Someone posted this in another forum. Interesting to see what it was like, I barely recall any of this, but elder more experienced members on these forums will.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/06/puns-promises-and-poppycock-a-brief-history-of-sim-ads/

Makes you wonder why they're not doing it anymore. Sure there are no magazines, but why don't they do it in another media?

Because they've gone from mainstream to niche

I think PC flight sims have always catered to a niche market since the beginning. What changed the industry was the number of people playing other types of games like first person shooters, RPG's and RTS's compared to the number of people playing flight sims. Publishers noticed that these other types of games were selling a lot more copies compared to flight sims so naturally the publishers changed to fill that bigger demand. If you're running a PC publishing business wouldn't it make sense to develop games that sell 2 million copies instead of developing games that sell 100k copies?

Well back way when, 100k of sales was considered a hit. Not now.

There is probably some way to make sims economically viable now a days in the niche markets. But its not like running out and buying a license for Unreal or maybe crytek engine. Seems like you have to build a custom engine to make whatever sim in whatever genera. That eats time and money.

Still awaiting for an up to date ww2 tank/vehicle sim that does it legit. Might be waiting a LONG time.

Right because back then development costs were a lot cheaper so selling 100k copies was more than enough to cover the initial investment and to make a profit. But even going beyond that, publishers found out that they could make an even better return on other genres like shooters, MMO's and RPG's so hence the widespread exodus from flight sim development by so many companies.

Every publisher wants the next Call of Duty. None want the next Red Baron.



The Jedi Master

Well, yeah of course the go where the money is, but why the few that venture into simming go with having more "bold" ads? When I see an ad for DCS or ROF or whatever, they don't have punchlines and cool phrases there.

Right now, the ad for War Thunder here at SimHQ says "War Thunder. Play for free. Off we go!", they don't include words like "blast" or "lead", not even "enemy" in there!

Those are some good questions. Do we have any advertising agency employees here on SimHQ that can answer them?

I don't know who handles the marketing for sims like DCS or ROF but maybe it's a cultural thing? All PC flight sims now are made by Russian developers.

War Thunder's latest ad/trailer, although I don't think it got posted here before. Seems pretty over the top RE:90s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-J5Vg0SxLc



It's generally overlooked here, being a bit gamey, but has had 26,000 concurrent players according to the stats. Big numbers when compared to titles popular here. You can see why other sim markets want to chase that money, as it's a game doing very well..

I wouldn't hold my breath. There is probably a fundamental disconnect between a WW2 armored battle and its representation on a home computer. In some instances, you want to leave out the weeks or months of no action, then when the action comes, depending on the time period of the War and which side the player is on, the player may never get a decent kill because of vast disparities between the sides, then of course there is no practical way to simulate and coordinate hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of individual troops, gun placements, fortifications, and so on. It may not be satisfying from a gameplay perspective to do it legit. Even players who demand the most fidelity possible will probably find what that would really mean in execution. The subject matter would have to be quite pared down to make it manageable and playable. Small unit action stuff, scenarios focusing on key but rather limited components of particular operations. That's why in general you don't see too many land battle simulators that don't do this, and certainly none I can think of that have logical 'dynamic' campaigns that everyone wants.

My 2 penneth (2 cents) - for what its worth.

First - flightsims were maybe the most graphically complex of those early PC games - so they pushed the hardware and graphics made folks eyes pop out - similar to the latest AAA FPS trailer today. Also a case of 'I've bought a v expensive new fangled home computer - I'd better get my money's worth with some software that can REALLY push it to the limit'

Second - on the marketing front is that those sims appeared at a very interesting time in world history. For good few decades there had been the threat of global thermonuclear war and East-West arms race in military tech.

When the Wall came down - there was naturally relief but also fascination with these aircraft/weapon systems that had been built for the great WW3 that never happened.

The 1991 Gulf War - with its smart weapons/use of air power against Iraq was thus a vindication of US/Western investment in post-Vietnam training, tactics (Red Flag) & technology in defeating an enemy based around Soviet equipment/doctrine.

So with F-117s/M-1s/F-15E/Apaches/Tornados having delivered a decisive victory, it was thus an easy sell to pitch the marketing down that route.

"Hey kid - seen the F-16 as used in Desert Storm? - well now YOU can fly it at home!"

Maybe a bit of a simplification - but think there could be a link between what is recognised as one of airpowers most clear-cut battles - and the glut of military/aviation sims that followed after.

Somehow Arma manages to seek a decent balance without the stupid hyper-realism the occasional high school student on another forum will demand, I think someone could manage.

