Let me ask you this ... What if Graham had been hit by a truck, become incapacitated, become unable to pay his bills, had the website disappear out from under him, and then died without your having been told about it? ...

You wish me to believe that there was absolutely no one associated with PSS that could have stepped forward with a statement to let their customers know what was going on?You wish me to believe that there was no way that the web service could have been maintained? If this is indeed the case, then decent man or not, he was operating his business in a rather risky and dare I say foolish manner. A manner in which he got caught with no backup plans or anyone to keep a log on the fire in case of emergency. For this, he paid dearly. He lost not only his site but a large piece of his customer base.You can keep coming back at this all you want Mike....your words will not change my mind one bit. I feel sorry that he has undergone some hard times, but as a business manager, you have to have backups, plans and alternate systems in place.Anyone who does not look after their clients....will have no clients to look after.Cheers,ChuckCYXU

... he got caught with no backup plans ... Anyone who does not look after their clients....will have no clients to look after.Cheers,ChuckCYXU

I had hoped you would be charitable enough to go as easy on Graham Waterfield as you presumably have on Tom Allensworth.In the name of human decency, try to view your purchases from PSS as having been the same kind of charitable donation that some of us have been making to Avsim all along, not just since the site hack. Indeed, try to view them as a reward to Graham for having founded the high fidelity complex addon aircraft business that has brought us all so much pleasure.Again, cut the man some slack. He's not a Bernie Madoff, not a con artist -- just a high-tech true artist who did the best he could. Perhaps he should have offered his products on CD only and ignored your segment of the market -- the I-demand-instant-gratification-and-you-owe-me-forever segment of the market.As for his not having customers in the future, he already doesn't have any. ... And to my very great disappointment, when I was last in touch with him, given the way matters played out he wanted things to remain that way. I hope he'll change his mind. If he does, I hope you'll buy his CDs.

I had hoped you would be charitable enough to go as easy on Graham Waterfield as you presumably have on Tom Allensworth

How dare you sir!! To compare those two people, one who was in a business to provide a product for profit and one who is in this business for the love of aviation.One who for whatever reason drops from the face of the earth leaving customers wondering what the heck happened and one who steps up to the plate to let everyone know what has happened and fight to make things right.You have crossed a line there sir.You are no longer worth continuing this discussion with.Goodbye

I would suggest that if the people who were burned by PS in the past have no intention of purchasing from the reborn company, then the reborn company would have nothing to lose in giving those people a freebie, or at the very least substantial discount on whatever new product they eventually bring out, as a mark of good faith.It would not lose them any money to do so, since they were not going to get a sale from disgruntled former customers anyway. Recipients would presumably then no longer be disgruntled former customers, but walking adverts for their products and the good faith the company has shown them. Assuming people can provide proof that they did indeed purchase something and never got it going, I would think if they conveyed that proof to PS, it could be done, and of course would not a freebie, since they did hand over some cash.What better way to rebuild a reputation? After all, I don't think you'll get much pull equating paying for a product you never got to a charitable donation as a reward for leaving people high and dry, whatever the reason or personal misfortune. I'm all for charitable donations to worthy causes, and AVSIM sure was one, which is why they got a donation from me, but that in no way compares to regarding a payment for something you never got as such a donation, because that's not what people had in mind when they paid.Al

In general, this is the EXACT reason I don't like activation limited DRM.I can see this EXACT thing happening with a bunch of games if one of the big 4 goes under (Securom, TAGES, Starforce, Steam)In general, this is the problem with activation servers. The best bet when you are going to go under is to release all your stuff as freeware to every major site. This way people will not feel as "Screwed Over" from not being able to use their stuff.

Freebie? How about cranking up those servers and letting us download and activate our purchases. Thats a good enough freebie for me :) I'd be happy to be able to fly my Airbus's , 757 and 777 again. :( j/kingI'm sure buried deep in the eula there is something that says they can discontinue providing support, downloads, activations etc anytime they feel it right. Not just PSS but alot of the online activations are like this. Now, does that mean I agree with it? No, does that mean others could follow the same path , well, err, maybe, but hopefully not :)I miss my 757 and 777, flawed it was but still fun to fly..Larry

How dare you sir!! To compare those two people, one who was in a business to provide a product for profit and one who is in this business for the love of aviation. ... You have crossed a line there sir. ... You are no longer worth continuing this discussion with.Goodbye

