Mettar Simulations Director, Matt Davies, opened up with the current situation of the projects under his management on Twitch yesterday. This includes projectFLY, the A380 and SimStall. He also spoke about his current involvement with POSCON (Positive Control Network). These statements left by Matt were also backed up via his latest blog post.
What happened
A few months ago, Mettar Simulations were approached by a keen investor who believed the development team were gearing up to create some cool projects. After several meetings, Mettar Simulations agreed and signed a contract that meant that investment (money and contacts) would be used to fund these projects, including projectFLY and SimStall. It was then also confirmed that Matt would become the Lead Technical Manager of POSCON. This meant that the developers of Mettar Simulations were then contracted out to provide the development work for POSCON.
The developers who originally created projectFLY were all volunteers. With the new investment, Mettar took on several of these developers as full time workers – meaning paid work – many of whom left their previous jobs to take on this new exciting role. However, when discussing the issues in his Twitch stream, Matt said that “8 invoices” had been raised by the developers and only 2 of them had been paid – 1 was paid by the investor and the other “by someone else”. The blog on Mettar Simulation’s website says Matt was paying these developers out of his own pocket.
With the developers not being paid amongst other issues, the core team at Mettar then stopped their full time work. It’s been said that these developers are now seeking other employment opportunities. This includes Matt himself who also confirmed he will be taking a break from the flight sim community.
What about the Projects
According to the blog post on Mettar, both projectFLY and the A380 are still being developed. When it comes to the status of POSCON, it was confirmed that Matt is no longer involved in the project. As for SimStall, it was said in the stream that it “will happen, just not this second”. No further comments were made regarding PTA.
POSCON comments
POSCON has not commented on the matter yet. We’ve reached out to their management, but at this point they are asking for some time to sort things out before making a statement.
We’ll update this article as we receive new information.
