I'm less sure it's true. I don't know that AH will ever draw the pachinko crowd of young ones, nor am I certain that the young ones who come in are of that contingent.
There's certainly a disconnect in this community, primarily from the, for lack of better terms, the older demographic of it. Most people here seem to be attached to their familiarity and preferences of gaming, without realizing that's precisely why this game is declining (speaking objectively in regards to numbers).
Previously, we had a few WWII air combat MMO's - heck, just air combat MMO's. All of them provided different opportunities and different gaming avenues, but they all also had their quirks. To pick one meant you had to decide to adopt the good and the bad.
Now, with the rise of WT and WoWP, we don't really have that anymore. These games are based on long-time studies and trends of what gamers want -
there is quite literally a science behind it. And with that, you have 95% (a quickly-drawn estimation, but probably close to being accurate) of gamers going to these games. The gamers may or may not have prior interest in WWII air combat, but that is almost inconsequential, as those games are now setting the standard for what the genre is.
Again, when you have
literally half a billion dollars (or more) being spent and made by WT and WoWP, they quite literally set the standard for the market.
Now, to be clear - I do not want this game to be WT or WoWP. They're gamey, they have crappy advancement/skill models, and unrealistic. But, those are surface items - really, they are.
The core of the game is the way that they market and keep players, and you can apply that to almost any game. That is their business. Even IL2 is moving towards HUD-type displays, premium/LE planes, cinematic trailers - it works, it simply works.
New players don't care so much about how easy or hard a flight model is - certainly, there is some degree that it affects them; but their primary concern is in accessibility, in immersion. Graphics are hugely a part of this. Your new simmer doesn't care if a plane feels like it stalls correctly when the graphics look worse than a game he can play on his gaming console -
immersion comes primarily from sight and sound (again, based on science). Guess what? WT and WoWP nails this. Surreal trailers showing air to air combat, explosions, glory - this is what gamers want. They want to feel like a WWII hero. This game has nothing even remotely close to that, while WT and WoWP have trailers that cost upwards of $100,000 to produce.
These new, young, up and comer players are the only people who will keep your sim, regardless of which one it is, afloat. You can hate them, disregard them, whatever you'd like; the cold reality is that they will determine if your game succeeds or if it shuts down. And the demographic of these gamers are mainly players whose only experience is WT and WoWP. If you can't match or beat it in something other than flight model, you've lost them, as it requires a good amount of experience to begin to appreciate the difference in flight models to begin with.
They don't care if the flight model is an arcade Atari game or Aces High on steroids, as long as they get their beautiful aircraft, glorious moments of victory, and the experience of feeling like a WWII pilot. This is what people seem to be missing. This is what other games offer readily.
It is what it is. I wish people would realize this and then actually address the problem, instead of burying their heads in the sand while making up excuses why player numbers being 1/2 to 1/3 of what they were previously is somehow a sign of success.
That line of thinking can only continue for so long. What is 1/2 of 0?
