Probably just me but I consider flight sims not to be hugely attractive to the population due to the following-
Its not taught in our classesAsk yourself, when was the last time your history or war buff teacher telling you about the greatness of aerial/space combat? (Save for the massive bombings done by the wealthier countries on the poor).
The only time someone tells you something great about space and aerial dynamics is your math or science teacher that is cramming your head with formulas and physics.
It's lacking that "epic" scopeTake for example combat in FS2. On average you see about what? 3 capital ships in a mission duking it out and about 1 to 3 allied squads against
steady and scripted waves of enemies.
Where as in CoD (Call of Duty) you're constantly telling yourself "omg this is WW2!" and being shelled by Artillery constantly.
Space is not pretty[/u]
-Save for the beautiful planets and stars that are drawn in game and what Hubo the telescope tells us, we know for a fact that
there are no sounds in REAL space and that living in space merely sucks the air outta you and you die in 15 seconds.
Compare that to say, HL2. You see and can well, "feel" whats around you in game. Whereas in FS. you only ponder around in Space waiting to blast the next sucker into space dust.
The lack of a universal multiplayer connection.-HL2 has STEAM for all the wonderful nubs like me so I can move on and get fragged quickly in the second server after leaving the first server.
-Strategy games such as Warcraft provided battle.net to browse games and provided adquete game servers.
Media Presentation-Name a GREAT movie based on space flight. Don't say star wars cause the new ones suck and its all people remember.
-Star Trek is about people lost in space looking for the next hostile alien race.
-Firefly or Serenity is about the same as above, but with the government after them instead of aliens.
I think that generally sums up about why Space sims games are dying