Anyone Still Home Here?

Question

With the announcement today of the layoffs at ACES, is there anyone left to mind the store here?

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Bill Leaming

Answer 1

I also am very curious about what this means for ESP...  As I understand it the ESP team was separate from ACES?

Answer 2

As far as I know ESP was also part of ACES. ESP, FSX and Train Simulator 2 share the same core engine. That core engine was seperated from the FS team, but as far as I know everything was part of the ACES team. The future will tell I guess...

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Arno

Answer 3

I read about it at gamasutra and it sounds like the whole FS team might have been laid off...  If this is true, what is Microsoft thinking?  How could it have gone to non-profitability after so long?

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21981

Answer 4

Microsoft have made much more money from FS than have from ESP.  I just can't see how or why they'd continue to develop the platform if the huge revenues from their commercial games isn't there to fund it.

The trouble is that once the teams are disbanded, they'll never get them back together and my bet is that there's a tremendous amount of undocumented knowledge within those team members that will be lost.  Any future teams looking to pick it up are going to have a harder time understanding the aging core than the current team.  That wouldn't bode well for FSXI (or an eventual ESP2.)  We'd all hoped the team would have got to grips with all the problems and bugs introduced into FSX and that it would become the troublesome transiition to a new generation of technologies.   If there's no FSXI then it'll be a real shame if the flawed (but entertaining) FSX becomes its legacy.

 I bet all the established visualisation companies are a little relieved.  (Are those corks I can hear popping over at Presagis?..)

 Si

 

Answer 5

As a commercial developer who is currently working on two major ESP projects I can't begin to express the concern I have hearing this news.

I look forward to hearing from Microsoft as to the future plans for ESP.

Christian

Answer 6

Yes, please let us know.

Very important the fate of ESP and MSFS...  :(

Thanks....

Answer 7

From the reports today, all but six of the ~100 who were employed at ACES have been RIFfed. We'll just have to wait and see what transpires next.

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Bill Leaming

Answer 8

Are Tim & Todd still around ?  Hopefully so,  and we will hear something from them soon.

 

 

Answer 9

Hey Guys,

I'm still here, for a little while longer anyway, as I'm one of those 6 who are left to shut things down (not the job I would want, but better than no job at all I suppose :-<).

As soon as we have any information we can make public, I'll make sure at least pointers to the info gets posted here and/or at my blog site (just in case the forums/dev center get shutdown at some point).

Tim

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http://beatlesblog.spaces.live.com/

Answer 10

Thanks, Tim. 

I see that the sales link(s) for ESP are still active. I should think it would be rather imprudent to purchase any licenses at this juncture if it will be unsupported...

In any event, folks will still be able to get some form of knowledge at http://fsdeveloper.com

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Bill Leaming

Answer 11

Is Todd still with the ESP team ?

Geoff_D 

Answer 12

Having seen a glimpse of what was to come in ESPv2 at the developer conference, I'm gutted that this is probably no longer going to see the light of day.  It looks like there were a lot of people working really hard to build a revolutionary product.  It must be totally crushing for them to see all that work go to waste.

Si

Answer 13

Hey Bill,

I imagine the sales link(s) will stay active for a while, folks who have already developed solutions using ESP v1 that need licenses to distribute them will still need access to licenses, and there is some level of support inherent in that, but what that entails and how it will be handled is one of the things we have to figure out over the next few weeks.  Stay tuned for updates as we have them.

 

Hey Geoff,

Todd's not one of the 6, but his email is still active for the time being.

 

Hey Simon,

Yep, if we had been given the time to finish up the stuff we were doing specifically for v2 combined with the work the Core group had been doing on various parts of the engine, v2 could have been a great product - I guess now we'll never know.

 

Thanks for all the support guys, sorry it's come to this.

Tim

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http://beatlesblog.spaces.live.com/

Answer 14

Hi Tim,

 

First of all I feel very sorry for the ACES team and all the people there. They can be proud of the work they did on the FS serie!

 

Then I have two simple questions :

1. Is ESP dead? Forever? (this is a critical question for most of the developers here, because we need to know if we have to move away from ESP asap).

