Disappointment with current add on aircraft for FSX/Vista

[Paul J 349]

Steve's Coffee Shop with one store can sell coffee that tastes like a horse's behind compared to Starbucks because Starbucks has more resources and more money therefore their coffee should be held to a higher standard.

Pretty much, Mike, because we don't have any "Starbucks"-level addon developers: as others have said - most are Mom 'n' Pop operations.If Captain Sim for e.g. produced a great 737, fully functioning per the full-sized aircraft, fully "user-friendly" documentation in five languages, a flawless, configurable failure system built in, half-a-dozen liveries, a paint kit, fully functioning VC, wing views, flex wing, all the bells and whistles - then I would be quite willing to part with my $169.95. No problemo. I have a Triplehead2Go, TrackIR, I built a flightDeck, and don't hold back when it comes to the i7/940 proc. I've said this to Paul Golding - DreamFleet - I want a 727 for FSX - and I've posted similar on the FlyTampa site - maybe elsewhere, too... but no - the devs don't seem to want to increase prices for (I think) fear of being hounded for gouging or losing market share. I don't know what the rational is. I would love that superior aircraft, but right now it doesn't exist.What the critics are saying right now is:

You then walk into PMDG/CoolSky/Flight1/RealAir/Carenado/CaptainSim - buy {your choice} for only $39.95 - fly it, enjoy it and then write a post on the Avsim forum on how {$your choice} sucks because they forgot to put in a flex wing.

That would make sense if it had cost $169. I expect a shorter life from a Kia Rio than from a Toyota Corolla. I expect poorer quality. You get what you pay for. We don't have any vendor in the Starbucks or Corolla category. You know it's a long, rocky road from being an MS certified, Cisco certified, Solaris certified support tech with some managerial experience and ambition, to being the owner of a 30-employee team of consultants with a meager 7-figure income. It takes a lot of drive and talent. Most devs are pure techies who like flying, or vice versa, and who know a few other like-minded people - and they get together and produce something which is in varying degrees a bit better than freeware. It gets better, but you have to build a hangar of a eight to a dozen or more first-class addons (by todays standards) in order to make any reasonable income. I think for e.g. that TeamEaglesoft, ASA/Shockwave/Carenodo might be making decent incomes nowadays, as they each have that product range. Providing that MS doesn't change their next sim too radically, I've no doubt the time will come, Mike, when we will see an amalgamation of two or more devs into a much more viable team, and they will produce a better class of aircraft or other addon. I certainly hope that will be the case.

apologized for the fact that you are willing to accept inconsistent quality dependent on the size of the company

Yes, because I/we have to accept inconsistent quality at this point in time, because we have no choice. You don't have to continue hammering us for accepting poor quality addons, Mike. Most of us are not stupid people and we know we take a risk when we buy any addon. An extreme analogy I know, but beggers will eat from a garbage dump if there's no other choice, and I sure don't want to fly "X-Plane" or "Flight Gear".

I will assume that you live in a country where you are free to keep your wallet wide open and your eyes wide shut

I live in Canada, Mike, have a pretty good income, and I buy with my eyes wide open: your condescension does nothing but further emphasize your obvious and unfair disdain for the hundreds of hardworking developer personnel and it insults the sim flyers who buy from them. Its all good, we agree to disagree.

[michal 44]

There is no apples and oranges, its apples to apples because BOTH charge REAL MONEY for their products. Both are in business, both are expected to perform at an acceptable level.

And so what is the point here? There is no absolute standard "perform to acceptable level". It may perform quite well for majority but be frowned upon by some minority. We are not talking about chewing gum or Motel 6 room which can be controlled on mass scale and whose standards are well known and established. I think for the price they charge they perform at "acceptable" level at least some of the vendors mentioned above.

[Paul J 349]

And so what is the point here? There is no absolute standard "perform to acceptable level". It may perform quite well for majority but be frowned upon by some minority. We are not talking about chewing gum or Motel 6 room which can be controlled on mass scale and whose standards are well known and established. I think for the price they charge they perform at "acceptable" level at least some of the vendors mentioned above.

Agreed, Michal; and I think that - given the shifting environment in which they work, they do a commendable job. I don't know of a single piece of software that has been released - not just the flight sim or addon - but any software in general - that has not had issues upon initial release. Also one can legitimately make a comparison as apples to apples, between a PMDG 737 with an Ariane 737 (I own neither), but one cannot compare the excellence of a product to a different product - anything - based upon the premise that both charge money! :(

[McDaniel 48]

deleted sorry