ED.
DCS is a great game, but it's time to improve what we already have and replace the model of introducing new modules by improving and refining the previous ones, as well as creating a new game engine.
I think that would be a good thing to do.
Open SDK for maps. Let community do its magic on improving a chosen map. Let people work with passion and support. Form a consensus on their work, quarterly. Include in the following patch.
1. the synergy between campaigns and high-support-players has to be fixed, as part of a fix of the ed-miles. in fact, players that tend to buy all the modules don't profit from miles, since they have to decide to spend them on a new module, losing the miles it would bring with them, so you always get the feeling of losing money when spending miles. so high-support players can't spend any miles except for the newest product, and won't get any miles for that, so the miles-system is done for the high-support player when the newest module arrives. the high-support player would actually have something to spend the miles on without losing new miles if the campaigns would be payable with miles. it might sound like a small detail, but wouldn't it be the most reasonable thing to reward a player that buys a module via giving him the opportunity to actually use it? the relation between ed-miles acquired by purchasing a product and spending ed-miles for a product related to the product that's already been purchased should be intuitive.
2. every module requires a training campaign such as for the a10c (where only part 1 is released). this has to be default. dcs is a simulator, it has to simulate how the plane is learned, since an actual plane is not learned by reading the manual, but by being instructed. new modules require this, and require to be advertised as such, along with a linear progression: the new module - which is even true for maps - has to get continuous content that organically evolves in a consistent way. first six months: training campaing. second six months: red flag. third six months: historical campaign. this needs to be structured and advertised as such. dcs is a digital museum, and this has to include authentic training, authentic exercise and authentic historical combat in a comprehensive and consistent way.
3. useless maps are useless. nobody needs a map that's not bound to a specific plan of vitalization. sinai, south atlantic, kola, the channel are absolutely useless for single player. nobody needs any kind of support for a map that doesn't get any sort of action on it that is naturally embedded in the release schedule of the module in question, while requiring you to sacrifice 50-100gb per map. releases of maps have to be considered in the way pointed out in point 2.
I might be in the minority, but I care very little about historical reenactments (the same goes for controller replicas). The game won't be able to simulate them at a meaningful level, and most are morally dubious at best.
Well, this was a great way of presenting some constructive criticism and possible solutions to ED... if only they listened. The problem with ED and its customers, the way I see it, is that of a crisis of confidence. Up until the Razbam/F-15E crisis, there were a minority (although a vast minority) that was complaining about the issues within DCS. After that event, now it is a vast majority that is complaining about ED's practices, and frankly, ED's financial health. The problem boils down to transparency, or lack of, from ED's side. ED practice is that of "hype and drop". They always hype up their sim with a great cinematics video, a newsletter promising improvements and new features, a new product announcement...that's the hype part. And just after that they drop: they drop a new sale, they drop a new pre-order launch, and after people rushed in to buy, they drop the announced developments. They do it over and over again. And the Razbam situation just made more people open their eyes to it. Take the new video "Ascending" they've released. It shows the new fog effects, new explosion effects, the new F-5 paid update... it gets people excited for the future of DCS. But when you read the newsletter and the comments, the sad reality settles in: a lot of the new promised features are in the "coming soon" state. And that's disappointing. You see, they've promised and showcased, and continue to showcase the WWII Marianas map for three years now...and no signs of it ever being released. Also, the same with the Supercarrier Briefing Room. Or an AI pilot for the Mosquito. This constant stream of promising and not delivering, using the "in development" features to create hype and then going silent about the promised features , only to promised again and again is what is making people so mad at, and at the same time, worried for Eagle Dynamics. And the greatest problem for it is not the hate they are getting right now, but plain apathy. The new fog feature looks great and promising, but my worries are: will it work as advertised? Will it be available in a playable state from the start? I don't think, believe that will be the case. So I don't care anymore. In the past (playing DCS since 2010) I would be counting the days for a newsletter and a new release. Today, I don't care anymore.
I agree. It appears to me that ED underestimates their customers ability to separate hype from reality and/or over estimates their ability to influence those customers. Or maybe not. HAH!
For what it's worth (probably not much), I used to be an active DCS Player, who had bought many "DLC's" right back to the original Black Shark helicopter.
I stopped playing about 4 years ago. I got burned with the BAE Hawk module (that's a whole story in itself). Then there seemed to be too much emphasis on EA (early access) modules, and they never seemed to make it to full release (i.e. finished).
Then compounding that was the fact that back 5/7 years ago DCS basically had the market to itself. Any and everybody that liked flight sims, HAD basically to use DCS, it was the only product out there.
That has changed enormously. I now spend what little free time I have playing games/sims like VTOL VR, Nuclear Option, etc.
The player base left is probably mainly 'Hardcore' sim players, the broader player base has been satisfied elsewhere, in games where you can spend 30 mins and enjoy it. Jump in, play, jump out and at a much reduced price point.
I don't like to see any company fail, so I wish them luck. 🤞✌️👍
I'm happy with DCS. For what it is.
This.
Do I wish it was MORE than what it is? Yes, but that's natural.
Do I think it'll ever get to the point where I'd like it to be? No, because I don't think that's attainable, mostly because that goalpost moves more than a child with ADHD that's riding a massive Monster-and-sugar high.
Hello newbie Dcs
I like the pragmatic approach from a real world, business perspective. It's refreshing and I suspect most of your points are not only valid but a likely source of reliable revenue.
Wags is an extremely valuable asset. His guest appearances on podcasts with content creators have gone down well, and he provides a face to an otherwise nebulous entity. His calm demeanour with occasional dry wit are appealing to the core base. I would suggest they leverage this and, as you said, lean on their trusted community members to help disseminate and collect important data points. This especially applies to RL veterans and SME's, who hold another layer of gravitas in the community.