2. If not, what would be the delay before v2 comes on the market? I know you write that we'll never know (that v2 could have been a great product), but the new ESP website is only two months old, + there was these conferences in december, + you have partnerships with big company in the sim industry...so it looks weird to let ESP die...

Answer 15

Tim,

Can we expect any official statement from MS for the benefit of those of us that have products and technologies built upon ESP with regards to how long MS will continue to sell licences for it and what possible support us and our customers may have access to in the future?

(I had to go in to work today and explain to my bosses that the platform I encouraged them to invest time, money and resources in is now dead.  They weren't best pleased.)

Si

 

Answer 16

A very large part of the problem -as I see it at least- is that outside of ACES itself and "serious simmers" themselves, no one in MS corprate seems to have had a clue that for hundreds of thousands of folks from all walks of life, and from all over the world Flight Simulator has never been a "game..."

It should have been treated as an "operating system" (platform) all along.

That is precisely why I'm urging everyone to add their names to the "100.000 Microsoft Flight Simulator Fans" Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=59637588200&ref=ts

If nothing else, it will demonstrate once and for all (or not!) the number of "serious simmers" affected world wide.

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Bill Leaming

Answer 17

Hi Si,

 

ESP will probably not be available sooner or later  (and that's a pity because some of us have products based on ESP and now ready to ship), but eventually some support will be provided (but what kind of support if no team is there to provide it!?!).

 

I'm more or less in the same situation as you, with the only difference that my boss pushed us into this technology. It will cost me my job anyway.

Answer 18

I am also interested in knowing how long ESP will be available because my company used it for a solution and invested time and money into getting it approved and purchased.  Microsoft sure handed us a raw deal for taking a gamble on their platform.  It sounds like X-Plane is the way to go from now on.  This is the last time I gamble a product's success on Microsoft.  Every gaming studio Microsoft touches seems to sink like the Bismarck.

http://www.x-plane.com/ms_to_xp/ms_to_xp.html

Answer 19

Hey guys,

While trying to get in touch with Todd, I was sent to another contact at MS about the current situation.  He responded to me that ESP is not going to be available after March 31, while support will continue for the typical five year cycle. 

Stay tuned for official word from MS but this looks like the beginning of the end...

 

- Mike

Answer 20

I received the same "canned" message that I'm sure is going out to many. I'm having problems with the comments about "five year support".

Most people on this forum are using ESP as a development platform. We are using ESP (MS Flight X) in ways that many are not. That means we will occasionally run into problems that demand a high level of technical competence as to ESP SDK.

My Question / Concern!

How are we going to be supported if all of the ESP and Flight Sim X team has been fired? Who will possibly have the skill level required to deliver us the support if all of these guys and girls are gone?

I can't begin to express the frustration I am feeling about all of this right now. My company and my clients have invested literally thousands and thousands of dollars into learning and developing on top of ESP. On many occasions we have been told that this was the simulation platform for the future and we trusted Microsoft.

Our trust has been betrayed and I would hope that Microsoft management would have the wisdom and moral fortitude to address our concerns in a professional manner.

Christian

Answer 21

The way I see it, if MS can show so little support for its own customers, (to the point of contempt), then we have no obligation to support them.   ESP and FSX are the only reasons for me running Windows.  Perhaps I should be thanking them as when FSX fades away I wont have any need to shell out for their OS's either.  I've already started on a migration path for my work projects from ESP to X-Plane and I stopped buying their Office programs years ago.

This is simply what happens when share holders become more important that customers, and MS is so far out of touch with its customers these days that before long all they'll be left with is shareholders to preach about how good their "LIVE", .net or whatever godforsaken proprietary technology no-one in the real world gives a rats about  because we'll all have adopted OS's, tools and technologies developed by companies that actually take notice of and consider the best interests of their user communities and MS will finally roll over like the bloated dead whale they are and gasp their last.

Si

Answer 22

 

...and MS will finally roll over like the bloated dead whale they are and gasp their last.

An interesting prophecy I have to say.