What happened to the flight-sim market?

There was a time when there were loads of flight-sims.

I'm not talking about Microsoft civilian-type stuff, more the military/war flight sims - Falcon, Gunship, Total Air War, USAF, etc.

I'd love to play Total Air War remade for current hardware.

or military helicopter games?

Along with several other popular genres, it was thrown in the bin so that most so-called AAA publishers could concentrate on selling first person shooters to teenagers.

For playing online IL-2 still is the king. Followed by Lomac and Falcon 4.0 Allied Force.

There is still life in the genre. 1C the makers of IL-2 are making a successor of IL-2 named Battle of Britain, Storm of War. Thirdwire is still churning out more casual jet sims (Wings over Europe/Israel/Vietnam etc.) and Shockwave productions keep improving Battle Of Britain II.

Also in development is a hardcore "study" sim based on a Russian attack helicopter. ( http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/ )

Personally I mostly 'fly' with Il-2. I've joined a virtual squadron ( http://www.jointforcescommand.org/ ). A bit nerdy, but very much fun. Beats any MMO imho.

yeah I have notice that yonk ago...there was loads of airplane games and now there are maybe one or two airplane game come on release. AIRCOMBAT 6 Look good game(even thought I havnt play it)

I think the reason flight sims are getting less popular is because so many of them require a joystick, and good, precise, non jittering joysticks are somewhat expensive. There's nothing more annoying than struggling with your joystick because it's not precise enough to let you aim correctly.

I remember playing Chuck Yeager's Air Combat.

I remember I followed the AI controlled friendly planes for a bit and was amazed that they went back to their own airfields and landed. Advanced programming!

I enjoyed playing the Ace Combat series on PS2, but of course they're hardly proper flight sims. More in the genre of arcade shoot-ups.

I'd like to get into the more realistic ones, but I'm a bit put off by their complexity, and time investment needed to master them.
I just don't have the time to surmount the learning curve - may as well spend it training to qualify as a real pilot!

F29 retaliator and TFX were always my favorites :)

Pukis right, there have been none of note recently.

Huh, you dont know about Lockon Flaming Cliffs and its successor, the activley in-developent Digital Combat Simulator (DCS)? In the DCS its featuring mainly the Kamov Ka-50 Tjornaja Akula although the followon release will be a A-10A addon. The Ka-50 is being developed in exsquisite details, simlating fuel flows, damage models etc.
DCS is a *huge* leap forward in modern combat simulations but dont take my word for it, go check out the website, download some of the community videoclips and have mop to wipe of the saliva from the floor :)).

Both of these sims are being produced by a indie developer Eagle Dynamics in Moscow and they have a huge community following.

You can order LOFC online at bol.com though you wont need a TrackIR its HIGHLY recommended, and a proper Saitek X-52 flightstick will decrease your workload.

Ofocz our online squad the The 159th Aviation Regiment are recruiting new pilots.

I have to confess that beside of Interceptor and the first MS Flight Simulator for the Amiga i never was so fond of them. The time they were made the gfx simply were not good/fast enough. I once also checked out MS Flight Simulator 9 and for some time i enjoyed flying from my home town over the alps to a city in the near distance but nothing which lasts for a longer period although a friend of mine really enjoys planning a flight route and flying it in realtime, it's fun to watch him doing so.

Knights of the Sky was my favorite.

I always liked the helicopter sims. Not many had good graphics. Last one I enjoyed was that Voxel rendered comanche 3. A bit simpler than a proper sim but it had really nice dual analogue controls for the two rudders and throttle plus a hell of a lot of terrain detail for the time. Just what I wanted, so I could pop up over the brows of hills and over the treeline with my camera pod thingy and survey the terrain before being seen.

Awesome for a 1997 game :)

F/A-18 Interceptor was best. I had TFX for Amiga on order for months - the company even told me it had gone out on the van. Quite amazing considering it was eventually canned.

Retaliator was OK, but on the sea missions I never worked out why the ships could only turn at 45 degree angles. It looked completely stupid.

Anyone remember "Fighter Pilot" on the speccy?
I used to spend ages tracking that single opponent :)

I think I had Fighter Pilot on C64.

Also had Flight Path 737 which was probably the most pointless bit of software* ever. Oh, and I had Solo Flight, which was good.

* I'm hesitant to even call it a 'game'.

That helicopter game looks familiar.

I'm a great fan of the Ace Combat series. Ace Combat 6 on Xbox 360 is truly a great game. I'm not into flight sims though. And I don't like flight games with old aircraft, they always stall which makes me crash :-).

Used to play the old F19 Stealth Fighter(?) game from Microprose many years ago as well as LHX (helicopter game) and a few other F15/F18/F22 games. The other similar genre to disappear I feel is the old space combat sims - like the Wing Commander, Freespace and Xwing/Tie Fighter series. Freespace 2 still looks good now, in my opinion.

The last 'flightsim' I played was 'Wings', on the Amiga:



the only indicators you had where the bullet holes in your plane (too many == crash) and the direction the pilot was looking at ( == closest enemy plane)

the only game where if you did it correctly you could get the tail fins of your plane stuck in the ground and the only way to get free was to eject (into said ground) ouch!!


European Air War was my fave flight sim, LHX attack chopper was my fave helicopter sim (you could cheat on that too by going into test flight, crashing into the hanger and quitting before your copter hit the floor. When you started the mission your copter became a crater where the base was but you were still flying and are able to complete the mission).

Gabriel said it quite well: hardcore flight sims along with space sims are for niche markets only, and top publishers tend to cater only the needs of the casual teenage players with a 30 second attention span.

Both genres are being barely kept alive by the open-source community. Unfortunately the most promising projects are on the verge of joining the vaporware club, namely Project Phoenix.

The space sim side (my favorite ;) does a bit better, though, with open-source Vega Strike and indie-developed Infinity leading the way.

Flight Simulator X is something to consider for today's top of the line flight sims.