Really looking forward to Masters of the Air. Hope they don't stuff it. I was beginning to think it was permanent vaporware.
Not sure I see any benefit for AH unless there was some kind of tie-in advertising. Even then, then outcome is questionable.
People I asked in the DCS world, people fully into flight-sim'ing, most had never heard of AH. Some of the ones who did, thought it had closed years ago. The remainder weren't impressed with the graphics or the subscription model.
HTC could throw some money at advertising to take advantage of the interest the show generates, but there is still the problem of poor conversion rate making advertising ROI poor.
At best it would get a bunch of eyes on AH and trial downloads. That would be a good thing. But the Steam release also put a bunch of fresh eyes on AH and didn't convert to many new customers. Those were targeted gamers who are on Steam to spend money. Probably a far more targeted audience than random dudes watching MotA who might not even own a joystick. If you couldn't convert Steam players, I doubt random MotA views will fair much better.
Fundamentally AH with it's current graphics, current arena model, current subscription model, current level of development, appears to be a really hard sell to a modern market. Assuming nothing changes, I don't see how MotA makes any real difference.
On the positive side, HTC is blessed with a very durable existing customer base that at this point are locked in until they die. They appear to be insensitive to lack of new development (other than some grousing) so they are low overhead. It's main draw now is as a nostalgic social network of old timers who started back in the day of 56k modems. Pretty much the only large inflows I've seen over the years were refugees from near-peer platforms that closed. That well is running pretty dry.
The only real hope is that MotA reinvigorates some old previous players and HTC can recycle them. But it seems returning players burn out again pretty quick or just die of old age. I wonder how many other gaming platforms have old age as a appreciable factor in player attrition. That tells you something. No squeakers, no future.
