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CaptainSim reviews.

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The point is that addons should not cost more than full on simulators....
Says who?There are many products where you pay for a core system and then other people provide add-on modules that can cost as much if not more than the original core program. Let says you want to buy a copy of QuickBooks (or as Tim would say, the rights to use a copy of QuickBooks). This will set you back more than the cost of the entire Windows operating system. There are many examples of this. No sim can provide the entire world with all addons, terrain etc. in full realistic detail, satisfactory to all customers, and that wouldn't be obsolete the moment it was released and do it for $50. If the sim fell under the criteria that you are suggesting, it would cost $500-1,000+, would never be ready for release, would quite likely be very significantly be affected by piracy, and you would never be able to afford even the base sim let alone the addons. Cars are not designed to be significantly upgraded the same way that a piece of software can be (except suppose you wanted an engine built from titanium, a diamond studded steering wheel, African cheetah skin seats etc. and by the way, how many young kids by a car and then spend three times what it cost on stupid useless bling, exhaust systems, ridiculous hydaulic bouncy things, paint jobs etc?). Sorry, this complete package idea was not how the sim was designed, nor will any sims in the future. You just need to get past this issue. The piracy argument you raised, although an important issue to developers, is a side issue in this discussion as far as the price of addons is concerned. Piracy as it relates to flight simulator is mostly the domain of young people and according to AVSIM's latest poll, most FS enthusiasts, ie, the ones actually buying addons, are not young people. Decreasing piracy, which does not happen by the way by decreasing the price unless it is to absurdly low levels, or making the products cheaper is not to going to increase sales significantly enough. Those of us actually buying addons want high quality and know that this costs money and for the most part feel that these prices are not too out of line. I do not want to pay $20 or $40 less and get a lesser quality product along with that. I mean, if we felt these prices were out of line, we wouldn't buy them and the product would fail. Do you really think that the developers don't know what they are doing when it comes to this business? If there are enough of us willing to buy them, and there are, there will be a market for them and developers will continue to develop them. If the developers thought that lowering the price would stimulate sales that ultimately could improve the return on their investment in the end, they would do so. Sometimes developers have sales, like Captain Sim did last December, where the price is reduced, sometimes quite significantly. If that price reduction actually helped increased their net profit, do you think they would have raised the price back up after the sale? Also, don't forget that developers often have two tiers of product complexity, the Wilco/Feel There product line comes to mind. Compare the complex EJets to the simple Wilco 777. I think what you want is an EJets level plane for the 777 price and that just isn't going to happen. And this is what I was trying to address in my post above.Anyways, I wasn't suggesting that cars are equivalent to software or addon aircraft other than that these are both things that you cannot afford for whatever reason and that everyone understands that not everyone can afford a Mercedes. Nobody feels that a Mercedes should be cheaper just so that it is easier for everyone to afford. Why should software, or anything else for that matter, be any different? I was responding to your attitude that you should be entitled to things you can't afford simply because you are young and/or can't afford them. The world is not the "fair" place that you seem to think it is. You will find though that, like a lot of young people, once you actually earn something and work hard enough to afford a particular item, whatever that item may be, you will value it a lot more. You will then be upset when your friends have pirated the same thing you worked so hard for and perhaps take them to task over it. But look closely...you will not delete it from the drive the same day you purchased it and after flying it once around the airport and you will get a lot more enjoyment out of it than your friends, the pirates. This is what it is all about; enjoyment reaped from all your hard work. You work hard to obtain something and you get a lot of enjoyment and value out it. If not, then you are a fool and will soon be parted from all your money. :( My own opinion is that, in the overall scope of life, FS, as well as even the most expensive addons are pretty inexpensive for the enjoyment that they have returned to me, especially relative to the many other things out there that can be done and that I have done.And with that, I have said all I have to say with regard to this and I respectively bow out of this fine discussion.I wish you the best of luck with your future plans.Edit: As I was writing this, Chock submitted his response, so there may be some overlap of opinion here

i7 3770K HT, 8GB RAM, nVidia 980GTX, Win7, P3D 3.4, FSG mesh, UTX, GEX, ST, ASA16/ASCA, NickN optimized

