I never stated the continued decline was due to economy. Only that was what caused the start of decline (was obvious do to increase in credit card declines). I agree with increased competition along with peoples use of smart phones and tablets is part of the reason for the continued decline.
HiTech
Not only,
I agree with Nugetx, from my experience, the changes made over past years eliminated satisfaction, rewards for team vs team kind of player, favoring selfish score/rank type gaming . Radar settings, HQ eliminated, was the best fun to run or defend bombing raids, nija invisible m3s /gvs making bases close to impossible to capture, maps too large for population resting with same 20%.
On the other hand you keep emphasizing an abused sophisticated score, rank system, kill/hours/sortie, hit% that has nothing to do with WW2 air combat history, not appealing for first category ; unfortunately is all that's left to play for.
Here how i see it; a conflict between individual vs group psychological human behavior. You got the Dallas Mavericks , filling up the arena with supporters, causing traffic congestion on I-635; this was the game before, more team vs team clash kept the arena populated. I've been in sqds with 2,3 wings all same mindset enjoying this side of the game , chatting , having fun, recruiting absorbing new players..
Here is how i see the game rewarding today; game settings moved the competition from team vs team level to individual level, people compete inside same team or sqd for cheap points/ranks. It's more rewarding this kind of psychological profile with lack of social behaviour skills, selfish, introverts dweebs; vulching camping, rushing to bomb worthless strats first, checking their score after every sortie.