From a gameplay perspective, DCS can seem a little sterile and sandbox-like outside the cockpit. It's obvious they're moving in this direction, but the "World" part feels a little bare. Many older sims source their immersion not just through INS updates or 4k cockpit textures - but diagetic gameplay elements. Without making things 'arcadey' - you can allow pilots to truly jump into the world. Allow them to plan their mission, walk around the barracks or their plane, speak to a crew chief, etc, etc. Ground crews, updated ATC and Ready Rooms are easy (ish) wins.
I think DCS is missing a huge market with ground operations, specifically with 'Combined Arms' and a potential FF ground unit (Abrams anyone?). You could start to bring in the Steel Beasts/Gunner HEAT PC/Arma and even some War Thunder crowd, and create a battlefield that's fought from another dimension. This doesn't just enrich gameplay, but opens up an entire market. Start with tidying up CA, go from there - its a rough diamond that needs polish.
Finally, I think some sort of limited subscription/membership to reward committed/long-time community members and provide a revenue stream for improvements to the core game would be a great idea. Heck, I know some people who would just be happy to pay 3-4 bucks a month patreon-style to just see some new features, fixed bugs and tidied code.
Great video dude, cheers for this!
REALLY great points made REALLY well... AGAIN!!
I couldn't honestly say that there was anything in this that I objected to, at all.
Excellent video. Great host. Thank you. I hope ED is watching this.
Thanks. I appreciate the support.
@@Sidekick65 Food for thought. I hope ED has a nibble.
I've been thinking about this recently. And I think that ED should focus on encouraging more 3rd party devs, improving relationships, and making development easier. 3rd party modules are one of the best ways they can secure more funds without having to devote a significant amount resources. So they can focus more on core systems that complement the modules ingame, like AI, graphics, dynamic campaign, traffic control, etc. This could improve player retention, bring in more players, and that will encourage more 3rd party devs. ED are the only ones working on the core game, so if they focus only or mainly on making aircraft modules, core game dev lags and the gameplay loop will become stagnant. Which it has and it is.
Disagree, I think the 3rd party business model is hurting them. If a 3rd party dev can raise the funds and make a living from the commission and development, surely this should be in house with ED? This is just my 2 cents and could be way off, but would this lead to less issues with core updates breaking 3rd party modules?
I would like to thank Sidekick for setting up this up for constructive discussion.
First, I will not speculate on the finances of ED, I cannot assume they're in red, or they swim in capital.
As the name of their product suggests, it is a combat simulator, but in reality is a combat flight simulator.
The dynamic campaigns, diversity or not of maps, engaging the community etc, all would be positive influenced, if...
We keep the air modules are we do, naval modules an api connection with sea power, and arma for the ground units.
I am not flanker-time player but didn't start yesterday either. I owe most air modules, all maps and assets.
I enjoy mp,sp, and mission making.
Food for thought and only my opinion
Well, both ArmA and DCS already come with APIs that help them connect to each other. Trouble is, they're only for the professional, real deal military versions of both.
yes. as far as how much i've spent. it's easier to name what i don't have. i personally wasn't looking for a loyalty rewards but Nick Grey said it. on that all you really have to do is wait for a sale because you can't fly all of them anyway. which i have modules that i haven't touched yet. but what really gave me a case of the red ass. is i lost with the hawk. and i assumed they had their third party contracts in order there after. i even remember they posted about going forward with contracts that would make it so that wouldn't happen again. but it did. with the f-15e. and from my point of view it seems razbam issue could of been dealt with sooner. the problem between ed and razbam was an issue way before it was public.
Good video and the suggestions make sense even with all of us being on the outside and not knowing the moving parts inside the business.
I work in a related field to game development and to me it looks like ED is trying to do too many things with too few resources, especially when you compare the completeness and quality of 3rd party modules and terrains at launch and how quickly they're improved compared to ED's own modules and terrains. My suggestion would be to focus on what you're good at that keeps the business going and everything else, outsource and just gate keep to make sure the quality remains high. Embracing modders more can also extend the life of products, provide additional input or fixes, and give you a talent pool to scout from.
I think that is excellent advice from someone who knows the business. Thanks for contributing.
Very well said. I want DCS to succeed and be profitable. However I am withholding any further purchases until the Razbam debacle is resolved. I have purchased so many modules and a good deal of those are 3rd party. If those modules can be abandoned without further development then I am all set with any early access modules by third party developers. ED has stated that they now demand the source code for these modules but I think we can see that is not the case now as it has been almost a year of no Razbam updates.
If a subscription system shows up, I’ll drop DCS like a hot rock. I buy all my stuff, and I fly what I buy. If I have to pay twice to run my modules, I’ll go elsewhere
That being said, I like the rest of your ideas
The idea was a voluntary subscription with premium features.
The modules you did pay a lot of money for are actually a cost overhang for ED the second your transaction cleared.
If we want to keep it going a recurring revenue is necessary for ED.
@@Barber-wv3zm No. I will not pay monthly for ANY software. I don't care what it is
@@simtaylor61 I understand your sentiment. If there is one software I would pay for, it would be DCS.
I think a map supscription that would allow players to play any mal without having to own it could be interesting but one huge thing to consider is the disk space. Even if the price was good these maps are huge. You dont want to have to download it each time you play. I would love to see more variety in maps in multiplayer though and this concerpt could do it
Simple:
1/ make a survey of the most requested features.
