Why? If a westerner enjoys sims they will buy them, no matter the price as long as it is reasonable. Really for the Western market $40 is a reasonable price. If that was dropped to $20 or even $10 I doubt there would be a massive upswing in the popularity of sims here.

The fact of the matter is that it seems more people in the Russian gaming software market are people who play sims. Far less here in the west. Here the big three are FPS, RTS, and RPGs.

The fact of the sim market in the west dying isn't because the product is priced out of the reach of the consumer, but the fact that it isn't as popular with the consumer as other types of games.

Though that is true, I think. The logic get cloudy when you find out that computer hardware in Russia is as expensive if not more expensive than the west. This means they are willing to pay HUGE bucks for the hardware, but not for the sim OR is there another reason.

PIRACY, is rampant in that part of the world, figures I have seen say it is around 90%. This means that perhaps the reason the games are so cheap in russia is because their main competition is pirated , black market copies. NAH, that can't be it, because piracy caused HIGH prices, not low prices.

The aircraft that I believe has been overlooked for way too long is a good Harrier sim.

It is a rumor that is incorrect.

The aircraft choices are not so much odd (although a helicotper in a jet sim? "Heretics" I cry), as disappointing. With the exception of the Su-25 training missions and the Su carrier landing, I have never bothered flying the Russian planes, still sticking to the F-15C and A-10. I'm an American guy and generally only enjoy flying "good guy" planes, i.e. US and western NATO designs (like Mirage or Tornado).

That flight sims haven't sold as well in the west is partially because of their sterile design. Even the good ones (like IL2FB or LOMAC) feel more like flying a training sim than flying an aircraft in the middle of an air war. If more flightsims had the campaign and mini-rpg elements like SH3 (and not done all crazy like the goofy campaign in CFS3), I would bet flight sim sales would at least stabalize, if not increase, in the west.

What we have now is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Big publishers are confident flight sims won't sell in the west, so they don't put the time and effort into producing good sims with elements that appeal to western gamers, therefore ensuring they don't sell well in the west. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure, if you release flightsims mainly about Russian planes flying over Russia, they are going to sell better in Russia than in America . . .

Let's assume this assumption is correct, and $40 USD is a good price for the Western market (sounds OK to me). Let's also assume that the price of sims in Eastern markets is $10 (doesn't sound too far off). Based on this assumption, if you were a sim developer selling sims in the Eastern and Western markets, you would need to sell 4 times as many sims in the East to make the same amount of money in the West. Now, it's quite possible that the number of simmers in the East is 4x larger than in the West. But, now factor in the piracy that is reported to be widespread over there (piracy is prevelant in the West too, but I had a look around some of those bit torrent sites, and I don't see many sims, and the ones I do see don't have many downloaders). Let's assume that %80 of all software in the East is pirated. So, that means that only %20 of Eastern simmers will buy that $10 sim, the rest will get pirated copies.

Thus, if the sim has to sell four times as many copies in the East, and only 1 in 5 simmers over there buy it, the Eastern sim market would need to be 20 TIMES LARGER than the West in order for a sim dev to make the same amount of money (not more, just the same). Now, I don't know how big the market over there is, but if it's 20 times larger, I'd be surprised. So, that means one of the following 3 things:
1) Piracy figures for the Eastern market are wrong, which could mean the Eastern market is only 4 times the Western one. This could be possible, but goes against most of what I've heard from numerous sources.
2) Eastern piracy doesn't happen much with sims because they're cheap. People over there aren't pirating, and lots of people are buying, because the price is so low. If that's the case, why not do the same in the West? If you're thinking "It's because they're not as popular here, no one would buy them anyway", see the post I made earlier about the F4AF figures.
3) The Eastern sim market really is 20x larger than the Western market. If this is the case, and I'm willing to admit that it might be (but I find it unlikely), I need to buy a plane ticket to Russia because I'm living in the wrong place .

I think 2 and 3 are the most likely options here. Unfortunately without some raw numbers I doubt we'll ever know (anyone got links to Eastern and Western sales figures?). And yes, I know this post has been relatively pointless but I just felt like doing some maths .

As I mentioned in my other post, F4AF was No. 1 in sales across all PC games on Amazon.com, and is still high up there right now. I don't know why that is (F4 diehards selling their houses to buy 2000 copies each perhaps?), but it indicates to me that sims can still acheive widespread appeal.

Cheers

Mr B

This a potentially fatal flaw in your argument - who says that an eastern sim developer needs to or is trying to make the same amount of money that they would in the west? The cost of living is lower, the salaries for employees are lower, the overhead (rent, insurance, benefits, etc) may or may not be lower... You make a decent analysis, but I think it starts off on the wrong foot.

I hate message board economics.

Yes, but we're talking of the same developer (be it in West or East). So he has the same costs no matter where he sells his games..

Perhaps russians have a little pride in 1) their aviation and 2) games industry and like to do a good deed : buy an original, when they can afford it.

It's kind of the same as here. In Romania most people I know earn something like 300 euros max! Yet a new game costs around 40 euros. Very expensive I'd say... but I still bought some of them...

Yeap, Rusian take pride of tehir aviation and Software industry. i bet cha, that 50% of the software is legal when produced by a russian develloper. the 90% piracy thing is on western software .

Besides the rest of teh world also buy sims, and are not that inclined towards western done 1000 times planes . I am a bit tired of F-16s, 15´s and Hornets... The SU-25T was a very refreshing surprise, being a new aircraft, avionics and weapons set to learn how to use.

The Hockum is a real chalenge and Longbow folowers are really eager to get a new full real Heli sim.

Quite franklly I hate western planes in LOMAC, to fly western planes I fly Falcon AF. Witch has the problem of being, aggain, a pure F-16 simulator... And thats why I fly LOMAC.

Of course, My choice would have been a Mirage 2000 or a Mig 21, or Mirage III/V .

I think France should really start compeating in the Sim industry, maybe some of the guys in C6 can do soemthing about it .

Anyway the point is: even if I don´t agree with the choices of ED, I can´t say it´s not logical to do this planes instead of a western plane that has been done, very well as a matter of fact, a thousand times before.

(Lomacs F-15 can´t compeat with Jane´s F-15 in realism for instance ).

And the "lets try to atract the western market" policy has failed terribly for ED, being (and excuse me for being so crude) FC the first very much bug free, very well done product, since Flanker 2.0.

I was about to give up on the LOMAC series till I had a go at Flaming Cliffs. I am astonished on how much progress has been done with out the interfearence fof Ubisoft .

Grate Job ED. keep at it. FC is your masterpice yet by my standards, and I have been buying your products since Flanker 1.5 .

So I am very looking fordward to Black Shark .