All things aside simulator developers such as the Russian Black Shark helecopter simulator that just came out say their is definently a market for simulators and thats all that matters to them. The Black Shark devs put a huge amount of effort into what is a superbly crafted graphics engine that has all the realism one could want.

I'm still holding my breath for il2 sturmoviks next game maddox games are working on a new battle of britain simulator.

check out this site and tell me sims don't have a market. Look at the numbers on the forums. Besides the average age of gamers in general is getting older and appreciation for the finer things in simulators getting a little better

http://www.simhq.com/index.html

Northstar was a bulletpoint because it's always good to tease people with something new - see the hints on Elemental dropped during the Beta of Sins. If anything I'm kind of doubting Fort Zombie ever comes out (the other Kerberos project).

I refer you to forums.relicnews.com. They have comparable numbers, at the least (and they purge inactive users and old threads regularily) - while only being dedicated to one company. There's fora that are far bigger than that for The Sims. One game - and note the plural. The Sim Genre is niche - not bad, just small.

LOL Teseer - You have a point. But really we already know a lot with our NASA deep space probes and shuttles about how it is going to work. Offcourse folding space is not possible yet... but nor was flying at all not so long ago.

@Awac A - that was me about Jutland - and I am greatly enjoying the real time grand campaign. Thats right its got total war style campaign - except its realtime. Pausable offcourse. Zooms you in to the action anytime their is an encounter. I just had one helluva huge night battle!!! The ships were so close to each other that the formations were tangled. BRUTAL!

@DatonKallandor - could not have put it better myself. The sim market is small but still large enough to be profitable. I think also that it is often underestimated. Their was a star trek game that came out recently, but it was sooo simplified it bored me to death. Cannot remember the name. Klingon Academy and Starshatter are the best ones I have encountered so far.

I think the hardest part for making a starship sim is having been allow interaction with the crew, or at least a bare minimal of it.

I don't know if anyone of you remember imperium galatica 1 where you can go to various section of the ship and talk to various important crew members, or you can have it less like what happens in mass effect/ST bridge commander.  Though in both games, the X-wing/freespace type of simulation fighting is non-exsistant.  What do you guys think??

Another possibilities is having an addional layer of simulation like Cesar 4 but instead be on a starship, but if you encounter the enemies, it switches to a freespace type combat mode.

Not to change the subject much but how would you compare Jutland to Pacific Storm: Allies?

star trek legacy, it s*cked a*s, at least on the pc.

but generally, it is true that simulators dont attract enough crowd (i.e.) money.

star trek legacy wasnt even a simulator at all, it was an arcade third person shooter in space in my opinion.

don´t get me wrong, you can earn a lot of money with simulators, it´s just that it is mostly not enough to interest the big publishers (ea, ubi, etc.) and the risk is much much higher than releasing a starcraft 2 or something like that.

the only sims that get real attention (atm) from outside the simfans are x³ and silent hunter and that´s because both build on a large fanbase that was build back in the days, when sims still were popular (read: when only geeks owned computers )

x³ is - of course not directly, but in some ways - the grand grand newphew of elite and silent hunter is just silent hunter, number x.

the last really popular simulator that i can remember was freelancer - which was released when? 2003? something around that - and freelancer wasnt even that "simulationnish", it was easier to play with mouse+keyboard than with a joystick (though i prefer that)

i know, this has already been answered...but nintendogs?? mechwarrior? tie-fighter? NINTENDOGS??

first of all, when was the last mechwarrior released? when was tie-fighter released?! 1994 when i remeber correctly? seriously, that is hardly a good example, to show how tremendously well space-sims have prospered...(oh yeah, same goes to wing commander). the mechwarrior series had a lot of really nice games, but there hasnt been released one since part 4 - and again that´s a game that already had a large fanbase from back in the days.

car driving games are the only real sims (in term of simulator like sitting in a cockpit of something) i can think of that are really popular  and even those became extremely arcadish for the most part (nsf, burnout, etc..)

so datonkallandor is quite right when he says that the sim-market is a niche...

well, in bethesdas "defence", they were just the publishers and left the programming to someone else

I'd say flight sims have an much larger following than car simulations. The only real car sim I can think of is GTR. The flight sims that come to mind are Microsoft Flight Simulator series/MS combat flight simulator series/the sturmovik series/falcon 4.0 series/strike fighters series/first eagles.

