{"id":724505,"date":"2025-11-20T06:28:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dK6UYALSGEqC6SiHJCe2kV"},"modified":"2025-11-20T06:28:46","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T06:28:46","slug":"train-sim-world-4-and-how-the-sims-ironically-inspired-the-simulators-approach-to-community-generated-content","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/train-sim-world-4-and-how-the-sims-ironically-inspired-the-simulators-approach-to-community-generated-content\/","title":{"rendered":"Train Sim World 4 and how The Sims ironically inspired the simulator’s approach to community generated content"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Features<\/div>\n
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This article first appeared in PC Gamer magazine issue 392 in January 2024. Every month we run exclusive features exploring the world of PC gaming\u2014from behind-the-scenes previews, to incredible community stories, to fascinating interviews, and more.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Have you ever sat down and actually considered how a train moves itself forward? Matt Peddlesden has. As executive producer on Dovetail\u2019s Train Sim World 4, he\u2019s thought about it more than most people. As he tells me about the inner workings of locomotives at Dovetail\u2019s HQ in Kent, one thing becomes clear: if this wasn\u2019t his job, he\u2019d still be satisfying his passion and curiosity for trains.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a constant across the game industry. Not everyone you talk to is truly passionate about loot rarity, or brutal melee takedown animations, or seasonal skins. But over here in the world of simulators, they march to the beat of a slightly different drum. There\u2019s an inherent passion here. You get the sense that many developers in this space are working simply because they want to see a certain thing made and then play it, and there\u2019s a high amount of crossover between content creators and developers as a result.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still gaming, more or less, but the rules are different. There\u2019s an ultimate realism to strive for, and performing even mundane actions in a recognisably authentic way gives the sim fan their thrills. It\u2019s why there\u2019s a button for the windscreen wipers in Assetto Corsa Competizione. It\u2019s why you spend 20 minutes going through checklists before getting airborne in Flight Simulator 2020. And it\u2019s why Peddlesden\u2019s team has thought long and hard about the exact distribution of braking pressure between carriages in Train Sim World 4\u2019s roster.<\/p>\n

This is the seventh release of the series, not to be confused with Dovetail\u2019s Train Simulator releases, and features three routes across LA county, Austria and England\u2019s own East Coast Main Line. For the community, it\u2019s a new base into which they can plug DLC from previous releases and build their personal library of routes and vehicles. For Peddlesden, it\u2019s the expression of a lifelong fascination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been interested in trains all my life,\u201d he tells me. \u201cMy dad was a train and bus enthusiast. We used to go out trainspotting every weekend. There\u2019s photographs of me when I was small, sitting on the ground [at the train station], playing with a toy train while they\u2019ve got the proper ones behind me.\u201d It\u2019s been about trains for as far back as Peddlesden can remember.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Dovetail Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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That interest escalated when train simulators started entering the game industry. For people like Peddlesden, the advent of Microsoft Train Simulator in June 2001 was the first chance to take the step beyond the model train sets and into something more interactive. It was also the first step towards making games. \u201cOne of the things I started doing was content creation,\u201d says Peddlesden. \u201cI started teaching myself how to do my own repaints of things and sharing them.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, he began to collaborate. \u201cI started working with other commercial groups and got some of my work published in add-ons. And I helped other third party add-on developers with the bits they were missing. In one case there was an add-on called LTV or Erie Mining Company and they were missing a cab. So I built the cab for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to Peddlesden running a website called UK Train Sim, which ran for over 20 years and hosted a quarter of a million members at its peak. With access to a whole community of like-minded creators, he began co-ordinating the development of bigger add-on pack projects with multiple collaborators and disciplines involved. The train enthusiast has inadvertently become a game developer.<\/p>\n

Simulator development<\/h2>\n

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\"Train<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Dovetail Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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And that\u2019s not an uncommon story in the realms of simulator development. There have been tales of modders making the jump into development for as long as there have been modders and game developers, but in sim development it stands especially to reason: there\u2019s nobody in the world more passionate about getting a carriage livery exactly right as the person who\u2019s made it in their own time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to have this blend,\u201d says Dovetail CEO Jon Rissik. \u201cAmazing people who are passionate about trains and train simulation, supplemented with young people out of university and videogames professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having a passion for the subject matter is a common route into the studio, Rissik explains. In the \u2018old days\u2019 that meant the team would go home and play the game they\u2019d just been developing all day. There was no line of delineation between work and leisure. Times have changed since then. Processes refined, work-life balances attained. Nevertheless, Peddlesden took part in a 28-hour charity stream \u201coff his own back\u201d days before our conversation.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just the blurry line between player and developer that marks simulators like Train Sim World 4 out as separate to the mainstream industry. It\u2019s the business model too. Assetto Corsa Competizione, the people\u2019s racing sim, launched in 2019 and has released a steady stream of car and track packs since then. Flight Simulator 2020 has not only released numerous first-party DLC packs but also hosts a third-party marketplace stuffed to the gills with extras. And both of Dovetail\u2019s train sims have attracted attention for the volume of DLC available in them.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Dovetail Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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At the time of writing, Train Sim World has released 88 individual pieces of DLC content since release in September 2023. Prior to that, Train Simulator 2020 made the headlines for listing over $10,000 in DLC on its Steam store page. It\u2019s clear that sim developers view their products as platforms, as much as games themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thought that I\u2019ve always had,\u201d says Rissik, \u201cis that if you go to Tesco, they don\u2019t expect you to buy everything in [there]. No retailer would expect you to buy everything in their store. We don\u2019t expect you to buy everything that we make. What we want to do is offer you a range of stuff. And then you dip in and out as you want to because in this enthusiast market, it\u2019s a bit like music tastes, there\u2019s genres within genres. People want to collect different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some people love rock but hate reggae. Some people love 1970s British diesel locomotives but hate high-speed electric trains. The purpose of Dovetail\u2019s voluminous DLC, Rissik says, is to give people options.<\/p>\n

