As Real As It Gets--For A Never Ending Price

By Nick Wilkinson

Seven years ago a neighbor gave us our first computer...it was a Compaq. Some kind of portable computer with a snap in keyboard, a monochrome 5 inch monitor, and two floppy drives. He also gave us some software. I remember it well. It was my first flightsim--FS3. You know, the one where all the scenery has no texture, just a solid color, and all the buildings are wireframed and the only scenery was Chicago, Seattle, New York and Los Angeles. Nothing else was available to fly, just a Cessna.

Then we bought our first computer. At the time, it was high-tech--an AST 486 running Windows 3.0 with only 8 megs of RAM and about 500 megs of hard drive storage. FS5.1 back then was real cheap too. Only two things where available to purchase for add-ons. BAO's Flight Shop and BAO's Scenery Designer. Only bad thing was you had to purchase Flight Shop to fly any add-on planes. OK, cool. After months of looking for one, I found a copy and started flying more planes.

Shortly thereafter, FSFW95 came out. Well darn, looks like it's time to upgrade again! So now I got a brand new Compaq Presario. It was powerful at the time I purchased it. The only thing I had to buy was a 3D accelerator and I then again upgraded to FS98 when it was released. Everything for it was free. The free converters, the free airplanes, the free scenery and panels.

A few years after that, FS2000 came out. Well, this time I was prepared. I upgraded my computer so much to handle the newer features of FS2000. Then something happened. More programs became available, a new bread of flightsimming was born, and now everyone sees the possibilities of taking advantage of a program that was intended to be educational and entertaining. But something else was happening. People decided to start selling things. "Let's get rid of all this freeware, and make it all shareware." "Let's get rich off of someone else's program." "I don't care about them," and "I want to be the best of what I do." So now we have many smaller companies selling planes and scenery.

OK, so now if you want to get "as real as it gets," you still have to pay more. And more. And more. Well, I wouldn't have a problem with that--providing that what we purchase was actually worth the price. You have these companies making planes, but they only make it in one airline livery. "Oh look at this ATA Tristar! It's a beauty! But I don't want one in ATA, I want one in Delta's colors!" But then, the plane was created to be a profit, and the freeware painters can't repaint those planes and giving them out for free because it's illegal. So I guess it's really not as real as it gets after all.

OK, so let's try to find my favorite plane. A Boeing 767-400. Great I found two! One of them loves my computer, but that other one kills my computer. Of course, I want the best of what I can get--providing I can at least look at the external view without my computer having a heart attack. So, I have to go with the one that loves my computer. A big step down from stunning textures and FS2000 technology, like unsync strobes and deploying thrust reversers. Well, that's not that real after all. Oh well. I'll try my luck at scenery. United States scenery is great, but I like transoceanic flights. So let's find a good Europe scenery with an interesting airport to go fly to. Lets go to Frankfurt! Oh wait, the only scenery available costs 20 bucks. Guess I won't be flying that Lufthansa flight after all.

The point is, why am I seeing less and less of freeware add-ons for a program that we already purchased, and more of these add-ons that make a credit card statement look like Bill Gate's personal account. What happened to the joy, the excitement, the fun in flightsimming? It's going down the drain as long as the new flightsimmer, who is probably less than 16 years old, but loves aviation, has to keep buying more and more programs for a flightsim that only a few years ago was half the price of what it is today. Is it inflation? Don't you think we'd have a larger flightsimmer population if all you had to do is buy the flightsim program, and then fly whatever you want where ever you want at no additional charge? That's "as real as it gets." When you have to pay a company 50 dollars for a 747 for a flight simulation program that only cost 40 dollars, isn't that ridiculous?

Let's face it, in a few years, possibly sooner than that when FS2002 comes out, it's going to be, "You pay 60 dollars for the flightsim and oh, 5 planes, but if you want more, you have to spend almost 15 dollars a plane." So if you want to have every aircraft that United Airlines has, get ready to spend over 300 dollars. Well, there goes a possible new flightsimmer. Guess he realized that he can get "as real as it gets" by taking real flight lessons in a Cessna for a lot cheaper than what the flightsim community charges to get as real as it gets on his computer.

Nick Wilkinson
airsim@texas.net

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