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Says who?There are many products where you pay for a core system and then other people provide add-on modules that can cost as much if not more than the original core program. Let says you want to buy a copy of QuickBooks (or as Tim would say, the rights to use a copy of QuickBooks). This will set you back more than the cost of the entire Windows operating system. There are many examples of this. No sim can provide the entire world with all addons, terrain etc. in full realistic detail, satisfactory to all customers, and that wouldn't be obsolete the moment it was released and do it for $50. If the sim fell under the criteria that you are suggesting, it would cost $500-1,000+, would never be ready for release, would quite likely be very significantly be affected by piracy, and you would never be able to afford even the base sim let alone the addons. Cars are not designed to be significantly upgraded the same way that a piece of software can be (except suppose you wanted an engine built from titanium, a diamond studded steering wheel, African cheetah skin seats etc. and by the way, how many young kids by a car and then spend three times what it cost on stupid useless bling, exhaust systems, ridiculous hydaulic bouncy things, paint jobs etc?). Sorry, this complete package idea was not how the sim was designed, nor will any sims in the future. You just need to get past this issue. The piracy argument you raised, although an important issue to developers, is a side issue in this discussion as far as the price of addons is concerned. Piracy as it relates to flight simulator is mostly the domain of young people and according to AVSIM's latest poll, most FS enthusiasts, ie, the ones actually buying addons, are not young people. Decreasing piracy, which does not happen by the way by decreasing the price unless it is to absurdly low levels, or making the products cheaper is not to going to increase sales significantly enough. Those of us actually buying addons want high quality and know that this costs money and for the most part feel that these prices are not too out of line. I do not want to pay $20 or $40 less and get a lesser quality product along with that. I mean, if we felt these prices were out of line, we wouldn't buy them and the product would fail. Do you really think that the developers don't know what they are doing when it comes to this business? If there are enough of us willing to buy them, and there are, there will be a market for them and developers will continue to develop them. If the developers thought that lowering the price would stimulate sales that ultimately could improve the return on their investment in the end, they would do so. Sometimes developers have sales, like Captain Sim did last December, where the price is reduced, sometimes quite significantly. If that price reduction actually helped increased their net profit, do you think they would have raised the price back up after the sale? Also, don't forget that developers often have two tiers of product complexity, the Wilco/Feel There product line comes to mind. Compare the complex EJets to the simple Wilco 777. I think what you want is an EJets level plane for the 777 price and that just isn't going to happen. And this is what I was trying to address in my post above.Anyways, I wasn't suggesting that cars are equivalent to software or addon aircraft other than that these are both things that you cannot afford for whatever reason and that everyone understands that not everyone can afford a Mercedes. Nobody feels that a Mercedes should be cheaper just so that it is easier for everyone to afford. Why should software, or anything else for that matter, be any different? I was responding to your attitude that you should be entitled to things you can't afford simply because you are young and/or can't afford them. The world is not the "fair" place that you seem to think it is. You will find though that, like a lot of young people, once you actually earn something and work hard enough to afford a particular item, whatever that item may be, you will value it a lot more. You will then be upset when your friends have pirated the same thing you worked so hard for and perhaps take them to task over it. But look closely...you will not delete it from the drive the same day you purchased it and after flying it once around the airport and you will get a lot more enjoyment out of it than your friends, the pirates. This is what it is all about; enjoyment reaped from all your hard work. You work hard to obtain something and you get a lot of enjoyment and value out it. If not, then you are a fool and will soon be parted from all your money. :( My own opinion is that, in the overall scope of life, FS, as well as even the most expensive addons are pretty inexpensive for the enjoyment that they have returned to me, especially relative to the many other things out there that can be done and that I have done.And with that, I have said all I have to say with regard to this and I respectively bow out of this fine discussion.I wish you the best of luck with your future plans.Edit: As I was writing this, Chock submitted his response, so there may be some overlap of opinion here
OK, time for me to quote lenin, quantity has a quality all it's own....Also, a reason a lot of younger people don't buy addons is because they are locked out because they can't afford nor validate why they should even pay for addons. Here's a bit of a fun fact, before I joined Team AVSIM, I was against ALL Payware, as that was in my opinion, unjustified, at that point, I had never used payware addons to that point. Now That I have experienced the difference between payware and freeware,I am more than willing to pay for addons, as long as I am not paying more for the addon than the simulator itself. The additional content and the cost must be in balance. Unfortanatly, people seem to forget that 1 aircraft is MUCH less than a full sim. They forget this issue, and they think that they can justify paying more for an addon than the MSRP of the sim on release. The worst part is, that they don't provide demos for these payware products most of the time, and that kills any possibility of a younger player even seeing the reason why they should do it. As far as relating quickbooks to this, well, quickbooks is a tool for increasing profit on running a business, thereby it has a reason to cost more, as it's business software. Entertainment software is a different area all together, and doesn't fall under the same rules... As far as your actions, remember this, most people my age are if they are able to find a job only making minimum wage, and usually being forced to work 1 or 2 hours short of full time, which means that they need most of the 7.50 or so an hour they make just to survive considering fuel and living costs such as FOOD. If employers paid fair wages, and if you weren't comparing business software to entertainment software, you might have more of a valid point, however until you do, you need to realize that there is something called content to cost ratio. 