Sort of, kind of- the Iraqis on paper might resemble a Soviet equipped and trained client, but it would be like comparing a high school baseball team that went to a professional team's training camp. There are so many factors why these two don't compare so favorably.

Two very important differences:

Soviet doctrine is based on attack- WW3 would be assumed to be started with a Soviet and Wasrsaw Pact attack on NATO and Western Europe, rather than an Arab army sitting in the desert while the Coalition builds up and begins mapping out all its positions and signals at leisure. The opening initiative would belong to the Soviets during a full scale attack. Medium and intermediate ranged Soviet Rocket and Artillery Forces would wipe out entire grid squares, whereas the Iraqis had nothing even comparable in practice- analysis showed that they didn't even get artillery effectively into any battle like that had done against the Iranians, it was all wiped out or was out of contact with units in the field. Then of course following that are what everyone talks about- the densest concentration of fighting vehicles per kilometer the world has ever seen looking to make contact.

Second, WW3 would probably not be conventional. Both sides would eventually employ tactical nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, the Soviets in particular regarded them as just more things it can pull out of the tool box, later in the cold war, equipment is designed with NBC protection in mind to operate under those conditions. Everyone basically loses in WW3 because of that, everyone will fight for a few days before succumbing. You can't stay protected or locked up forever.

I think Lord Flashheart is dead on.

For example...

==========
"Flying Tips: Martin Kenwright, managing director, Digital Image Design, a native Liverpudlian, an art college grad who enjoys driving his TVR Griffith Chimera sports car, is surprised that he has a staff of 20 working on new projects quite a step up from programming F-29 in his bedroom.

Martin suggests flying under bridges to read the graffiti and ejecting upside down form the plane to view the disemboweled body sequences. He most enjoys the real-world feeling he gets with flying a TFX mission, "taking off in a stealth bomber at night and flying toward the ever-enlarging Adriatic sea, moving through a cloud bank, approaching the target with its city lights, watching the AAA come up around the ship, fueling mid-air, and returning home to read the Herald Tribune coverage."
==========

http://www.thecomputershow.com/computershow/reviews/tfxtacticalfighter.htm
(see TFX F-117 pic)

++++++++++

During the Gulf War and the many documentaries that followed (and back when the History Channel was worth watching), how could you NOT want to fly aircraft like the F-117 on your PC?

It's been too long ago to remember where I got them, but I have a several videos that were made of Gulf War aircraft that are pretty cool. Military aircraft at the time (including helos) were front and center.

I remember in '91 sitting in the back lot of a retail store right at the end of the runway of Dobbins AFB (Marietta, GA) to watch F-15Cs and large transports take off. So much activity going on with all these aircraft, it was surreal. And I knew very little about military aircraft at the time (even less about available flight sims) until I purchased MP's F-117 a couple of years later.

Many of the guys i play Dayz with and who hang at Reddit and other forums have all heard of and most have played played War Thunder and really enjoy it. Hardly any have heard of Il2 or any of it's derivatives. Not one person i have met in the Dayz bubble since release of the mod, besides people who play here, have ever heard of EAW, DCS, Falcon etc. They all know Cod, Battlefield, Skyrim, Crysis, Half Life, Metro, Arma series, Counterstrike, Stalker, Total War series, Elder scrolls and a heap of other games..flight sims just do not seem to register on many peoples radar..except for War Thunder.

That's an interesting point, perhaps they should do more marketing outside the sim community? The only gaming forum I frequent which is not about flight sims is the Kerbal Space Program one, and there's no ads there, so I wouldn't know.

Magazines were bought by all kinds of people, placing an ad on a sim related forum wont send a message that hasn't been heard before, we all know DCS we don't need and ad for that. Now you place it in some other forum and might be more lucky?

Concur with Lord Flashheart, I got Jane's F-15, the second sim I bought, precisely because I had been reading about them and their role in the Gulf War.

That "Their Finest Hour" ad STILL gets me excited. God I loved the Lucasfilm Games trilogy of flight sims. Still my all time favorites.

I just realized I had one of those aircraft videos already uploaded...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/Go_Boom.mpeg
(32MB - please right-click save)

It came later (2003) and features Harriers and targeting LGBs, but it's same type of the many videos that came out around and after the '91 Gulf War.


I believe this is an earlier one I have (YT doesn't work for me)...



Makes you want a new Jane's USAF?

Correction: I guess all of these videos were made after the year 2000 and high-speed Internet, but the same footage was being shown earlier on CNN/Discovery/History Channel/etc.