Fly Tampa : The Interview

Thanks again to Leandro, Carlos and Tropical Sim for their time. This "interviews" week end continue and we have a rendez-vous in... Tampa. 

Fly Tampa Interview, Airdailyx, June 18th 2011.

1) Airdailyx : There is a first question i usually ask to every designer. How did you create Fly Tampa (how many years ago ? What was the original project..).

George Grimshaw : Martin started FlyTampa in 2003 with the release of Tampa Airport which was developed for FS2002 within a 5 month period. It was initially a personal home-airport project without plans for public release. Nearing completion it became apparent that the overall quality of the airport was almost as good as commercial Addons of the time, namely 'Simflyers airports. The decision to release as "payware" was made solely to cover the cost of purchasing a big screened plasma TV.

2) Each time Fly Tampa releases a new airport, it's always a big surprise. Times to times, you post some previews of course but nobody knows about the release date. Is there any reason for this or is it just an old habit ?

Martin prefers to keep his airport choices under wraps until an advanced stage of development. I used to work in the Games Industry and this sort of secrecy was very common. As for me, I can't help showing off a few shots during development. Release dates are difficult to predict, so we don't. It also helps to avoid customer disappointment if progress is slower than expected.

 3) Copyright Airdailyx June 2011   A few months ago, Martin (or you, i don't remember) was complaining a little about sales, that were not so fantastic, not as much as a couple of years ago. Any reason for that ? And how you two analyse the FS market today in term of sales and margins ?

Sales have declined slightly since FSX was released. FSX's poor performance upon release could be to blame for many guys just giving up or staying with FS9. When I released Seattle back in 2005 it sold 1000 copies in 5 days. Today, it's less than half that, but steady in the long run. Now we have much better hardware and an abundance of quality scenery and aircraft addons, some of those guys will hopefully return to the market. Piracy has also become very common and probably effects sales significantly.

4) Airdailyx : If am not wrong, Fly Tampa is basically a two developers team. Do you thing sometimes that your business model should evolve and that maybe, you should work with more people or try a merger with another team ?

George Grimshaw : Well, there's three of us. Martin's Wife Sheila does all the excellent support work. Myself and Martin work independently on separate projects. However, we share resources and techniques. I'd love to hire more people but it's hard to find someone trust worthy and capable. I'd like to train my girlfriend to do the the autogen placement, but since she has a doctorate, she's a little overqualified for a scenery designer :) I've never thought about a merger, hmmm, If Apple or Google are interested....(Copyright Airdailyx June 2011).

 5) One last question (and i really have to ask this one). There are a lot of canadians people who are desperately waiting for a great Montreal airport. What do you want to tell them - if you want to - ?

I'm thinking of delaying Montreal and inserting a smaller US regional airport. After Athens, I'm feeling a little exhausted of large airports and i would prefer a smaller field I can refine and experiment with. I love Bill Womack's/Orbx work and some of the recent smaller UK2000 airports like Liverpool and Bristol. The lack of 100s of AI planes and jetways also means the frame rate is blisteringly smooth which is my number one priority. I agree Canada needs some attention. I'm still considering Winnipeg, Quebec and Montreal.

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I really thanks George and Martin for their time and wish them much more success.

I a sorry if some of you wanted to know Athens release date but i could not decently ask them this one.

But i am pretty shure this will come very soon now...

Copyright Airdailyx June 2011