Absolute correct.

Specialty great for gaming is not nearly so popular now as was on the 80s. Light guns, steering wheels, joysticks... To much fiddling around

I loved 1942: The Pacific Air War

Mainly WWI and maybe WWII era, as they are simpler and more about close dogfighting. Oh and I care(d) only about flight combat sims, not flying just the sake of flying, like Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Modern jet flight combat sims became too complicated and "detached" to me. It seemed more about shooting a missile to a target miles away from you, and using countermeasures (chaff, flares) against incoming missiles. Meh. And the learning curve, learning all the different radar modes and whatnot... I just prefer the simplicity of dogfighting sims.

Then again, increasingly I felt that space combat "sims" quenched my thirst even better.

Well, what happened is that Microsoft sold the licence to their software to some boring professional company. Same with most flightsim engines, actually.

I do enjoy flgihtsims, but my tastes lean more towards "zany arcade" rather than, "I'll set the autopilot to take me to Boston and then actually stay focused the entire time."

So more Flight Unlimited, and less Flight Sim X. Or SimplePlanes and FlightGear for more contemporary examples.

What happened to Flight Sims?

The crashed & burned.

(I'll see myself out)

There's still loads, some are very pricey for what they are.