Having been actively progressing the development of Rail Simulator since October 2007, it is still apparent that many community users in the train simulation world are unaware of who Rail Simulator Developments Ltd are, and are confused by continued reference to an "RSDL" rather than Kuju Entertainment.
So who is Rail Simulator Developments Ltd?
With the release of Rail Simulator in October 2007, some major changes took place in the management structure compared to that during the production period, in order to continue development of the brand for the foreseeable future. What were those changes?
Tim Gatland, CEO of Rail Simulator Developments:
When we moved from the completion of the core software into continued development and support, the business model behind the development of Rail Simulator dramatically changed. As Kuju Entertainment Ltd is an all round games developer and Fund 4 Games is a financing agency for the industry, neither of these companies were suited to taking on the required roles going forward. Once Kuju Entertainment Ltd completed the initial development, they moved onto many other varied and exciting projects within the games industry.
Rail Simulator Developments Ltd was born
RSDL was setup from core members of the initial development team as an entirely separate company with the specific aim of fulfilling continued development of the Rail Simulator brand and supporting users and 3rd party content developers with add-on projects.
Based in Guildford, Surrey UK, RSDL operates out of its own premises. Despite Rail Simulator being developed by a 40+ strong team, RSDL consists of a much smaller setup and many team members are simultaneously responsible for multiple areas such as: code and art implementation, document authoring, content creation and accuracy, installation and setup testing, development planning, website and forum maintenance, and direct user support.
If you frequent here and the communities of UKTrainSim and Train-Sim.com community you may have already met two of these members – RSadam and RSderek. With our continued devotion for working closely with the train simulation community both in the UK and US, you may end up meeting more of the team on the official Rail Simulator support and development forums at www.railsimulator.com