2/ make a roadmap with deadlines based on those features
3/ keep the deadlines - and, if unable - communicate the reasons + new deadline
4/ if you do not have cash, do a kickstarted for those features
For me it was the Razbam situation, neither ED or Razbam having any thought of the player base and having any foresight. I own only 4 models and 2 of them are Razbam, so straight away i lose half my aircraft or the non updating of the Razbam models.
Now that my trust had been crushed only because the situation will not be resolved at all but now i thinking will this happend to the maps as well?? and will this happend to Heatblur??
I'm not buying anymore..... fool me once shame on me.
I guarantee why ED have been pushing bug fixes, model fixes is because people arn't buying on what them are selling..... theres no trust.
The razbam situation is why I won't buy anymore.
It already almost did happen to Heatblur. They went something like 18 months without being paid after the Tomcat launched, until ED's F-16C was infamously rushed out far too soon in order to pay Heatblur's bill. This has been confirmed by Heatblur's CEO, though he wasn't overly happy that it had leaked out as they're clearly trying to rebuild their relationship with ED.
Another good and reasonable video. You even managed to convince me on subscription model on certain things. When it comes to it, every time I hear about it, I always worry about it affecting the base game, especially since I did buy quite a bit of modules. Having it restricted to just some features or a loyalty program is much more easy to digest.
Now it's time to put out my two cents again. I'll mention some things that, even though as someone who loves the game, there are things that under all circumstances must be fixed. I will omit the mentions of adding new features, such as Dynamic Campaign, since that alone is a complex issue that I feel like many see it as a "simple" thing. However, my points should be generally "simple.".
1. Putting every asset up to modern standards. Although this isn't just about increasing graphical fidelity (even though that is by far the most obvious thing to notice, just compare models of F-4E and F-15E versus MiG-23MLD and C-17 in the game). Along with the fact that DCS' biggest problem is the presence of legacy code, I consider this to be at least part of it. As for "less visible" aspects of that, many simulations, especially of older AI units and older modules, are simply not up to date.
This also covers simulation, like flares being so called "dice roll". This is an aspect, although difficult, that should be reworked. It's a prime example of legacy code being present.
Now, this is both a simple (on paper) and complex problem to fix. I say simple because when it comes to ED modules and AI assets, all ED needs to do is to focus on them and make them up to their standards. We have already seen some progress with that, such as Flaming Cliffs update, the recently announced F-5E update, some AI asset updates, but there's still work to do (REDFOR assets really need an update...). The complex part is third parties, which their situations wary. MIG-21 from Magnitude 3 comes to mind, which we were promised an update (after Corsair) but neither of them are out yet. With Magnitutde, it's the most obvious example, although in my opinion rest of third parties are fairly up to date when it comes to modernizing their modules and assets. Also should be noted that this does not mean every model should be in very high fidelity, just "good enough" should do the job.
As for whether or not this is profitable, I think them charging F-5E upgrade for 10 euros should say something. Whether that's a good thing or not, that's up to the individual (I'm personally conflicted about it).
EDIT: 1.2. I'm actually shocked I forgot this, but this is actually a bigger thing that it looks like.
Destructible trees.
Now the funny thing is, they do exist in DCS.....sort of. On Syria map, they are present in recently added bases. Every other tree however is still indestructible. Destructible trees are actually vital for implementing new maps, such as highly desired Vietnam.
2. Optimization, especially for lower end systems. Again, this might seem like a "captain sherlock" opinion, but optimization really matters for this game. I myself use a bit of a "low end" system, so there are some things where it really impacts the performance. Now, single player is generally fine on my end, but multiplayer can be a much more mixed experience. Unlike in singleplayer, lag can actually really screw you over in multiplayer. Granted, this is one of the aspects of the game where ED is definitely working on (few notes: I have put my game on lower settings and I'm also a flatscreen user. Every word on optimization should be doubled down when it comes to VR).
3. Now while I have said "not adding new features", I think some of the features which are already in the game should be reworked. Case in point? Instant Mission Generator. That function, as it is, is not used very much for a reason. It crafts some rather strange and hard to work with scenarios. Now, ED is working on the better version of it, but it's only a matter of time before they implement it. I think DCS could really benefit from a good "instant mission generator", since that would allow players who generally do not like working with mission editor to have something that could cook up a scenario in few seconds.
3.1 Fully remove Game Mode because it is useless and actually broken.
I think that should cover it all for now, at least DCS issues that are present now and how to fix them, not counting "adding new features".
Thanks for taking the time to provide a considered response. The only question, though is how to pay for those improvements.
@@Sidekick65 To answer some of these questions, I'm gonna answer with the assumption what ED might do, not necessarily what I personally want them to do.
The recently announced F-5E Remaster hints at that some module improvements (graphical upgrade from what I've heard. The issues of simulation within F-5 will allegedly be put into the older module for free) will be paid, although for generally low cost if you own the module. This concept alone raises a lot of questions, like what exactly warrants an update to be payware, especially since a lot of updates (A-10C cockpit, FC3 (now FC4) model and texture updates) have been free.
This is also added to the rumored "Heavy Metal" pack, which was supposedly going to be a paid version for graphical updates of units. It is still unsure if ED will go through with it, or did they change their minds about it.
On the topic of asset packs, those could be paid too. It seemed like it worked for WW2 asset pack, so I can see ED grabbing an opportunity to do era specific packs, something like Vietnam War era pack, etc...If I recall correctly, Falklands asset pack was supposed to be that. This could keep the monetary incentive while also allowing players to choose what periods they want to simulate.
Of course, this has to be at reasonable price. Something between 10 - 15 dollar (full price) could be good enough for this.
Optimization and reworking already existing features should generally remain free. Judging from the latest newsletters, they are at least focused on bugfixes and "crusty" elements (BMP-2 snipers for examples). Same with destructible trees, they were sort of already put into the game for free.
