Dovetail continues to grow economically – but is the annual Train Sim World 6 and DLC model slowly overstretching the patience of its own community?

If you look soberly at the available facts, then Dovetail Games is today without question a heavyweight in the simulation market. The studio was founded in 2008, is based in Chatham in Kent, and has belonged since April 2023 to Focus Entertainment, which now operates under the name PulluP Entertainment. On the official group website, Dovetail is now listed with around 170 employees. This scale alone already shows that we are no longer talking about a small niche provider here, but about a studio that is staffed much more broadly than many other well-known names in the simulation sector. The parent group reported 390 million euros in group revenue for the 2024/25 financial year. Dovetail therefore no longer operates solely on its own strength, but within a corporate environment with a significantly larger capital base, stronger distribution, and a clear live-service strategy.

The revenue environment also shows how relevant Dovetail has become. An official figure for Dovetail’s most recent independent annual revenue is not publicly available as openly as it is for individually listed companies, but even at the time of the acquisition it was officially stated that Dovetail was expected to generate more than 15 million pounds in revenue by the end of March 2023. Third-party providers now estimate annual revenue to be significantly higher, coming to around 41.3 million US dollars, although such estimates should be read with caution and are not official balance-sheet values. Nevertheless, even the more conservative official classification already fits the picture of a studio that has long been operating in a different league than many pure simulation specialists.

However, Dovetail’s real strength lies not only in the size of the company, but in its product model. Today, Dovetail is not a studio that releases one game and then moves on. Rather, the rail segment has become a continuous ecosystem. On the official PulluP page, Dovetail is described as a leader in realistic simulations. The group itself explicitly cites the Train Sim World ecosystem with more than 100 DLCs as a prime example of its live strategy and at the same time explains that these additional contents account for 50 percent of the franchise’s revenue. This is an enormously important metric. Put plainly, it means: the base game is not the end product for Dovetail, but the entry point. The actual business model lies half in the long-term monetization of the collection.

That is exactly why the release cadence of Train Sim World must also be read differently than with classic games. Since 2022, Dovetail has released Train Sim World 3, Train Sim World 4, Train Sim World 5, and Train Sim World 6 – four main versions in four years. The official release dates were September 6, 2022; September 26, 2023; September 17, 2024; and September 30, 2025. This is no coincidence and no chaos, but a very clearly recognizable release model with a recurring autumn window. Dovetail therefore does not only sell DLCs, but also regularly a new core impulse that recharges the franchise every year.

That this model works economically can now be proven quite clearly. In April 2025, PulluP Entertainment explicitly stated that Train Sim World 5 had outperformed its predecessors in revenue, user acquisition, and activity. This is one of the hardest statements you can get from an investor perspective, because it is not based merely on sentiment or marketing, but directly points to business metrics. If the parent group itself says that a current installment beats its predecessors in exactly these key areas, then that is a very clear signal that Dovetail’s controversial model has so far not collapsed, but is holding. This is supplemented by Steam data: Train Sim World 5 currently stands at around 4,043 reviews with 78.9 percent positive ratings and a previous peak of 2,643 concurrent players. Train Sim World 4 has 3,142 reviews, 79.2 percent positive, and a peak of 2,154, while Train Sim World 3 had a peak of 1,796. Steam is not the entire market, but the direction fits strikingly well with the official statement of the parent company.

Dovetail only really becomes interesting, however, when strength and criticism are placed side by side. Because the criticism from the community is by no means imagined or merely the usual forum noise. Anyone who looks into the official Dovetail forums finds a very concrete and recurring debate about the annual release rhythm. It is openly written there that the yearly releases may do more harm than good, and there are discussions about whether people even still want new numbered versions such as a possible TSW7. This criticism is journalistically relevant because it shows that even loyal core users are not only complaining about bugs or small features, but are questioning the model itself.

Another recurring point of criticism is upgrade fatigue. For years, the forums have discussed that with each new Train Sim World version, players have to re-download previously purchased content if they want to carry their collection over into the new version. This is regularly described as inefficient, frustrating, and increasingly impractical, especially for players with large libraries. Added to this is the storage problem: in another discussion, it is pointed out that the installation size with a growing collection quickly reaches 300 gigabytes and more. For a live ecosystem, this is not a minor annoyance, but a real barrier to entry.