1 single aircraft does not validate 80 dollars when a newer simulator, which costs half of that single aircraft, has over 30 times as much content. The content to cost ratio doesn't match up. This is the same kind of issue that caused the horse armor issue to sprout up with TES IV oblivion. (Google that debate...) The fact is... you are trying to say that aircraft have to cost as much as they do to make a profit, however you fail to anticipate that most people dont buy payware because they don't see why they should pay for it. Until you have actually tried payware, you have no idea what you are missing, and that is where the disconnect is. Younger fliers usually ether go to torrent sites, or they just go without because they don't see the reason why they should pay for an aircraft. That's why that poll was like that, because only older fliers have any experience with payware to justify the spending of the cost, combined with the fact that they are the only ones with money to blow. 40, even 50 dollars isn't above what I'm willing to pay, but when I see the addon costing more than the sim itself, it is just unacceptable for me, and it just feels like gouging. How much time was put into that aircraft, compared to the sim itself. You can't say that it costs more to create the aircraft than the sim. As far as fixing the issue of lack of people buying, that's where demos and reasonable pricing comes in. If nothing else, create a demo version, and even a reduced price lite version. That way, you don't kill ALL of the functionality, however the younger simmers can still get access to something that is decent, without paying an entire weeks paycheck before living expenses on a single aircraft. Everyone seems to forget that the payware devs charge a ton for the product, and that locks a lot of honest customers out. What do those would be honest customers do, well a lot of the younger ones will just pirate it to rebel and say that they shouldnt have to pay that much, so they justify it by screwing over who they see as gouging them, and the more sensable ones, just go without. You don't seem to realize something, not everyone has the opportunity to make a decent living. The youth now are LUCKY to find a job as a fry chef at mcdonalds, let alone something decent. You wonder why the youth pirate more, and you wonder why the youth don't buy these addons, and it's because they CANT find a decent job to pay for them with.
I don't see why there should be some mysterious rule that says an add-on must always cost less than a host sim, especially for no other reason than 'because it should'. The vast majority of add-ons are much more of a niche product than a broad-based simulator, and the limited market they can garner is going to mean they will probably have to be relatively costly simply to recoup the costs of development outlay and offer some profit on top. I daresay PMDG et all have considered the relative economics of a higher price point versus a lower one with volume sales, and having done the sums, decided which way to go based on what made the most commercial sense.DCS Black Shark is going for a much wider target market than a Boeing airliner add-on for FS, Black Shark is therefore likely to be better equipped to survive from volume sales than something far more esoteric, thus more able to support itself at that price point. Flight sims where you can blow stuff up are always going to be an easier sell than the excitement of tuning an ILS frequency and making an announcement about the peanuts being served :( I like all that stuff, and I daresay most AVSIM people do too, but the average person is going to find all that airliner stuff about as exciting as watching paint dry, and the relative numbers of sales will reflect that.The same logic applies to FSX to some extent: There will be helicopter, GA, airliner, seaplane, soaring and even ATC fans who will buy it, so it has a broader appeal, which allows it the luxury of making volume sales. By the same token, I paid far more for both the Condor and Silent Wings soaring simulators than I did for FS, because of that same logic. Whether I like it or not, soaring sims are a niche market, and if I want one, I have to pay the price which makes them a viable product to create.As it turns out, all this is a moot point with regard to the CS 757, which was the start topic for this thread, since it is not more expensive than the host sim. I paid I think 25 quid for the CS 757 for FSX, and although I can't remember exactly what I paid for FSX, I know it was a lot more than that because I bought it the day it came out, and it sure wasn't 25 quid. On the other hand, the Ariane 737 I bought for FSX was indeed more than the sim, but it was up to me to get my hand in my pocket, nobody forced me to buy it.I've paid well over 100 quid for flight sim stuff in the past, and a hell of a lot more for hardware too. I'd certainly prefer not to pay that price, and it would be nice if I did not have to, but I doubt dropping the price would have any huge effect on piracy, and where costs relative to the host sim are concerned, probably not an economically viable option anyway.Al
Agreed up to a point, however you have to remember that things need to stay at a decent cost to content ratio. The fact is, the best way to survive in this envrionment is to try to recruit new simmers, and that's going to be impossible if the different payware costs as much as 2 sims. Yes DCS is more mass market appeal, however I was only using it as an example. The point I'm trying to make is this, things won't sell as well as they could, nor would people be willing to try them out and possibly discover a new love for aviation because they never tried that before. I agree, it is more of a niche thing, however the big issue remains, that it shouldn't become to the point where you can't get new people who may be willing to try it out to actually try it because of sticker shock.