Now, while I said that putting new features is something I wouldn't really discuss, I can see monetary incentive there to be payable. If done very well and be put at the reasonable price, Dynamic Campaign could bring in some serious cash. It is already one of the most demanded features for DCS, so I can definitely see Eagle Dynamics putting a price tag on it. Although personally I think it would be preferable for it to be added for free, I can absolutely see Dynamic Campaign being something customers have to pay for. I think a good price for it would be something like 20 dollars if its really in-depth. If its a more "shallower" interpretation of a Dynamic Campaign, then it should be like 10 dollars at least.
And that's just Dynamic Campaign, the possibilities regarding adding new features to DCS are quite some. I have heard that something of an "IADS" module could be something users would have to pay for, since it's an entirely different experience. Not exactly unprecedented, IL-2 GB did something similar with tanks.
That should be it for now, although I might have missed some things here.
good points raised here, thanks for the vid
Thanks for watching!
Community: "How about a game platform to transition gamers into simmers. This would create, NEW revenue, NEW interest and as a new type of brand loyalty. Also, automated/assisted OPTIONAL Air to Air refuel would greatly add to the pool of pilots looking to get into and learn."
ED: "Yeah fuck that!. We don't care about expanding our player base."
This has gone back and forth in chatrooms and forums for YEARS. ED, isn't in it to grow. They are in it for short term profits.
DCS is a great game. I would $$ support $$ things like texture update for the Russian naval ships, airbases in northern Turkey and Crimea. More AI aircraft from the 60’s and 70’s.
Awesome! Thank you for Sharing! 💯✴
Great video again Sidekick. I am enjoying your take on the business side. I think the problem with DCS (and ED, and game developers in general) is the fact that modules take WAY too long to develop, DCS has become way too thin, too spread out and the pieces do not always fit together. I am not a software guy, so I do not know how to speed up development time, but when your income stream is derived from selling modules, there is just not enough releases in a year. DCS is trying to be all things for all players, from WWII to Korean War era, Cold War era, modern, from full fidelity aircraft to basic noob airplanes and all things in between. They are stretched so thin that not one single “set” or era can be fleshed out properly. I think this lack of depth can and does drive cynicism amongst the player base that then sets off the loudest contingent when ED does things like update the F-5 and charge a nominal fee for it (which I think is a good idea from ED).
Again, I am not a business nor a software guy, but I am also one that thinks the money I have spent on DCS has been well worth it when compared to other hobbies in a cost per hour of enjoyment ratio.
I agree with the optional subscription model ... IMO it's the ONLY way to provide a long-term, healthy game. $10 or $15 a month provides 1) longer trial access, 2) discounts on module purchases, 3) Maybe access to Beta features or extended free access to "early access" modules?, 4) Maybe your subscription makes you part of the "focus groups" that help make the game better. This would provide a continued revenue stream to help fund CORE GAME improvements and long-term module bug and compatibility support. Let new modules fund themselves. People will buy great maps, aircraft, and feature packs and developers of said modules who create and finish good modules will continue to make them if people buy them. It's unrealistic IMO for people to expect free, lifetime support for any module, frankly. Financially, it can't be done. I am a career software engineer in my early 50's and I know what I make and what my peers make as skilled engineers. I am not a game developer, but I know what type of skill sets would be required to be a successful engineer on a project like DCS. These folks are not your run-of-the-mill Python scripters, and they deserve to be paid well. A subscription would help fund (for example) fixing the Harrier if it suddenly stops working when the 50xx series nVidia cards come out. Or the 60xx series, etc. I'd sign up today, without hesitation - as long as I started to see some results after a reasonable amount of time. 10 or 15 bucks is nothing - a drop in the bucket - given the amount of time many of us spend on this hobby ... and let's call it a hobby because it really requires more commitment than simply playing Call of Duty "x".
Thanks for the well-informed perspective. Glad to hear from an "old-pro" who has seen this situation from the inside.
I complete agree about the subscription. I guess a small amount monthly would not hurt
I enjoy your "voice of reason" in that community where everyone and their mom claims to know better how to make DCS better and how to run ED as a business.
Thanks I appreciate it.
Maybe something cool that people would pay for on a month to month basis is a mission pack, possibly themed differently for each month, with a handful of missions to complete. This would be especially cool if people like Reflected and Sedlo were involved in some way.
I like DCS for its commitment to high fidelity flight modeling and its “sandbox” capability for infinite scenario creation. What I don’t like is the announcing of modules coming and the years it seems to take to deliver. I am totally opposed to any subscription based business model. The genie is out of the bottle. Any switch to subscriptions would be a huge turn off for me as a customer. Especially considering the money I’ve already spent. My two cents on this topic.
I like all your ideas especially the one that is a monthly subscription for map use on multiplayer servers. I would also add an aircraft sub for that too maybe. I do feel ED has been making improvements to the core as mush as they can but I don’t think there will be major changes like people want. I think they will get there eventually. I love DCS for what it is and the only issue I have is what most people have is having to deal with lower game performance because PC hardware limitations. Also,I think the best update ED could do is adding the world. So you could set up missions to fly long distances requiring multiple tanking trips to get to a target. That would be awesome.
Being chained to the PC for 16 hours because there is no Save Game option? Sounds like a treat...
I'd fix the cartoon colours, have a dynamic campaign and copy DI Tornado's mission planner.
Interesting POV, I also feel more work on the core is needed, hope someone on ED can check this video and take notes. BTW, I know now why your videos work so smoothly and full of units, cause you own a NASA approved PC ;)
Hah! Nice thought. Thanks for your support though!
A voluntary subscription model is needed, with premium features.
