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The Future of Military Simulations
By Len "Viking1" Hjalmarson

Article Type: Commentary
Article Date: December 6th, 2000

On August 21st, 1999 Ty Brewer, simulation editor at GamesDomain.com, posted an editorial that stated, among other things, that since F22 Lightning in its various iterations has outsold Falcon 4, gamers have reason to worry about the development of serious military simulations.

Then on August 16th, 2000, the editors at CNET's Gamecenter.com posted an editorial drawing similar conclusions. Here is their case:

"Publishers don't make hard-core flight sims for a simple reason: flight sims don't make money. Take Falcon 4.0, for instance. It took years and millions of dollars to develop…. The result: the game sold relatively well, but its sales were nowhere near enough to justify the resources and dollars that Hasbro had sunk into the project.

"Complex flight sims such as Falcon 4.0 and Flanker 2.0 just don't appeal to a generation weaned on Starfox… The most complex flight sims on the market often rival the high-end sims used to train Air Force fighter pilots. But fighter pilots are paid full-time to master their craft. Not many gamers are interested in learning the intricacies of the F-16's APG-68 radar system.

Falcon 4.0

"Flight sims are also extremely demanding of the hardware they run on; they are incredibly complex pieces of code. A high-end flight sim has to have a cutting-edge graphics engine, a top-notch physics and flight model, and a real-time campaign that tracks a massive ground and air war. It has to realistically model the weapons … and avionics .. and provide smart AI for your wingmen and enemies. It places enough demands on a system to bring even the most cutting-edge computers to their knees.

"What's more, flight sims are incredibly hard games. Even on the easiest settings, it's still way too easy to get shot down in Falcon 4.0, let alone land the plane without turning it into a $20-million lawn dart."

In the end, what we have here is not intended as an argument at all. What we have is a list of facts that in the minds of the editors at Gamecenter explain the obvious state of affairs: there are fewer serious military simulations in development now than at any time in the last five years. Furthermore, Jane’s and EA are no longer in the business. This is bad news indeed. But are the facts correct? And has the climate for serious military simulations become glacial?

The Success of Serious Simulations

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To begin, let’s consider the serious flight simulations that have done well over the past few years. While Falcon 4.0 may be an economic bust, it actually sold very well, with 245,000 units in the US alone, or six times the sales of Freespace II. Falcon 4 was an economic failure not because it sold poorly, but because the production costs were far too high. The reasons for that have less to do with the complexity of the game than with problems on the production team, leading to repeated delays and necessitating many mid course code updates. The longer development process meant more costs, and the long development meant that the graphics engine was changed TWICE.

Gameweek Report

Consider Microsoft’s first Combat Flight Simulator. With worldwide sales around 1.3 million copies, we have a smashing success! It could be argued that this was a simplified combat flight simulation, lacking a real campaign structure or wingman commands. But it was a combat flight simulator nonetheless, and it outsold many other games in virtually every category. As a bonus, it introduced many to the combat simulation genre who will now purchase CFS II, which is a serious military simulation.

Our intrepid editors have argued that "complex flight sims such as Falcon 4.0 and Flanker 2.0 just don't appeal to a generation weaned on Starfox…"

It’s tough to argue with this, and it contains an element of truth. But the argument is too narrow, and it neglects other known facts.

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