Well, I'm a bit interested in more details regarding the financial part of it. As most of us have guessed there have been "problems" regarding the publishing deal SoW for a while now (don't need that MBA to figure that out). I truly believe that the sim is still in development - but on what level? Has Oleg managed to secure enough cash to keep 5-10 developers working on the title or does he have the 50+ needed for the ground breaking bug free sim we dream of? I don't care that much about who publishes it (or when) as long as he has enough money to keep enough good developers working on the title until it's done. An interested publisher with big pockets really helps to acheive that.

/Mazex

You know what guys it would be really good if we could get a teamspeak channel one night and have a proper discussion.

mazex, i am really curious what those guesses are based on? That doesnt require MBA to figure out :) Lets face it, there is very little official info, i am not going to judge that part, but tons of speculations...

I hope that the game is released soon, thing's are really heating up over the missle defence shield. I can see a trade problem developing over this:(

Agreed, would be rather tough to purchase in the middle of a world war.....

When the lack of info starts causing so many problems with your consumer base - it's normally wise for the companies involved to divulge a little info to prevent that consumer base loosing faith in the product; Be it in the computer game market, movie industry, music industry, infact pretty much any creative industry!

If you start alienating your consumers you are going to damage your sales. Right now IL2 / SOW is the only flight sim that has such a large following and as far as I am aware there are not a huge amount of games lined up that will rival it - however, you simply cannot run the risk of everyone jumping ship and going onto WW2 online, BOBII or any of the other flight sims that are constantly being updated/added to - or even ones that are in development!

This information blockout is simply bad business, there is no way you can justify it being a business strategy! It is caused by legal issues, bad communications, lack of customer focus or other BS.

I am very happy with IL2 46, and I am happy to wait for SOW for a reasonable time framem however the complete lack of information is very discouraging to many people, and I feel that this is going to damage SOWs sales as your pre release support has been non-existant - how are people going to expect your post sales support to be any better?

Ivan - I know you cannot say what is what, and I am sure none of us would not want to put you in a position where your role is threatened due to the community - however, it seems prudent that you talk to those in the know and tell them of all you see here:
the confusion, the anger, the fustration, the speculation, the mis-information, the dying hope, in order to help the community, and to help the company. However good SOW is, if the blackout continues over the coming months and years I am certain the amount of wallets eagerly awaiting it will dwindle to such an extent that breaking even is not even going to be on the cards.
Regards,
V

Well, the deal between 1C and Atari regarding US publishing has to be a bit hampering on the 1C/Ubisoft relations? OK, SoW:BoB seems to have been excluded from that deal but VERY little information about this exclusion is available. The complete lack of Ubisoft information on Sow:BoB for the last two years must also be considered a bit odd? If it is a serious attempt at producing a high profile simualator, I guess that Ubisoft would at least have some information about the title under "in development"? There have been numerous hints from mods/developers close to MG that something in the dev-publisher relations prevent information/images from beeing spread - including yourself (;)). It's hard to deny that no publisher that I know of has mentioned a single word about SoW:BoB on their web pages for two years (1C has this forum, but try to find the game on their web site. Ubisoft lets the old IL2 forums live, but try a search on ubi.com for SoW:BoB).

That's enough evidence for me that something is happening behind the scenes involving lawyers. As mentioned above - it does not bother me to much if Oleg manages to keep a large team of hot shot deveopers working focused on the title, and the grunts needed to keep the coffe machine running etc ;)

/Mazex

The lack of info or delays will not effect sales in anyway. They will start a website and an ad campaign at the appropriate time and people will be falling over themselves to buy it. If its a quality game and has some protection from pirates it will sell very well. At the present time there is very little competion for IL-2. BOB WOV has a small dedicated community working with a very frustrating game engine that can barely compete with IL-2. The only competition I see for SOW is KOTS, but its WW1 and I'm sure the community will buy both, along with the Korean addon. I may even buy BOP if it comes out before SOW.

Are you suggesting there may have been a repeat of the legal copyright fiasco that occurred just prior to the release of Forgotten Battles ?

You mean Pacific Fighters.