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Information MikeAviation, simulation, and the blur between |
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It’s a game, it’s a simulation, it’s a … platform!“What’s the big deal? It’s just a game.” If I had a nickel…. It occurred to me last night that to understand why so many people are so upset about the recent announcement regarding the future of Flight Simulator, you need to understand what Flight Simulator is. (Note that I say is, not was. In spite of the events of late, Flight Simulator X is still spinning on hard drives around the world, and will continue to be available in stores for years to come.) Flight Simulator is both a game and a platform, and I suspect that the delta between the two is at the heart of the sense of despair some of us are feeling. Flight Simulator is a game, it’s true. It’s marketed like one, and … well … it’s fun to use! You open the box, install the software, and play with the included aircraft, scenery, and missions. There’s lots of gameplay to experience, and we designed it that way. But admittedly, while Flight Simulator X has more overt gamey elements than previous versions, it’s a strange game … because there’s no real way to “beat” the game, let alone “finish” it. Where’s the fun in that? Realizing this, you either eventually move on to other games (because you’re a gamer), or begin to explore the world beyond the game. Your geek quotient goes up, and you become a simmer. Flight Simulator now becomes the hub of a hobby: flight simulation. Flight simulation aficionados (and there are many of us), view Flight Simulator as a platform. It’s a software platform in the literal sense, in that we need it to run and experience other software: the aircraft, scenery, missions, and utilities that we add on/in to the core simulation software. It’s also a software development platform for the developers who create these add-ons. And, it’s a platform for those who use it as the simulation and visualization component of a home cockpit environment, integrating it with hardware (ranging from joysticks, yokes, rudder pedals, and radio stacks to full-blown cockpit replicas). I should also mention the fact that for many of us, Flight Simulator is a personal platform for the simulated component of real-world flight training and proficiency. I can’t even count the number of real-world pilots I know who started their flying careers in Flight Simulator. Many now fly for airlines. And the whole Microsoft ESP initiative (using the same technology but intending to reach beyond just aviation) was originally based on the proven efficacy of PC-based simulation as a training tool. It’s the extensible, platform-like nature of Flight Simulator that gave birth to a small industry composed of the companies and individuals who make stuff for it. From this perspective, it’s easy to see why so many people are so upset. While certainly on a vastly different scale, the dynamics at play here are really not so different from the dynamics of what would happen if Microsoft laid off the Windows team to better align resources with strategic priorities. People would freak. Why? Because it’s a platform. And so, simmers are freaking. It’s not the end of the world, it’s true. Nobody’s dying, and we’ll all stop whining eventually. But if you’ve invested hundreds or thousands of dollars in software and hardware that works with this particular platform, and if you’ve invested just as much time learning the ins and outs of how the platform works (mastered the user interface, memorized key commands, etc.), if you use it as a training aid to supplement your real-world flying, then it’s … well … pretty annoying to even think about having to make a change. Even if that change is years away for you. If you’re a simmer and you’re looking for an easy way to explain your mood to those around you, to explain why you’re losing sleep over all this, look no further than this… … brought to my attention this morning by my esteemed and now former Aces colleague Hal Bryan. It’s an audio interview that Aero-News Network publisher Jim Campbell did with Hal, Brett Schnepf, and me back in 2006—shortly before Flight Simulator X hit the shelves. While the three of us weren’t really the “designers” of FSX (we were in fact 3/4 of a then recently-formed Community team), we did have a good understanding of what FSX was to be, and I think we did a fairly good job in the interview of explaining the broader context in which the product exists. I’m the voice that talks about the missions and multiplayer features, among other things. One person’s game is another person’s platform. Facebook … fun and games, or a development platform? You decide. Fly the airplaneThe past few days have been quite a roller coaster for those of us at Microsoft, and for everyone in the flight simulation community. I've found that, emotionally speaking, reading the forums has made matters both worse and better for me. Worse, because there is lots of negativity being expressed that triggers my own. Better, because there are many clear thinkers out there, putting things into perspective. In an atmosphere filled with chaos, panic, rumors, and anger, a handful of posts convey a level-headed professionalism of the sort that the best pilots exhibit in times of crisis. No amount of conjecture—no matter how well-researched or well-reasoned—will change the fact that we won't be arriving at our planned destination on time. I'm angry about that, I have my own theories about why, but anger and conspiratorial finger-pointing isn't going to help me land safely. Any trained pilot knows that the most important action for surviving crisis in the cockpit is a simple one: fly the airplane. So tonight, I decided to take that a bit literally. I closed my browser ... took a deep breath ... and booted up FSX for the first time since this all started last Thursday. I went to KCQX, the little airport on Cape Cod where I soloed a real Cessna 152 in 1987. That summer I was working three jobs to pay for flying lessons, and I rode my bike five miles each way to get to the airport. