by Leonard "Viking1" Hjalmarson

  Hasbro Interactive gave walking papers to the Falcon 4 team yesterday as part of a worldwide reduction in their personnel totalling 19% and 2200 people. While this is bad news for any future patches or Falcon products, it isn't reasonable to single out simulation production as the culprit in these current adjustments. In fact, B17 II is alive and well and Gunship and Tank Platoon remain in production. The F4 team is a small part of the changes at Hasbro.

It is true, however, that the history of Falcon 4 is a mixed bag, with patches and work continuing on a broken and buggy simulation since it's initial release in December of 1998.

The problems began almost three years ago when a shake up in the F4 team meant bringing on new people in a complicated simulation building process. The evolution of F4 was further compromised when a new graphics engine was chosen as the release date dragged on. The extension of the project meant increased costs which would be difficult to redeem.

But in spite of being "the best of sims, the worst of sims," F4 has gained a dedicated following of military combat enthusiasts from around the world. Easily the most complex PC simulation ever released, F4 will remain a classic and a benchmark for PC simulations. The new Click to continue

The Future of MPS and "Hard-Core?"

While this leaves the future of Microprose in doubt, the Maryland team is hard at work completing Gunship and Tank Platoon III. Perhaps this team will yet continue in the Microprose tradition of bringing classic simulation products to the world.

The broader question is a more difficult one: does this action spell the death knell for hard core simulations? I doubt it.

F4 is a unique case, something of a comedy of errors where a project that (economically speaking) should have been dropped was kept alive because of a larger vision. Furthermore, the Microprose team was not singled out, but part of a 19% reduction in personnel at Hasbro worldwide.

While times have certainly become tougher for serious simulation developers, evidence indicates that serious sims are alive and well. For more on this topic, see our Hardcore Future and Evolution in Sim Design. For more information on Hasbro's layoff of 2200 employees, click HERE.

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