MLT had a lot of dealings with MS, but I don't think they were involved in any of the routes for MSTS 2, just a hunch, can't back it up
Is MSTS dead? No.
Is Train Simulation dead? No.
Is MSTS going to remain current and in the hearts and minds of the general public? Probably not, to be honest, if it's not in the shops then it's not going to get sold and people won't see it.
I understand there is a deadline after which time some of the stores will no longer accept commercial add-ons on the shelf and as far as I am concerned that is the death-knell for the general commercial developer because online sales of commercial add-ons are not career-making in the slightest, they give you a reasonable bit of pocket money at best.
What IS going to happen then?
I think that at least one other simulator will appear, too good an opportunity for some organisation that is well placed to be honest - I wouldn't expect to see that for 12-18 months because nobody would have wanted to invest the money in the product with Microsoft hanging over their heads with theirs - now that it seems almost certain that theirs is dead, you might well find green lights in project planning departments.
I think that a good number of MSTS users will migrate to Trainz, although that's end-of-life within 2 years now as well according to Auran - though by that time their new 'Railway Simulator' should be well on the way.
There will be an also good number of MSTS users that stick by the product, it delivers what they are looking for so why change.
UKTrainSim will almost certainly downsize due to rapidly dwindling numbers of subscriptions, but by moving to cheaper servers that can't handle much load (hence why I don't use them at the moment), I can run this service with very few subscribers so I don't ever expect to see the site or its files disappear, we'll be here if you want us *group hug* hehe
What are the options for the future of MSTS?
The obvious one, Microsoft can it, bury it and it's gone. Well, that's basically the one we should all expect and the above details that scenario I think.
Microsoft could sell the rights to it to another company and that largely just slightly accelerates the 'third party developer' situation above or might add an additional developer to the market.
Finally, Microsoft may open source the product or hand it to a select group or groups for them to improve and fix, repackage and so forth.
This is of course the most ideal situation because if you take people like Paul Gausden and Mike Simpson (to name just two!) you've got an awful lot of skill there just for some of the core bits, take expertise from other members and i'm sure there are plenty of developers (myself included) that would be able to spruce up the rest, find all the unhandled exceptions (which cause send/don't send) and trap them with proper error messages and so on and so forth. The whole lot could then be re-packaged with some UK routes and stock and voila, you have a brand new train simulator based on MSTS but coming out kicking booty... whether you would have the ability to then sell it I don't know but even if it were only freeware that would be great.
Personally i'd like it to be made available to anyone that wants it and if they want to then create a commercial package they should be able to - if you can get MSTS back on the shelves (under a different name probably but never the less on the shelf) you can get it back in the public eye, put all the money earned back in to the development and we can go places.
(I use the 'UK routes and stock' example above purely for relevance to this site, it equally applies to other nations of course).
I strongly suspect if something was open sourced it would be V1 not V2, nobody is likely to release anything they don't approve of themselves.
So, Microsoft open sourcing a game? Seems rather obscurely unlikely doesn't it... Now go and look for a game called 'Allegiance', an oldish game (maybe 2000 or a little before?) - it was an MMORPG space game though it was only in single battles rather than a living universe. Massive amounts of fun. Unfortunately it was also a big flop financially due to it requiring subscription - and I think perhaps more than people were prepared to pay back then for an online game, so it failed. Microsoft pulled the plug on it. The story didn't end there however - it had generated a big community (much like MSTS has) of fans, players, people making new ships and things for it - and Microsoft graciously open sourced the whole bloody lot, servers included, so the game could continue to 'live'.
It's not beyond the realms of possibility. Is it likely? I'd say probably still not particularly, but not as unlikely as it might first appear given the above example.
Popularity of MSTS?
The rumour I hear is it sold over 1,000,000 copies. I also hear that if a game sells 250,000 copies then it's done pretty well and is considered a reasonably good success. So at 1,000,000 copies it's very healthy indeed for a first version. John mentioned that he expected more people would buy the first version to speculate - in fact I'd say it's the other way around, my feeling is that if Microsoft had released version 2, with all the work done here, in europe and the states (not to mention elsewhere) they probably would have smashed 2,000,000 copies sold world wide if not more. People tend to be wary of version 1's, especially with all the stupidity in the marketing for it (conrods through boilers anyone) and the rivet-counting audience they did it in front of, they have learned (hopefully) from that and v2 would have come out far better prepared for the audience.
Finally, just for those who are new to the whole genre, Will UKTrainSim embrace Trainz as it seems the obvious product for the future of the genre?
Been there, done that, not getting in to the discussion publicly again (feel free to email or PM if you want to ask privately), Auran and 99.9% of Trainz users are perfectly happy with their Download Station and we can't host downloadable content for various reasons - so why bother?
As I say, UKTrainSim isn't going anywhere, and if there are any other third party products out there being developed and you would like to get UKTrainSim involved (publicly or privately under NDA) then please get in touch.
Matt.