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined back then that 21 years later I’d be climbing into a virtual Piper Cub, cranking up a virtual engine, and taking off to explore a virtual Cape Cod that looked almost identical to the real one. But alas, technology has come a long way in the past two decades. I taxied out to the runway, took off, and climbed out over MegaSceneryEarth's aerial photo-based rendition of the Cape. As I leveled off at a thousand feet, the memories came flooding back. Down there off the left wing was Hardings Beach, where I had spent many a lazy afternoon. Further west, Wychmere Harbor, where I had spent a third of my work-life that fabulous summer more than half my life ago.  I continued chugging on up the coast, past Dennis Port and the Bass River, and made a squeaker of a touch and go at Barnstable Municipal in Hyannis, the first "big" airport with a control tower that I ever flew to. I made my way back to Chatham along the north shore of the Cape, found some more memories as I went, and touched down on runway 24 just in time to see the last moments of a spectacular sunset. I taxied in via a concrete taxiway that didn’t exist back in ‘87, but parked on the grass just like I used to. Pulling the mixture, the engine stopped and the world returned. First the virtual world there in Chatham, then the real one at my desk. If you’ve been simming for any length of time you know what I mean. It took a few long minutes before all the mental chatter started up again, and I rushed to my browser to write this post quickly for fear of peeking at the forums again along the way. In a moment I'll click Publish, shut this machine down, and rush off to bed so I can savor the lingering sights and sounds of what I just experienced thanks to the magic of simulation. We’ve come a long way since I learned to fly for real that summer. My first attempts at re-creating the experience using Flight Simulator on my first computer left a lot to the imagination. It boggles my mind to consider where technology will take flight simulation over the next 20 years. What I do know is that we’ll get there. The course we take might not be the one we planned, the journey might not be a smooth one. But we’ll get there, and when we do we’ll look back on what we have today and wonder how we thought this experience was realistic at all. The next generation of flight simulations will come. In the meantime, there’s a big round earth and a whole lot of simulated flying machines available to explore it with. As you peruse the forums and ponder, as you write nasty emails and engage in thoughtful conversation, don’t forget to fly the airplane. Go lose yourself in the sim. You’ll remind yourself, like I did tonight, why you care so much in the first place. My job in the Aces Studio goes kablooee!Last week I was laid off along with everyone else in the Aces Studio at Microsoft. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't due to NDAs, etc. For now, the forums and gaming press are your best bet for info, although much of it is rumor and opinion. (Update: an official announcement, on FSInsider) My personal feeling is that tragedy and opportunity are often just a matter of perspective. Some great things could come of this: for the simming community, and for me. So while I'm shocked and angry after 10+ years with Aces, I'm also optimistic, and I have some interesting choices to make. As personally affected as all of us in Aces are, we're also bummed because we loved our work and the products we made. We had quite a team, and most of us are too damn talented to just mope. I look forward to seeing where all this goes. In the interim, as folks on the forums are wisely pointing out, FSX and FSX add-ons still have long lives ahead of them! Air Traffic Visualizations Turn Data Into ArtI'm still working on some final posts about my experiences at Air Venture, but in the meantime I thought I'd share something which I just learned of via a co-worker.
The BBC is airing a new documentary series called "Britain from Above." Among other cool things, the show features visualizations created by combining aerial and satellite imagery with three-dimensional GPS tracks of various land, sea, and air vehicles. The results are both fascinating and spellbinding. See for yourself on Gizmodo. I can't seem to get the videos on the BBC site itself to run for me right now ... maybe you'll have better luck. Two aviation-related clips there in particular seem worth checking out: [Update: Seems the BBC only will allow computers in the UK to view that content, so you may have to find and use a UK proxy in Internet Explorer.] Similar work was released a few years ago by San Francisco-based artist Aaron Koblin, who "creates software and architectures to transform social and infrastructural data into artwork." You can see Koblin's art based on Federal Aviation Administration pattern and density data on both his old and new Web sites. I just may have to buy a print myself! Quite a Feast - An AirVenture 2008 UpdateAirVenture 2008 is almost over, and I still haven't done half of the things I've wanted to here. AirVenture is really a whole bunch of events in one, sort of like courses in a meal. You could easily spend the entire week focused on each course, but then you'd miss out on the joy that comes when you combine all the individual courses into a big meal. This year, Oshkosh has been quite a feast for me.
I intend on writing about many of these experiences, so check back. One day to go! |
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