Another good feature that could be a nice incentive would be a premium replay feature- for recording flights and not having to struggle with the current broken trk files. Content creators would go for it (though some would complain).
Interesting topic for sure
But I missed one important thing, very important think on the topic of revenue stream. One that many people advocating for a subscription miss all the time.
Imagine ED can pull that suscription model as a complete success, but how will they grow from there with all that money?
I'm a veteran and i saw recently in the past years proof that points that the main issue they could have to grow is the russian language.
The base code is build on that and the overall core of ED programmers work with that as main and even only one. Manking the current programmers streach thin.
Then if you see the recruitment page from ED is only in the ru page for a reason.
And there are other things, even official statements, that point to that. I will not post those here, but are public of course avaiable if you know where to look.
Imagine how many programmers are in the world with the abilities required to work on DCS that know english, versus ones that know russian language.
It would be interesting to see this topic discussed because you can possibly get a revenue stream, but what can ED do different from what they do now.
By the way, they state over and over again that they have no liquidity problems, so if they could grow they would have done it by now wouldn't they.
DCS is awesome, much better than all other flight simulators, look what is happening in MSFS2024 launch or the flight dynamics of the all MSFS versions. Especially in VR it is another World. I don’t understand all the negativity around. It is a small niche business and smallest part of the gaming community. Once I wanted to learn about the financials of ED and found some online info, and it was correct, their revenues was surprisingly small. What do you expect, a Bugatti from a GoKart making company. Common guys, be reasonable.
I agree with every word. Unfortunately, nothing will ever change because ED does not have a single competitor even on the horizon. Therefore, they will behave as they see fit.
I know it's some risk around it. Open the SDK and allow modders in to easy the stress. It's games as old as DCS with a big and healthy mod community. It is alot of talent out there who can be a good addition to DCS. Especially for the lack of Redfor fighters which is my problem with DCS.
Not a big fan of open source SDKs. Version control is important specifically for multiplayer. Open source is great for single player but it totally ruins everything else. IL21946 is a great example. Once the code was out, multiplayer was fractured and the game just became impossible to manage with all the different mod factions.
In fact IL2 1946 is an excellent example of how the gaming community can better develop a platform, and at the time this title was played there were specific servers for various mods (BAT, FSX, etc.) and servers for the vanilla game. If dcs becomes open source there is a great chance that the platform will take a leap in quality.
@@bukhariali71 which is why I said risk.
An even better thing to do would be for ED to allow server side mod managers which allow users to download only the files needed to temporarily play the game with the mods. For instance, I don't need to know how the A-4 radar works to fly along side it, so only download the model, textures, etc. to put it into the game and then delete them if the server isn't a "favorite".
I would happily pay for a MSFS model of core engine and graphic upgrades every two years PLUS a monthly fee for aircraft, campaign and map upgrades. I am not at all interested in paying for the core engine to reside in the cloud like MSFS just tried to pull off. This sw pricing model is a small fraction of the investment I have in my F/A-18C simpit. This is simply adapting to today's world of sw. Every VC or PE firm is looking for companies w/recurring revenue models. Adapt or die.
Agree that in software now constant revenue stream is essential to survive. That is why everything is moving to cloud based platforms and subscription services. But for like $10/month, I would like to have full access to all ED content including modules. 3rd party content we can pay separately.
You sound exactly like the guy narrating one of my favorite audiobooks: The Wrong Stuff - the story of a B-17 pilot :)
Thanks!
I wish the training missions were VR friendly. I've noticed some need you to press a certain key to proceed and does not accept a key bind to a switch. For this reason I tend to avoid the training missions, which i'm sure would make me a better pilot and keep me interested in all the modules I have previously purchased.
You will get fine fog instead.
We need some good Singleplayer campaigns
I really enjoy DCS, could use a good dynamic campaign. My only sadness is the F-15e issue with Razbam… I really enjoy the Mudhen and it saddens me that it is forever stuck where it is.
The problem as I see it is a miss-match in values and goals. ED ownership does not see DCS as an end but a means, Nick Grey’s passion is aviation, but the real kind. The Fighter Collective, an air show company that restores and maintains WWII fighter aircraft for air shows is his main focus and DCS is a means to support that focus. The evidence is the reportedly $10 million USD loaned from ED to the air show from 2019-2024. That substantial chunk of capital transfer is the root cause of ED’s issues. It’s put them behind and sealed the fate of ED being trapped in the early access model forever as technical and monetary debts continue to pile up.
I’m not judging these decisions at all, as real WWII aircraft flying and performing is absolutely a valid aim and it’s entirely justifiable, but from a customer base that isn’t so involved and has been purchasing early access products on the promise of them being finished and improvements to the core of the game being implemented it can cause ire, justifiably.
When ownership and customers values for the product don’t align, it’s often time to change something. If it’s the customers, then that’s the end for the product, but if ownership can change, that can breathe new life into the business.
Nick Grey should sell Eagle Dynamics.
With all the modules in the game and in development, I really hope we get a combined Iraq, Syria, Sinai and Saudi map so we can do full length Desert Storm/ONW/OSW/Desert Fox/OIF missions
Without a save game feature? No, thanks.
100% on the subscription! Nothing will improve without it. iRacing does it. DCS community is too small to fund anything bigger without it.
It'll get even smaller, though.
@@dienicydo both, sub with additional benefits.
@@Danielle-s5q Yeah, I still think that the likes of Nvidia, Northrop Grumman and WinWing would be great subscribers.
How do you actually guarantee that that money you've paid goes toward game development, though? Rather than Nick Grey's avgas bill for his other business/hobby?
@@Malakhit24they would need to publish some kind of roadmap and all we could do is vote with our wallets based on their progress.
