Certainly the disbanding of Microsoft's Aces Studios was a remarkable move! The loss of the body of knowledge those developers had assembled is not easy to replace. It must have been a devastating experience for those guys. It also beggars belief that Microsoft chose to abandon their flagship entertainment product, and one which has served as a technology demonstrator and development platform for over two decades.
Electronic Arts did the same thing back in the 1990s when it disbanded Janes Combat Simulations after it had produced a decade of the most popular combat flight sims ever seen.
From my own dealings with the industry I can verify that flight sims are not necessarily well understood by decision makers, as the two previous examples demonstrate. They are inherently much more complex than most game genres, and therein lies the secret of their long term attraction. They are not something you can master in a day. In fact, like musical performance, you can attain a level of mastery in the activity, but never completely master the activity.
It is my belief that flight sims are the most profound cultural artifact to arise yet out of the technology revolution (1980 onwards). So, yes, I believe they will survive!
MiGMan
November 2009
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