I recently started playing Wt again, the last update was nice.
Soon they will have tanks and ship warfare implemented. "its already there just ai controlled atm"
I see these types of "free to play" games as killers of "pay as you play" type game dynamics. I fear in 1-2 more years Wt will be hammered out enough to be considered a real threat to other flight sim's. Right now it is lacking in some things like looking around and some other basic functions. War thunder also focuses on 1920-1950's planes.
The major downside is the gameplay itself is treated more like a rpg type game, where you upgrade parts of your plane and put points into your pilot skills to make them more effective in combat.
One you can pay to fly 15+ minutes to get into combat, while the other you simply log in,get your "i got a few kills" fix and go snuggle with the wife.
Then we have games like star citizen & eve VR that will throw people into a entire universe of such battles.
Its also all about numbers, at any given time i can log into Wt and fight 15k players or more, when its 2am here. If i try that with any other flight sim the servers are dang near dead, and hardly populated mid week, even tho its mid day. "and to pay for that!?"
I also like how they made the flight mode selectable from the start, and the training missions help too "even tho for any vet its a NO DUH" type ordeal. It makes it so people playing in the realistic arenas at least know how to use there aircraft, ie..taking off and landing .ect.
I fear gone are the days of monthly percriptions and in with the years of "play the game for free, but buy what you want to use" kind of system. Or the ever so better, pay once and play the product all you want how you want when you want "star citizen" and if you want more, pay more. But every once can EARN said ship/gun/suit/station/blah blahblah with time and effort. Try to keep up with that type of system if you inking 15$ per account. The math is just all bad for monthly perscription games.