Then there is the price perception. This is precisely where it becomes clear how sensitively the community reacts to Dovetail’s model. In official discussions, standard prices of 44.99 pounds or 49.99 euros for new main versions are openly addressed, and even with route DLCs, concerns repeatedly arise as to whether price levels of 39.99 pounds or 44.99 euros could become the new standard. This debate is not merely a reaction to individual products, but the expression of a larger problem: the bigger a collection becomes, the stronger the feeling among players that they are stuck in a system that is becoming increasingly monetized.

Nevertheless, it would be too easy to immediately conclude from this that Dovetail is already overstretching its community. At the same time, the company is clearly trying to soften the harshness of its model. With Train Sim World 5, a Free Starter Pack was introduced that was intended to allow both new and existing players free entry into the current core version. This model also returned with Train Sim World 6, again with the promise of bringing the existing compatible collection over for free. This is strategically decisive because Dovetail is not trying to sell a complete restart every year, but rather to place a new platform layer over the existing ecosystem. Whether this resolves every criticism is another question. But it clearly shows that Dovetail itself has understood that annual numbering alone would at some point feel too harsh.

It is also exciting that Dovetail today effectively runs two models in parallel. On the one hand there is the modern Train Sim World machine with annual main versions, Free Starter Packs, live DLC logic, and console presence. On the other hand, Train Simulator Classic continues to exist as a major legacy product with a long market life. There we currently see around 20,769 positive reviews with 71.5 percent approval and still several hundred to over a thousand live players, depending on the time of measurement. This means: Dovetail never fully replaced its old model, but supplemented it with a second one. Train Simulator Classic remains the long-term archive for part of the community, while Train Sim World represents the modernized, more live-oriented revenue machine.

This also gives rise to the most exciting future question. From a purely economic perspective, there is currently a great deal to suggest that Dovetail’s controversial strategy is working. The company has corporate backing, a strong DLC ecosystem, demonstrably successful new main versions, and a franchise structure in which additional content carries half of the revenue. Added to this are further brands outside the rail sector such as fishing games or CATAN: Console Edition, which show that Dovetail is not completely dependent on a single product. As a purely market-strategic assessment, the conclusion is therefore obvious that Dovetail is currently probably the most visible and economically strongest player in the Western rail simulation market. This is a conclusion drawn from size, corporate integration, breadth of catalog, and franchise performance – not merely a marketing phrase.

Constructively speaking, however, Dovetail’s greatest opportunity now no longer lies in pushing the annual model even harder, but in developing it more intelligently. The most visible future path, in my view, would be stronger platformization instead of a pure numbers game with TSW7, TSW8, and TSW9. With Free Starter Packs, compatible content transfers, and roadmaps, the group has long since indicated that Train Sim World is treated more like a continuous service. That is exactly why it would be more credible in the long term to embrace this character even more clearly and position the brand more strongly as a permanent platform. This would not mean the end of new content, but rather an attempt to soften upgrade fatigue and the feeling of fragmentation. The fact that Dovetail already communicates roadmaps, patches, and partner add-ons as an ongoing service model is evident in its official communication structure today.

The second major future lever is trust. Because economic success and community satisfaction are not the same thing. As long as Dovetail delivers, many players will continue to buy. But especially in the case of bugs, price questions, recurring downloads, and the feeling of permanent monetization, trust is the real long-term currency. The more visibly the company demonstrates that it is not only selling, but also maintaining, the more stable its market leadership will become. That is exactly why, in my view, more public quality roadmaps, clearer bug-fix communication, stronger loyalty models for existing customers, and a somewhat less harsh focus on annual title numbers would be the most sensible next stage of development. Not because Dovetail would immediately need this economically, but because the company is strong enough to take this step from a position of strength.

Our conclusion is therefore twofold. First: Dovetail Games is currently in a very strong economic and strategic position. The company is large, embedded in a capital-strong group, with a clear live ecosystem that demonstrably increases revenue, activity, and user acquisition. Second: the criticism from the community is real and structural, not merely atmospheric. That is precisely what makes Dovetail so exciting as an analysis. Because here we are not looking at a company suffering from too little market strength, but one that must at some point ask itself how long a successful model also remains emotionally accepted. At the moment, the sober answer is: Dovetail’s strategy is very likely paying off. The more open question for the coming years is no longer whether the model makes money, but how much trust it costs if it does not continue to evolve.

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How strong do you currently see Dovetail Games in the simulation market? Is Dovetail the market leader in rail sims for you? Does the annual Train Sim World rhythm annoy you? Are the DLC prices still fair for you? How much does the repeated downloading of old content bother you?