Dear Ilya!
Like many others here I also remember the day I fired up that IL2 Demo and took off in my 109 with a big grin on my face. I realized right after the take off that this was the best flight simulator I had ever tried after playing most sims that where released since the Spectrum days...
And unlike you I just reaped the fruits of what you and the team later did over the years to produce an amazing series with a staggering number of wonderful flyable aircraft and locations... Thanks a LOT for bringing that joy to the rest of us!
The CloD project really hurts as there is so much potential in this game and just as the gem was starting to shine through more and more the project got axed. The comparison to Falcon 4 is very easy to do... You tried to give us the ultimate simulator with blood, sweat and probably tears but the project finally got so complex it killed your business. So sad.
I hope that CloD one day will be remembered the same way as F4 - a monumental simulator at least 10 years ahead of it's time. It's just sad that you could not get the confidence from 1C to continue the project. As much as I like RoF and hope that they succeed it's simply just one of the best sims out there. It does not have that F4 buggy "wow" feeling around it like CloD...
As a fellow manager in the IT business that have gone through a lot of insane projects myself I also realize all the sleepless nights and mornings waking up with emails in the phone about new problems that everyone thought where solved the late evening before... And investors and other managers chasing you every week with demands for progress reports and budget cuts etc.
Good luck in the future - and I sincerely hope that you will continue in the gaming industry doing what we love most. Flight simulators!
/mazex (beeing a nerd I realized my post count is 1337 - a good number to stop at and sign out with you
)