Perhaps not by coincidence, it\u2019s a business model that bears some resemblance to EA\u2019s famously profitable market position. In the olden days it was about bringing an unending stream of Sims expansion packs to shop shelves. Then it evolved to Ultimate Team microtransactions. It\u2019s ironic, really, that the sims have drawn so much inspiration from The Sims.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that products like The Sims, and the attach rate [of the expansion packs] was part of the philosophy.”<\/p>

Jon Rissik<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

Dovetail was itself founded by an EA veteran, Paul Jackson, in 2008. Jackson had published Rail Simulator, released in 2007, motivated in no small part by his own personal passion for trains. The sim itself didn\u2019t take off, but when the company who owned the technology behind it came knocking some years later, Jackson spotted a business opportunity.<\/p>\n

The newly formed Dovetail identified that while it had been very difficult for Rail Simulator to turn a profit selling physical copies and competing for attention on shop shelves next to Call of Duty and Need for Speed, increasingly popular digital distribution paths like Steam offered a way to hit the enthusiast markets. Classic long tail economics: you no longer had to front the cost for 50,000 boxed games. It was financially viable to sell 5,000 copies digitally, because there was no mechanical cost incurred in the manufacture of each copy.<\/p>\n

\u201cSteam was very welcoming to us,\u201d says Rissik. \u201cThey liked the fact that we were bringing a [type of] player to the platform that was new for them. We were bringing new people into Steam, and they gave us incredible coverage, very supportive. They liked what we were doing and that really formed the foundation of the company back then.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rissik\u2019s CV goes back to EA too, and both he and Jackson were taking notes about the successes the company had made during the early 2000s. \u201cI think it\u2019s fair to say that products like The Sims, and the attach rate [of the expansion packs] was part of the philosophy. I worked on The Sims with Paul. I worked directly with the studios, so I had a really good understanding of how it worked, whether it\u2019s the development studio serving up new packages, or allowing the content creators to make their own content.\u201d<\/p>\n

Communities<\/h2>\n

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(Image credit: Dovetail Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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That second point is key. Because as much as simulators might attract ire for the long lists of DLC they sell, they also host communities that generate a vast amount of content that you can download and plug into your game for free. And even beyond that, there are the third-party expansion sellers, cottage industries which spring up around major releases like Train Sim World 4.<\/p>\n

It shouldn\u2019t work on paper really. Why would anybody pay money for additional content when there\u2019s more of it available for free than behind a paywall? And yet it does work. It worked for The Sims, which spawned early classic modding sites like TheSimsResource, 7 Deadly Sims and The Well Dressed Sim, but which also charged \u00a320 for boxed expansions that added new content. And it appears that a similar equilibrium is achieved in Train Sim World.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s how the sim space has always worked,\u201d says Rissik. \u201cSince Microsoft Flight Sim, Microsoft Train Sim. I guess you might call it open source. It\u2019s freely available to anyone to use.\u201d Dovetail works directly with content creators via a third-party team which works out the legalities and the logistics of bigger projects, then allow those creators to sell on Dovetail\u2019s storefront \u201cand take a 100% profit\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>

(Image credit: Dovetail Games)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Working with amateur creators globally has opened doors to new opportunities for the Train Sim World series. It\u2019s shone a light into geographic blind spots and allowed the community to pour its passion into the gaps left by the base games. And it brought people like Matt Peddlesden into the fold.<\/p>\n

Sitting next to the exec producer as he methodically and deftly moves an enormous multi-carriage train out of a small Austrian station, I wonder if, like sim racing, the appeal is simply demonstrating competence and skill in an authentic setting. In other words, do train simulator drivers care as much about arriving into the station on time as sim racers care about leaderboard times?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a procedural thing,\u201d says Peddlesden. \u201cIt\u2019s about getting every destination blind correct, getting the right headlights, because you\u2019ve got different types of headlights on the trains. Using the American trains, it\u2019s about using the right horns at the right time\u2026 there\u2019s all these procedures that train enthusiasts like to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sim enthusiasts, then, are to PC gamers what goalkeepers are to footballers. We\u2019re all playing the same sport, but we\u2019re looking at it from two different perspectives, fascinated by different aspects and performing diverging tasks. The software is more of a platform than a game, and the enjoyment is intrinsic to the authenticity of it. But in the end, we\u2019re all just using our big RGB boxes to escape to virtual destinations where our job\u2019s way more fun.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Features This article first appeared in PC Gamer magazine issue 392 in January 2024. Every month we run exclusive features exploring the world of PC gaming\u2014from behind-the-scenes previews, to incredible community stories, to fascinating interviews, and more.\u00a0 Have you ever sat down and actually considered how a train moves itself forward? Matt Peddlesden has. As executive producer on Dovetail\u2019s Train Sim World 4, he\u2019s thought about it more than most people. As he tells me about the inner workings of locomotives at Dovetail\u2019s HQ in Kent, one thing becomes clear: if this wasn\u2019t his job, he\u2019d still be satisfying his passion and curiosity for trains. That\u2019s not a constant across the game industry. Not everyone you talk to is truly passionate about loot rarity, or…<\/p>\n

Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":724506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[9030,9029,763],"class_list":["post-724505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc-gamer","tag-dovetail-games","tag-magcontent","tag-sim"],"yoast_head":"\nTrain Sim World 4 and how The Sims ironically inspired the simulator's approach to community generated content | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"FeaturesThis article first appeared in PC Gamer magazine issue 392 in January 2024. 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