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OK, time for me to quote lenin, quantity has a quality all it's own....
I thought that was Stalin, but no matter. It is good to be an idea person at whatever age, and experience may modify your views.But your argument about piracy being because people can't find good jobs fails to convince for a number of reasons. I make excuses for other people for a living. (Perhaps your future lies as a criminal defense lawyer!) "I pirated the game because McDonald's doesn't pay me enough" doesn't work for any better than "I stole the tennis shoes because I can't get a job." Economic reductionism has proven to be among history's biggest flops. "It's the economy, stupid" might work with the electorate, but things aren't that simple. It reminds of me of the Simpson's episode where the mobster was justifying his racket to Bart. "Suppose a starving man steals to buy food for his family. That wouldn't be so wrong would it? Now suppose instead of food, it were cigarettes, and instead of for his family it was for himself. See?"

 

 

 

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Peter, you need to realize that the core sim sells VASTLY more copies of its software than any addon. I have heard that Microsoft may have sold as many as 1 million copies of FSX in just the US alone. Now whether that number is right or not, I don't know, but I do know that the number is quite high. Talking to one FSX addon developer about this issue, he said that if they sell 9,000 copies of their software they are more than pleased. Now tell me again, how is it exactly that the price of addons could be less than than the price of the core sim with this kind of economics? You do the math. And while we are at it, let's think about the math for say Quickbooks versus XP. The payware addon market is a niche market. An individual addon appeals only to small subset of users whereas the core sim appeals to everyone interested in FS. Are you starting to get the picture now? This idea that addons should be cheaper than the sim is just not reality and never will be so just jettison that out of your mind. If it was, there would be NO payware addons developed that were worth buying. What about this don't you get?You talk about price versus content. Ok compare a Mercedes to a Toyota. Yes a Mercedes is nicer and better, but is the price difference worth it? This whole price versus content thing is a matter of personal opinion and the value is not some exact number that everyone agrees on. What many people think has value (bling and fake exhaust pipes on their car for example) may be completely and utterly useless, even laughable, to me. As you say, once you have tried a payware aircraft you know what the difference is. If people are willing to pay for it then it has the value of whatever they are willing to pay and the fact that you can't afford it and are upset about that fact or that it violates some inherent principles you have about what is fair is competely irrelevant.The whole point behind the Quickbooks example was it is an example of how addons can and often do cost more than the core program. Again, the core program sells VASTLY more copies of its software than the addon and the economies of scale do not allow the addons to be cheaper. The for business versus entertainment argument is completely irrelevant also. In your mind, if a piece of software is for business it is ok to be more expensive than the core software (and by the way, QB does not make you any money, it just allows you to do the book keeping necessary to run a business) but if it is used for entertainment, it is not OK? Who made up this rule? "The World According to Peter" comes to mind :( Your arguments are starting to have the feel of class envy to me; take from those that have and worked damn hard to get it and give to those that don't have and haven't done a thing really to actually have anything. Perhaps that is the Lenin/Stalin you should have been quoting. And by the way, the reason a lot of younger people don't buy addons is because the vast majority of younger people don't play FS. Pure and simple. They like games not sims. With the little free time they have, they like killing people and shooting and blowing up stuff with their friends on social networks whether on the ground or in the air...and instant gratification. The enjoyment from flying a difficult approach in a highly realistic environment and landing smoothly on the centerline that results from long hours of study on their aircraft and flying in general just escapes most (not all fortunately) of them. This is not going to change I don't care if FSX and all addons made to the end of time are free.I know you