Apparently Eagle Dynamics hears you about the game looking old. They updated the F-5 😂
There's probably a lot of questions about what the "base game" really means. Yeah, prettier clouds and dynamic lighting (and now fog!) are great. They make great videos & screenshots, which brings in more players. It's important. Bug-fixing is obviously important, but I think some people are far more sensitive to bugs than I am. There have been some bad / frustrating ones over the course of several years, but most of the time I don't notice it or it just doesn't break the game for me. When I think "core," I think "quality of life." You just got DCS and maybe you even bought your favorite fighter aircraft and a map. Now what? How does one get started on multiplayer? Do you just grab a slot on the biggest server and then get upset when you get blown up while taxiing? Or do you get annoyed trying to figure out why you aren't allowed to log on (because you don't have common mods / content packs?)
1. Set a hardware standard and stand by it.
"We play to this rig, with these boards and extras. Play with our rig and we will guarantee you tech support. Don't play with our rig and you're on your own. Once every year or two, we will update our rig, you can too."
DCS is not a poor man's game. It needs a 2,500 dollar setup and peripherals to work well. High speed, 3TB, SSD, insanely good GPU, fast multicore CPU, eye tracker and HOTAS, on a decent sized screen, with cooling fit to freeze a polar bear, at a minimum.
Having a blazing this is a rite of passage an entry bar. Like a gunslinger having a good weapon that he occasionally trades for a newer model. Like a good racer getting on the Ferrari Team at Lemans,
Point Being: BY ITSELF THIS WOULD CUT DEVELOPMENT TIME IN HALF. You want a great game? Come ready to play. We'll be waiting.
2. Insist on a shift to a P2P for all online players. Monthly ten dollars each. Premium accounts, twenty dollars each.
This gets you a guaranteed number of high speed server hour access per month and for premium members, one new module per year. Any. Module. Set up a separate system of rewards for offline players who buy a service package to maintain the flow of updates and standalone campaigns. Everybody gets what they want, at the threshold they want.
3. Start fixing what's wrong, stop promising the world, start improving the game play, not the eye candy.
We never needed volumetric clouds, bushes that go whoosh when hit by explosives, or wings which wobbled. We STILL NEED a GUI which makes sense for novices who cannot program basic to set up prebuild scenarios with lots of backing action simply. Not a carrier but a CSG, with environmental rules and period accurate hull counts and classes for use. Plop. In goes the whole group, set a couple minor mods for formation, networking and ROE/Command initiative. And off you go, with a 10-20 ship escort, fleet trains and WORKING SUBMARINES. For pities sake, Sea Power, Cold Waters everyone gets this right except you. And you leave it unchanged for YEARS as a drag on server performance that is unnecessary because it does nothing!
4. Functional Unit Behaviors, Believable Terrain.
When someone (player) blows up a bridge, a all road traffic behind it should bunch up. Until an MP unit gets there to unpluck the duck and get things moving on alternate routes. Before that moment happens, it's Open Season. So the bridge is down. When the enemy want to do a forced river crossing, first send a large formation of helicopters, up and down stream, to come around BEHIND the friendly position, drop air assault forces behind the enemy and begin mortar/ATGW/RPG assaults on the rear of his positions while shelling the snot out of the objective from across the river: smoke and frag. Then take the far bank under direct fire as your amphibious BMP/BTR/PT go swimming.
Then start bringing the heavies on barges or as bottom crossers while the engineers pull up with their trucks and begin dumping bridge segments into the water to form the pontoon crossing. All the while, every mobile ADV available rushes to concentrate GBAD into the area. This iis not so much 'AI' as it is a parade of X-then-Y-now-Z action triggers, starting with the bridge being down. Let there be PERSISTENCE in the prior destroyed column so that the functional effect of watching the enemy 'try try again' is there, as your player does the troll under the bridge thing: "You Shall Not Pass!".
And points will be rewarded on whether or not you stop the enemy from reaching X before Y timeframe at Z loss exchange rate. We're never going to get FRG Cold War battles. Nor Taiwan. Nor But there is no reason not to get an 'Orangelandia' with relevant seasons and terrain that resemble what is forbidden. We it gets wet and cold, IR becomes less useful. When fog and ice or sandstorms occlude direct view, forcing you to eschew LGB bombing to get close and personal, from 500ft.
People are stupid, they here 'AI' and immediately think it has to be HAL-9000. No. It has to be the wizard of oz, with a lot of simple if-then-else triggers that only have to be active in ONE mission. With all resulting 'You held the line!' vs. 'You've been thrown back in disarray!' being VIRTUAL, as a function of where you are on a map. And what you fly over as the ''I was there..." detritus of battle.
You can literally make up HUNDREDS of scenarios for this. Insert a Ranger Regiment to take an airbase or seize a POMCUS depot. Do a CSAR mission to recover a downed pilot with special forces, in an area too hot for conventional ARRS. Work with a TR-1 (PLSS) or RQ-4 (TESAR) to loft bomb with JDAM multiple air defense sites, using an F-22 or F-35 and GBU-39. 'Because they keep shooting down/jamming our HARM/GMLRS!'
Large or small, the key to a single player campaign is that it illustrates the CONSEQUENCES for getting the MA on a mission _while_ conserving your force so that you don't War Thunder your way through a map at impossible attrition levels because, by Day-4 at 20 planes a day, you will not have the F-35 option. You will be down to Vipers and Hogs. And that is when it gets hard. Because you can no longer hit the enemy as road column convoys 'on the march' but only as advancing forces, 'In Battle Box'. Nose to Nose, Whites Of Their Eyes level warfare is bloody and random and short lived.