Whenever somebody says something condescending to me like "How dare you, sir?", in bold letters that purport show to show the depth of the author's feelings, for some reason I always think that the "sir" is not meant as a term of respect. Anyway, yours is exactly the reaction I was expecting. I'm glad you won't be responding since this will give me the floor without fear of being ... well ... nibbled to death. Where to begin?I know, let's begin with the issue of profit motive.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxIf you had been in this hobby as long as I and many others have you would know that before he started PSS Graham Waterfield had produced the best and most complex freeware panels that had ever been done at that time. Aircraft too. In fact, his SR-71 was to die for and was produced specifically to test the waters (pun intended) for his proposed PSS venture.Graham went into business precisely so that he could devote full time to producing what people were already clamoring for -- high fidelity jet transport aircraft that, at the time, only he knew how to produce. (Paul Golding is good, but Graham Waterfield is REALLY good.)You don't seriously believe that anybody would go into the PSS kind of business because they were filthy capitalists who only cared about profits, do you? Or do you? As for love of aviation, Graham's may well be deeper than Tom's. (I suspect that mine is too, but then I can't climb inside Tom's skull.)Only a deep love of both aviation and flight simulation can persuade somebody to give up all semblance of a life, work 120 hours per week, and support pirates as well as legitimate customers. Graham's standard was ... perfection. And while he didn't achieve it, he tried, and so very few people do try. All he got out of it was the privilege of living in Malta, which he had no time to enjoy.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxYou, and people like you, took everything that Graham had to give and then demanded more, more, more. You're still demanding more, and when you don't get it you adopt a tone of deep grievance, as if PSS had caused the worst thing in the world that ever happened to you.You would do well to put down your lance of righteousness, dismount from your armored white charger, quit the Field of the Cloth of Gold, and look more closely at the real world that most of us live in ...xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxYou have been wronged. But it was a minor wrong, like a bee sting. I know, I know. You paid him MONEY and you have a RIGHT to be treated as a PAYING CUSTOMER for EVER and EVER and EVER. But you probably spend as much on pub lunches every month, and you have zero to show for them after you've eaten, yes?At least with PSS you got many hours of enjoyment, and if you hadn't done whatever you did to require re-installation (because you didn't purchase a CD), you would be enjoying his aircraft today.As they say in NYC, a break please give to me.

You don't seriously believe that anybody would go into the PSS kind of business because they were filthy capitalists who only cared about profits, do you? Or do you? As for love of aviation, Graham's may well be deeper than Tom's. (I suspect that mine is too, but then I can't climb inside Tom's skull.)

Tom? Tom who? I need to ask before I jump in here with both feet. I guess I should go back and read the entire topic, heh?

Tom? Tom who? I need to ask before I jump in here with both feet. I guess I should go back and read the entire topic, heh?

Tom,You, and Graham Waterfield, and I, and many other people, share a deep love of aviation. My point was not that you're a bad guy but rather that Graham is a Good Guy, just as you're a Good Guy in spite of the recent events, which simply happened.People are sympathetic to your plight, which is ongoing even now. I ask only that they show comparable sympathy for Graham's plight. I ask only that they cut some slack for a decent man who is a genius at aircraft development, and who was driven out of the business by people who wanted the moon, sun and stars in return for the low prices they paid for his living, breathing works of art.I stand by all of my remarks. I'm proud to have known Graham Waterfield, and to this day his work has not been bettered, though PMDG might dispute this. People should be grateful for the pleasure they did get rather than ungrateful that the good times didn't last forever.

Tom,You, and Graham Waterfield, and I, and many other people, share a deep love of aviation. My point was not that you're a bad guy but rather that Graham is a Good Guy, just as you're a Good Guy in spite of the recent events, which simply happened.People are sympathetic to your plight, which is ongoing even now. I ask only that they show comparable sympathy to Graham's plight.