didn't ask but...my advice to you is to give up this socialist way of thinking and get on with getting a good education and continue the on road you definitely seem to be on of making something of yourself. Trust me when I tell you, when you have done this, your thinking about this whole issue and many others (like quoting Lenin and/or Stalin in a positive light in any argument again...ever) will change.Getting back to the Captain Sim review issue, I also have downloaded and installed the newest update (4.3) for the FSX 757 and it does seem to be much improved over the previous version, which for me was basically unflyable. In fact, it is now quite an enjoyable aircraft on my system. I am with Tim and the opinions in his review on this one.


i7 3770K HT, 8GB RAM, nVidia 980GTX, Win7, P3D 3.4, FSG mesh, UTX, GEX, ST, ASA16/ASCA, NickN optimized

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I thought that was Stalin, but no matter. It is good to be an idea person at whatever age, and experience may modify your views.But your argument about piracy being because people can't find good jobs fails to convince for a number of reasons. I make excuses for other people for a living. (Perhaps your future lies as a criminal defense lawyer!) "I pirated the game because McDonald's doesn't pay me enough" doesn't work for any better than "I stole the tennis shoes because I can't get a job." Economic reductionism has proven to be among history's biggest flops. "It's the economy, stupid" might work with the electorate, but things aren't that simple. It reminds of me of the Simpson's episode where the mobster was justifying his racket to Bart. "Suppose a starving man steals to buy food for his family. That wouldn't be so wrong would it? Now suppose instead of food, it were cigarettes, and instead of for his family it was for himself. See?"
lol good simpsons quote, as far as my quote though, I could swear it was lenin (stalin was a jagoff that twisted lenin and marx's beliefs into his own form of government, that's why the soviet union back then was called stalinist rather than just marxist or communist, but that's an ot discussion for a historical debate and not a debate on this subject) As far as criminal defense goes, lol I'd get kicked out of the court room so fast it would make everyones head spin. I just have that kind of personality, my reviews are usually censored as I don't tend to care what other people think... I seriously do think that Rob has a little note next to his computer that says "make sure you check for profanity twice as much in Peter's reviews than anyone elses..." as I do have a tendency to figure this... The kid is going to learn to swear at school anyway, might as well just say it.. I'm not a member of the P.C. brigade...IDK, my views might change as I get older, but right now, the economy is so crappy, that I really do believe that it's soon going to get to the point of Mad Max...Finally beach, it's not a matter of the world accoming to me, it's a matter of that you don't use entertainment software to make money. If you are using the software to make money, it should cost more, if you aren't it shouldn't. Oh, and the perfect example to stop your nagging about piracy is this. Remember back when VHS tapes were 80 dollars each, people pirated them like crazy, and when they dropped the price to 12-20 dollars each, people actually started buying them more. That's a nice little story my mother told me about, but apparently people like you don't seem to understand one thing, when something is too expensive, and it can be pirated, it will be pirated. Everything get's pirated, however the stuff that is affordable is less likely to be pirated, as people will be actually willing to go out and buy it. People pirate music because they don't want to buy a CD for 20 dollars and all but 1 or 2 songs on the disc are crap, then itunes comes along, and people start buying the songs they like rather than just pirating them. Piracy with music still is a problem, but not as big of one now. Same with movies. There will always be criminals, however the best bet is to try to cut the reasoning for criminals to be criminals. It's known statistics when the economy is good, crime goes down, when bad, it goes up. IIRC that is even on the DOJ website.*edit useful linkshttp://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JakeRomigh/...ot_Invasion.phphttp://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21133http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21329http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22378check those out, those are articles on a mainline game industry site about piracy.... the first one is the most important to read...