5. Add 'packs' not just single airframe study 'modules'. All Weasels. All Bombers. All CAS jets. All Fully Flyable. Or how about an EW mod? Working noise jammers, TRD, Weasel ELS and ARM Programming. A Post Milllennium GBAD mod. Artillery mod. Rotary Wing mod. Infantry/Airborne/SOF mod (parachutes from the sky, gets on/off helicopters, boards also dropped vehicles to assault objectives...). Aircraft don't have to have perfected flight model or a clickable cockpit. But it should have an accurate one which displays specific avionics displays/modes, universal to type. So that qualification on each can be easy. A B-1 should go fast as a greased eel (sustained 620 knots, burst 700) at low level, behind a wall of jamming that makes the air itself blur. A B-52 should be the king of staandoff munitions with Popeye and CALCM or JASSM. A B-2/21 should be the king of multiple JDAM DPIs to take out and entire airbase with up to 80, individually aimed, targets. Photorecce adds UAVs and Satellites for IN MISSION target updates.
It's a mission capability and its evolution that you want to emulate. From the early days to the modern era.
IMHO they need to open up the API of the bits of the game that are broken to the community and let them fix it for themselves (and yes, certain bits, like Wingman AI, AI physics, and other aspects of AI are broken.) And then there are things that are simply "crap" like ATC. With things like Olympus or MOOSE you can already see how this can work. The alternative either is plowing capital into a free game, or a massive showdown with the players as they shift to a whole new business model. I don't see how either can work.
need that skyraider
Just in time for the paid patching of the F-5E to come out. $10 for bug fixes.
I just want them to revamp the AI. In A2A BVR, enemy AI will fire a Fox 3 missile, then not defend when knows it's shooting at an F16 or F18 that can shoot right back. Instead it will just offset, push you, then panic defend when youd missle goes pitbull, which at that point is too late. It's a turkey shoot. Their WVR/BFM behavior is atrocious as well.
The end result is that you have to play multiplayer to encounter realistic enemies, or your missions are predominantly air to ground.
DCS should get Falcon dinamic campaign module.
Customer support is my thing, I love good customer service. There are times with ED on the forums that you never hear the state of a bug report for months if not years. Would it be so bad if there was a master list (based on priority) that we as consumers / users could vote on to show ED what their customers perceive as important bug fixers? At present we rely on non paid forum users / ed testers and a couple of possibly paid people to respond. This is just an idea / suggestion, does not mean it will work.
I would love to see a monthly fee that grants me one or two tokens that when redeemed, let me try a specific module for two weeks. I can use the first token to try the apache for the first two weeks, then try kola for the next two weeks. when my bill rolls over, i get two more tokens to spend, and if i really like the apache, i could just use those two tokens both on the apache to get access to it for four weeks (1 month).
Obviously its cheaper for me in the long to outright buy the module, but if i keep paying the fee, i get to keep trying new modules and maps without having to dump significant cash. Would eliminate alot of the "I bought this module, spent two weeks with it then never touched it again" frustration, provide a way for more maps to be accessible, as servers could rotate maps every two weeks so people can always have access to whatever map the server is running, provided they are paying the monthly fee.
ED currently has 10 modules in early access. That's a lot of man-hours to be paid and I think they simply don't have the capacity/money left to work on the core DCS world. Because laborious tweaks to AI for example won't generate any money right away. Maybe in the future, by attracting more players, but that's not certain. In my opinion, ED is trapped in early access. The Razbam tragedy certainly didn't help them. It has only eroded consumer confidence that ED is a company I can trust with hundreds of dollars and get my product (yes, I am one of the many disappointed owners of the F15, which will most likely never be finished, and all the other Razbam modules that will degrade over time).
Thinking like this, I can see a dynamic campaign as a paid module. Similar to supercarrier.
I see the dynamic campaign as the perfect vehicle for the subscription model. As a subscriber get access to the dynamic campaigns that are constantly upgraded for certain maps. Maybe access to the maps you don't own?, or modules you don't own, for those campaigns? Then perhaps discounts on those modules are perm additions to your library?
sorry do you have any other choice on the market in military simulation that isn't DCS ? I guess you answer to everything
wait...what?! How can I get Panthers, ADs and Essex class carriers into DCS?
The VWV mod - there's s video on it back a few weeks.
Nice video and some really great ideas!! Geez you’d think you get paid to do stuff like this!!😊So the subscription thing is a good idea and Heatblur Cold War Server might be a way to do this idk!! I’d be more than willing to assist ED with information or modules etc., if they’d allow it. The problem seems to be they cater to a few Well known YT channels and forget about the rest of us and this ain’t easy as you know! So I’’d love to see them reach out to folks and in return those folks could help ED! Anyway loved this video and the other you did. Thank you for taking the time to make it.
Crashing, Performance,F15E and maintenance old modules
Just give us dynamic. Online isn't bad, but the missions and ground targets have been the same ones for years.
"I" think your videos are awesome. I am a suscriber to your channel, and I appreciate your content. They are straight forward and you gives us your opinions, but you know the age we are living thru, SOCIAL media age, that will let anyone who has an opinion to say what they want to say without any knowledge of the matter. Please keep up with your videos, I have learned a lot from your videos and you don't mix your feelings, you let us know what you are thinking. One question. On this video at the one minute mark, I watched your videos on how to set up shots for videos but I cannot do the SLOW motion around the plane like you do on the 1 minute mark. I slowed me mouse down and my keyboard down, but I cannot make the camera move as smoothly as you do. Do you use a XBOX controller for that? Keep sending out videos, they are very good and constructive.
Yes, I use an Xbox controller for that. There a couple of videos on the channel about doing camera work. Let me know on Discord if you are not able to find what you are looking for.
