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"Flight simulation is an art, and developers are artists, not history professors who owe absolute precision and accuracy to the audience"


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I'm not sure why topics under the Pacific section do not seem to allow me to respond to them, but I'm not one to deny someone who so clearly desires a written response in a public setting.  So, "343KKT_Kintaro", here we are.  (Though if this is going to become some kind of long-form debate we should probably move to some kind of discussion section to avoid spam)

The initial exchange for context: 


There is no question that historical inaccuracies can be overlooked for the sake of producing art, the Battle of Britain (1969) is arguably one of the greatest historical aviation movies of all time and I rewatched it so many times as a kid that I wore my dad's VHS tape out. 
Did I care that they used Hispano Buchóns rather than real Bf-109s?  No, and neither did the producers- including Adolf Galland himself.
But that was, in fact, their own choice.

Never in my initial statement did I suggest that the creation of a Pacific flight simulator was impossible on the grounds of missing data, I simply stated that we were incapable of manifesting primary sources into existence which does actually pertain to the subject as follows.

In referring to flight sim developers as artists rather than history professors you are correct, but the notion that the role of the historian is somehow diametrically opposed to that of the artist is far less true than you clearly seem to think.  While it is true that most computer programmers have or want very little to do with the study of history, and I can personally attest to this speaking as someone who majored in said subject with a roommate in comp sci, there is some sound reasoning behind historians being lumped in with artists under the umbrella of the humanities.

As with all art, the content of any work is beholden to the desires and standards of the artist in question, not their audience.  And by their own admission the artists behind the IL-2 series have said they desire accuracy.  To suggest that they lower their standards on the grounds that others have done so in the past could and would be construed as an insult in the art world- and make no mistake, the same goes for historians.  The role of a historian is not to unthinkingly regurgitate the past but to interpret it based on the examination of primary sources, just as artists draw inspiration from a variety of influences to produce their own expression so too do historians draw from a variety of grounded sources to produce analyses and dialogue.

To put it bluntly, good history is an art grounded in reality.

So, as artists who are working in a historical context, the IL-2 devs are entirely within their rights as creators to continue searching for concrete sources to build their work off of rather than just inventing their own as you seem to insist that they ought to.

Your insistence that they do so however does beg a question.
As you so plainly list a number of already existing Pacific flight simulators, most of which I am also familiar with, I have to ask:
With such quality depictions of the Pacific War already in existence, why is it that you so desire the IL-2 devs create a new one?

You say they were at the state of the art and the state of the available knowledge of their time, yet that isn't good enough for you now?
Clearly you value some manner of historical and physical accuracy if you choose to reject already existing depictions of the Pacific Theater in favor of an as of yet nonexistent IL-2 expansion.

Could it be that the dev's own standards and commitment to historical accuracy has made their product what it is, and your demand that they overlook their own principles in the name of producing what you so desire is a knee-jerk reaction grown from impatience?

Sure, IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 is dated in terms of both graphics and flight model, but what of other contemporary modern depictions?
I don't make this suggestion lightly, but I hear that War Thunder includes aircraft modelled from the Pacific Theater.
Sure, its Warthunder, but we should be able to overlook their glaring inaccuracies in the name of artistic license correct? 

Regardless, there will one day be, as you state, a modern flight simulator worthy of the name set in the Pacific.
The quality of that simulator however will likely hinge, according to its userbase, on its accuracy to not only real world physics but the historical content in question, and though it is also true that there is no such thing as a completely accurate simulator that does not mean we cannot strive for one.

Patience is a virtue.

 

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