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CaptainSim basically has an appalling after sales service and it seems they don't beta test thoroughly.I am another very dissatisfied CaptainSim customer.I got the 707 as a gift this Christmas (2011 - bought by my wife) and found lots of bugs in it. Specifically the Autopilot functionality (knobs don't turn or work but click) and system crashes after 20 mins use, amongst others.That would be understandable if you could get any support, but there is the rub:1) As a registered user you have to fill in an extensive ticket form to post a support ticket (no e-mail) which then does not process, and warns you that you must fill in the red section (where no red section is highlighted). So it is nigh impossible to post a support ticket. I suspect if you spent an hour or two so refilling the form you might be able to figure out the trick, but it just isn't worth it as if that is how they try and stave off help requests you can imagine what the responses will be.2) The user Forum has been designed in a similar way. You have to enter an anti spam graphic numeric key that is impossible to read. I tried 10 times but even when I thought I had it 100% right it was rejected.Basically, you can see this is a cheap and shameful ploy to avoid any type of customer support. My guess is they are not interested in development/support anymore but just selling off stock in a bid to cash out before they close up shop. Consequently I will never buy another CaptainSim product and will be posting my experiences far and wide. A shame as their graphics and design had a lot of promise, and from what I read were once a stand-up company, but it seems now they are really just another rip-off merchant out to cash in.Buyer BewareBernie

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Last post June 2009. You've found an old thread, Bernie.While I don't doubt your personal experience, I may state that I've written 10+ tickets on the CS ticket system and did not spent hours to find the send button. I'm also a member of their forums, which unfortunately uses the same anti spam/bot methods like many others. However, that captcha code showed me to be a human being, which was a nice information of course. ^_^But right you are, the current forum protection is hard to read on the captcha. This might take some attempts.No such heavy thing on the tickets though, so maybe something else (and vital) was missing as you were trying to report issues.I think I would design a less awkward process on the tickets, but I did not get the impression that e. g. the PMDG system is far ahead of the CS one. So we may see it as a downside indeed, but as a common one, so to speak. Don't know if that helps.You should stick to the tickets to get official support as they've declared the forums to be user to user stuff only. If all this is worth the general 'buyer beware' tenor of yours? I don't know. Lets leave that open to personal preferences. :smile:If user to user stuff is the thing you are looking for and if the fence around the forums is too high, maybe use the Avsim unofficial forums for the CS titles to get some help from others. However, reading the official CS forums isn't blocked at all, so maybe you can explore if some items already received a solution or at least a workaround.

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Airsimmer's Airbus is perfect and why people are still using trash like Wilco I'll never know

 

I bought the product. It is miles off from perfect. But yes, it's the best airbus so far. Note that Wilco is broken and PSS is jurassic in terms of released date, so the "best" is not like what you normally think.

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