What would you say is the primary vision for Dovetail Games?

Our vision is to be the number one simulation entertainment company. All our staff are reminded of this whenever they walk into our office as it is literally written on the wall! We plan to to achieve this goal by focusing on a small number of hobbies, like train and flight simulation, and then providing a great range of experiences to enhance the players' enjoyment of their hobby.

What are your long term plans for the FSX Steam Edition?

When we formed Dovetail Games (RailSimulator.com as it was in 2009), we knew that PC games were not being sold in a way that was giving our products the coverage they deserved. When we started working with Microsoft, we knew that the biggest marketplace for PC gamers was Valve's Steam service and we wanted to re-invigorate the FSX world by re-distributing it there. Our goal was modest: make FSX available to a Steam audience, many of whom will not have had the opportunity to buy FSX before.

Bringing it to Steam meant fixing a few issues; a major one was replacing the now-defunct multiplayer service, GameSpy with Steam equivalents. We will continue to fix bugs and help players get the best out of the simulation but we also want to continue to work with established third party partners to bring their add-on content to Steam.

What are the advantages of owning the Steam Edition over the retail DVD?

FSX: Steam Edition is the Steam distribution of FSX: Gold Edition, which includes both the Deluxe Edition and the Acceleration Expansion pack in one bundle. The main advantage is that we have reinstated the multiplayer capabilities using Steam features to replace those previously provided by GameSpy. We have fixed a few problems caused by the natural changes to hardware and operating systems over the last nine years and we've also tried to fix a few memory leaks and pointer problems - these last two seem to have made a modest improvement gain in comparison to the boxed edition.

FSX: Steam Edition gives you the usual benefits of digital distribution - no discs to break or lose, no activation codes to keep track of. Another benefit is that third party add-ons purchased through Steam are installed automatically.

How will you ensure compatibility with past, present and future add-ons?

Distributing via Steam means software is installed in a different way, and some add-ons use attributes of the FSX boxed installation process that were unable to be replicated in the Steam Edition, so there are some issues. However most boxed add-ons should work. We continue to look at the key problems with 3rd party add-ons, but this can be a challenge as some of the vendors are no longer around. It is also the case that some add-ons are incompatible with each other, which of course, we cannot do anything about.

One particular challenge is co-existence. As part of the FSX: Steam Edition installation, we did not want to overwrite any existing FSX boxed installation already present on a machine, so we created a co-existence mode where both versions of FSX can reside on the same machine. This can, not surprisingly, confuse installers and so where possible we encourage people to use separate machines for each version.

What we've done with add-ons we ship via Steam is to install them in a way that is less intrusive on the basic FSX set up and, so far, we've been pleased with the additional reliability and consistency that this brings.

What kind of development can you do on the core FSX code and is the 64 bit memory limit something you can address?

We are distributing FSX: Steam Edition, so we are solely in a care and maintenance mode; fixing the essential items needed to keep FSX: Steam Edition working on new hardware and operating systems is the key focus. We will not be addressing the 64-bit memory limit in FSX: Steam Edition, but you can be sure that we'll be looking at that as part of the next step forward in flight simulation.

Do you have a dedicated team working on the FSX Steam Edition?

We have many people working on FSX - programmers, testers, support staff and community staff for example. Most of them are also working on other projects, the key project being our own flight simulator. Depending on what is going on, the team can vary from a couple of support staff to large group. We have enough people at Dovetail Games to be able to scale to our needs. Additionally, we bring in contract staff when required.

Would you ever consider porting the FSX Steam Edition over to OSX?

We have looked into it, however because of the extensive work it would take to ensure compatibility with not just the core simulator, but with third-party hardware and add-ons, it is not something we currently plan to do.

Thinking of the future, what are your thoughts on the mobile environment? Is this a platform you'd considering entering?

Currently our sole focus is on PC flight simulation, however we aren't ruling anything out for future projects.

Many developers we've interviewed at FlightSim.Com have expressed a desire for greater community feedback, especially in regards to product improvements, so with that in mind, what role would you like to see the community actively play?

Community feedback is very important to us at Dovetail Games. We have a dedicated community team committed to interacting with our audience via multiple channels such as our social media sites, the FSX: Steam Edition forum on Steam, and FSX Insider. While we cannot accommodate everything, we do take into account what our simmers want. A great example of this was when we updated FSX: Steam Edition to include offline mode.

How do you see the future of flight simulation as a hobby?

Let me start by saying I am very excited by the potential of flight simulation. Firstly, if we look at the capabilities of affordable PCs over the last ten years, we can see that the richness and fidelity that we can offer in the future is going to provide the potential for huge leaps in entertainment. This will mean much more realistic aircraft handling, accurate weather modelling, realistic scenery and better sound. We won't get there in one step, but the path is clear.

Next, we can consider how people will access their hobby. Right now, everything we do is focused around the PC, however we are looking into new types of computing devices, new peripherals (Virtual Reality, for example), and the opportunity for cloud services.

The biggest ongoing challenge is how we allow a wider range of fans to engage more deeply with our sims. We have loads of ideas (and are always coming up with new ones) to bring a new generation of players into the hobby. We want to stick to realistic simulation - this is what we do - while balancing authenticity and accessibility.

Lastly, it needs to be said that we don't plan on doing this alone. Our relationships with third parties are key in this process as we never could (or would want to) cover the entire world of aviation ourselves. We will continue to work with manufacturers, component suppliers, data companies, third party developers, fans and fan sites to ensure the best possible flight simulation experience for our players.

Tim Gatland
Chief Technology Officer
Dovetail Games