There has been alot of debate recently in the fora about the increasing commercialisation of MSTS and its addons and the lack of freeware. Someone, I forget who, made the point that almost everything has been done. I disagree with this where for example is the Fowler 2-6-4T? I'm sure if we all sat and listed every loco we could think of that hadnt been done for UK routes alone we'd be here for hours. I have come to realise that from now on in if I want a particular locomotive I will either have to build it myself or pay for it. Freeware has become a bonus as opposed to the norm. As such I sit and watch the forums carefully when new products come out to find out what people think before buying them.
The arguments about flightsim going commercial is a slightly different one. Ive been flightsimming since flightsim 5 and until FS98 there were very few commercial addons available. In flightsim one only has to look at the products in PC World alone to prove that the commercial side is a booming business and then look at websites with freeware to prove that freeware is substantially unaffected. Comparing FS and MSTS is not a like with like comparison. Flightsimming is something that interests many many more people throughout the world. Some packages of software that come with new PCs include a FS title - where does one see that with MSTS?
The flightsim community can support a freeware sub community and a commercial sub community because of the greater number of users involved. MSTS, with its smaller fanbase, is clearly struggling to do so and I cant help but recognise the inevitability of freeware products becoming increasingly less common.
There is alot of high quality freeware stuff on this website which remains accessable and I expect will remain accessable to all. For this we should all be glad and in the future we may have to be a little more discerning in the locos, coaches, wagons and routes we get hold of. My MSTS folder is sitting at 5GB so it can only be a good think for me