Perhaps if we were more aware of Graham's plight , then we may be more understanding ,but i do feel for people who paid good money for a product they can no longer access .Yes they could have bought a CD version ,but they chose online which some still tout as the only way to beat piracyI am a lucky PSS owner , I have the 777 757 A320, A330,A340 and Concorde, I was also lucky enough to be reading the PSS boards when things started to go "pear shaped" and backed up everything I have .While you defend your friend, Mike ( and I do admire you for that ), I am sure that had i lost all my PSS aircraft , then I too would not be too happy to see my hard earned money paid to PSS being likened to a donation .Mark

Mike, thanks for adding the human element to the story. People (including me) forget that behind every payware company is a person or a few people who are subject to all the vagaries of the human condition. Unfortunately, we live in a grievance culture. PSS was my favorite company and I had their Airbusses, the Dash, and Concorde and got many hours of enjoyment from them. I would probably not be using those same products today in any case; time marches on and so does technology. Wilco occupies the same niche for me now.I still like to look at my old screen shots of PSS stuff. They're beautiful.Graceful exits are hard. Sometimes they're impossible. I don't know the circumstances of PSS's closure, but even with all the money I spent, I have to consider I got my money's worth and bearing some sort of grudge just isnt' worth it. The stereotype is the cranky old man, but, honestly, I find most people mellow with age, and the older I get the more tolerant I become of other peoples' foibles.

Mike, thanks for adding the human element to the story. People (including me) forget that behind every payware company is a person or a few people who are subject to all the vagaries of the human condition.

As I like observe from time to time, nobody in the payware addon business is getting rich. (Well, there's one person who might be. No, I won't give the name.) Everybody is in it for love, very few of them can live exclusively on the proceeds of their sales, and of those only the aforementioned one person is doing really well.Indeed, what most payware developers end up with is pocket money in return for the privilege of giving up evenings and weekends to knock themselves out building the best software they know how to build. They still need to hold down real jobs, and in terms of financial reward they might as well be building freeware. (Let the record show that Tom Allensworth holds a real job -- and a responsible one at that.)That's my point about Graham. He was in it for love, not money. His real sin was in not charging enough for his work. If he had, he might have been able to put together a better business ... ... ... No, let's not go there. He did the best he could, it just wasn't good enough in a business sense.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxBut at least he tried. It is truly better to have failed in business than never to have tried at all. (Been there, done that, 2-3 times depending on how you count. At least I have known true freedom.) And in general his customers were better off for his having bet the ranch on PSS. Not all of us -- but most of us. (But how do you bet a ranch in Malta? Do you bet some number of Knights Templar? Do you bet a castle?)As my signature says, "The world is divided into the Who and the Whom." Graham Waterfield was a Who.(Da*n! I just realized that this is probably where Pete Townshend got the name for his band.)

Graham Waterfield's good character is irrelevant. People dealt with PSS not him personally. Unfortunately PSS, like some other add-on developers, didn't seem to realise that once it began to take money for its products it was operating under different rules, and even laws, to those when products were given away free. The key difference is that buyers are entitled to a working product. PSS chose to use an on-going, on-line validation system to protect its revenue. A responsible organisation would have had a contingency plan to cover its being unable to trade - walking away and abandoning its paying customers isn't an acceptable plan. If PSS was capable of implementing an on-line validation then it was capable of implementing a means to ver-ride it. All it needs is a patch. No need even to keep a validation server running -just upload the patch to the libraries on various FS sites and post a note explaining it. That should take no more than an hour of anyone's time. The facts still are that is that PSS is a winner because it

Gerry,Parodying the old Johnny Mercer song, sung especially for you by the departed Bing Crosby ...You've got to ... ac-cen-tuate the negative.Elim-inate the positive.Let go ... of the affirmative.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI wish you luck in your search for Cosmic Payware Perfection, and for Cosmic People Perfection. (I'll bet that if a refund were offered, you'd demand that it be with interest.)Obviously the rules change when people start to charge for things. If nothing else, it means that you'll want to get involved, championing the underdog customers and telling the evil vendors that there can be no redemption for their sins in the here-and-now, and probably not in the hereafter, either.A break please give to me.

Gerry,Parodying the old Johnny Mercer song, sung especially for you by the departed Bing Crosby ...You've got to ... ac-cen-tuate the negative.Elim-inate the positive.Let go ... of the affirmative.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxI wish you luck in your search for Cosmic Payware Perfection, and for Cosmic People Perfection. (I'll bet that if a refund were offered, you'd demand that it be with interest.)Obviously the rules change when people start to charge for things. If nothing else, it means that you'll want to get involved, championing the underdog customers and telling the evil vendors that there can be no redemption for their sins in the here-and-now, and probably not in the hereafter, either.A break please give to me.

Folks, I want to clarify my remarks ...I'm not saying that Graham Waterfield did everything right. In a perfect world, and if he were a perfect person, he would have done the Right Thing. Rather, I'm asking everyone to forgive him for the wrong that happened. If you can't, so be it.