@@Sidekick65 thank you
Uhhh just like STOP THE DAMN AI FROM GETTIN A VISUAL THROUGH A CLOUD @3nm!!! How about that!
No thank you to subscriptions. All I want is a harrier that is maintained and the dynamic campaign. I don’t think either should be something that is years into the future or never going to happen.
Would you pay a subscription that included the dynamic campaign and access to the maps for the campaigns?
@ No, I would however be happy to buy the dynamic campaign as a module. You can always make subscriptions look like great value. Ex: a subscriptions for all modules for 10 bucks a month and I it would still end being bad value given enough time.
Where will the money come from to maintain all of this? Here is the problem.
The idea given in the video also mentions a voluntary subscription.
From module sales. I don’t think ED is short on cash or profit, but, none knows. However, I see why they prioritize things that generate money, hence I would pay for a dynamic campaign module. Other companies use DLC to keep their products alive, modules are DLC, it’s a proven model. I really don’t think we need subscriptions to keep ED alive.
@@GoldenGnu the discussion is also about getting more depth and maintaining the eco system.
Other companies keep simpler products alive by having a much broader player base- that is also a problem here- we arent many, we are few.
Multiplayer servers are broke rn for a couple months now i can make a server but nobody can join it. I can play all day and it doesnt show up for anyone else. My buddy did it by ip to join and it says offline. Same thing happens when he does a server. Game is not easy to design and hop in a scenario with friends. You can design it quick and fly it solo. But getting others in. Impossible. You can join already made servers to fly together but u cant control the scenarios
These symptoms suggest you're not configuring your firewall correctly.
Not broken. But we need dynamic campaign and better AI wingmen and adversaries.
Dynamic camp gain
I'm no CEO but I'm a former Head of QA and worked on several successful MMOs over the years. I agree, DCS isn't broken. It has an income stream issue. It's time to go subscription.
Thanks! I am sure you have been much closer to these sorts of issues than I have ever been. I'm happy to hear from a professional.
I am willing to pay periodically for a "game" (or "simulator") I enjoy/ I have also had my doubts about a company that depends entirely on selling new stuff for revenue. Particularly with the learning curves associated with fairly realistic combat aircraft. (You ain't in WarThunder anymore, son.) Having started down that road, it would be difficult to change over to something like a subscription or other periodic payment scheme. If they figure out a way, I am most likely in.
The reddit community's reaction to this video has been... interesting
Oh yes? I would say that most of the posts I have seen have been responses to other posts. Most of them didn't watch the video. Or did not understand it.
I like some ideas in this video. However, there are two flaws to me here:
1) What I don't follow is the assumption that ED's problems are mostly cash as many of your solution ideas focused on that.
2) Secondly I would like to point out that ED is not just any business - it's a business having the luxury of no competition in it's core business model.
In my eyes they should:
1) innovate more, by a long shot. For a company that size it's far too slow.
2) include the younger generation instead of just being an aircraft museum for the gramps complaining that everyone beyond their horizon is just ace combat. Turns out ace combat has a great story that's being told - DCS doesn't have any campaign even close to that level, strange.
3) need to deliver on promises in a reasonably timely manner (e.g. not 5 years but 1)
4) they need to solve their software design issues, phase out staff that's out of touch with current tech into advisory roles and hire people or companies to modernize the core product
5) always pick the easy fruits - like giving us assets in the core game to do battlefield simulation and not just pretend that would be the case on the store page
6) complete at LEAST a theater, even better, complete an era. Right now the game is largely useless outside of narrow scripted cases or VERY heavy modding efforts.
7) stop fighting your two most important 3rd parties (Razbam and Heatblur), instead support them where you can and make sure they thrive as partners or cancel the 3rd party business all together if you're not up for it.
That was the TL/DR portion
So here's some thoughts and rambling on that issue I'm having with some of the ideas:
To me it is not a cash problem. Their problem to me is value.
They are a monopolist in the combat aviation sim space, yet people are beginning to question the value of the product.
Our expectations have changed, especially from people that are not very old and started on 286dx16 pc's or even earlier.
The ED CEO gives dozens of millions to stuff like the fighter collection. It's very apparent that cash is NOT the issue here.
The horrible miscoms, the non-payment of multiple 3rd parties, including Heatblur, not just Razbam, is also a clear sign of that.
To me ED's problem are the complete lack of innovation, the very low quality of the product and generally the impression that their coders are... just not very amazing.
They are also out of touch with even their own store page and it's claims. An example is where it proudly says it's a battlefield simulator and yet... we don't even have assets for that to support it. Where are the awesome heli pads? Where are some basic vehicles like a variety of toyota pickup trucks and similar?! This stuff could be bought in asset stores for next to no cost, not to mention there is completely free CC0 or CC attribution assets they could just implement within a couple of days.
Everything seemingly takes way too long, does way too little and overall they are not utilizing modern approaches to game (or software) development.
Sadly I believe part of that reason could also be because they are also keeping a core staff team in a certain country that we have some situation with.
That's definitely not making things easier at least.
Ultimately, sorry, but I don't believe throwing money at a problem like this will help. We did that for years and it didn't get us anywhere. Some bugs I reported 7 years ago are still there.
Especially not in a case, where this product is a monopoly in it's space, and the people in charge are mostly just charging into a direction of a museum / narrowly scripted experience, not a modern title with ambitions for the next generations.
I wonder what we will hear in this years 2025 and beyond video. Fingers crossed.
Thanks for taking the time to put those thoughts together.
ALL I NEED IS HELICOPTER AI REFUEL AND REARM ON MY COMMAND THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING 😩 what I mean is AI Ground Re-Arming and Re-Fueling