There are magazines that are for flight simulations.   A lot of this has to do with pilots practising on their computers with the many dedicated specific aircraft simulators on the market.

@chip5541

Hey Chip good to see you mate.

Jutland is much better than Pacific Storm Allies for my liking.

Pacific Storm:

• Pacific Storm Allies allows you more detail in the campaign world to build bases, ships etc.
• Pacific Storm Allies seems very arcade like.
• Pacific Storm Allies allows you to enter the cockpit iirc and Jutland does not
• PSA has covers a much larger area than Jutland and is more abstacted because of this
• PSA I would not classify in the simulation league. Jutland most certainly is
• PSA seems to have a distinct lack of historical flavour, it just does not seem like you are in control of a real fleet.

Jutland:

• Jutland has a campaign map that is 2D, but nice to look at and very atmospheric.
• Jutland is focussed on Naval Battles where PSA seems tries to do too much. 
• Jutland is about maneover on the campaign map, a cat and mouse game if you like. PSA just seemed like you ran into your enemy and fought with little intelligence or surprise.
• Jutland zoomed in battles are amazingly detailed, weight of shells, wind, sea height, the direction of the smoke affecting aim, guns spinning and raising, time of day, torpedoes can be seen, fire, directed or local fire control etc
• Jutland has a detailed overview of how each ship is doing, this is amazing. It shows how much the ship is listing, which guns are taken out, how mkuch flooding thier is. Information about the armour and gun types. All sorts of things 
• Jutlands Graphics are nicer then PSA's imho
• In Jutland u only get re-encforcements around the time they historically came out. Although its not exact u know if you are the Germans u have the technical edge but not the industrial one.
• In Jutland every ship has a name and every ship matters, well maybe apart from British Destroyers
• Jutland can choose your sailing formation and when to set sail
• Jutland u can lay minefields, send scouts and zepplins out, send submarine screens out.
• Jutland can literally handle massive naval enagagements. U can re-create Jutland in real time. Thats right, over 100 ships on the screen at once!
• You can pause to issue commands in Jutland - not sure if this is possible in PSA
• In Jutland there are many many formation and turning commands just as the navies of the day were trained to carry out. Ships are organised is squadrons but can be moved individually if needed. For instance I may want a battlecruiser squadron to move, they are sailing on a current heading. I order them to turn immediately and indipendently of each other to the left onto a new heading, once they have done this I order them to get back into line formation. You can do all kinds of thing like this. PSA has nothing similar iirc.
• In Jutland just because you see an enemy ship of the same type and same gun type does not mean you are equal. There are still many other things simulated. Such as the training of the crews, firing solution methods, age of the guns and reliability of the particular turret systems or ship mount.
• In Jutland you really want to get to know what ships could beat what historically. The great thing about ww1 was that aircraft carriers only appeared for the first time in the last year of the war, meaning battleships are still the kings. Also ww1 had many experimental and innovative techs, such as seaplane carriers or battleships with torpedoe tubes in the bow. Their were many generations of ships in a given battle, ships kept doubling in size and tech rapidly improved in and before ww1. So as I said above not all ships of the same size and type are equal.

I guess u know what PSA is like so here are some shots of Jutland from my fraps:

I miss Tie Fighter too. I have high hopes for Naumachia in that regard. It looks to have much the same sort of gameplay. Just check out the alpha footage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL8usuG0avM&feature=related

That brings back memories.

Anyone know a safe place to get the starshatter demo? The full game has a rather hefty price tag so I figured I would give it a spin first. The main page download links to fileplanet which has an outdated file and two other sites I don't recognize.

What is the link to the Jutland homepage? The game really has me interested. I haven't seen a good naval sim in quite a while.